Bought a SHO on a whim

[Bluezone]

So I've had my MKS for about 9 months and I'm fairly happy with it. But I was on Kijiji the other day and noticed that there was a 2010 sho for sale. $1,900. I contacted the guy and we talked a little bit so I decided to go down and have a look at the car with the possibility of purchase. For anyone gets too excited it has a lot of miles on it. The cars pretty much complete and running. Had been safetied about three months ago. The car has some other issues but I won't go into that right now. Ended up buying it for $1600 Canadian ($1260 us).
What I found slightly odd, was I assumed this was a non-performance pack car. It has 20-in rims, but has a 1a axle code, so 2.77 gear ratio. I decided to try the traction control button and found it had four modes normal, TCS off, ESC off and sport mode. I thought sport mode only came on the performance pack cars?
Now the young guy I bought it off of had purchased it from his uncle who claimed it had 400 horsepower. The guy didn't know how though. I'm a little dubious but it's possible it has a tune on it. Can the sport mode be added via a performance tune?
Anyhow I think you guys probably get far too many of these questions about performance packs, but I just found it odd that it had the sport mode.
I am debating whether this is simply a parts car or it might become a track B$&*#.
If I do use it for a track car I might have to change my form handle to SHOwBoat

 

[DadMobile]

What’s kijiji, is that some new drug The kids are doing these days?

Gratz on the SHO, or maybe not?! Time will tell.

pics? How many miles?

 

[Bluezone]

Well kijiji's either Canada's version of Craigslist without ahem extra services or it's a suppository.
I'll have to see what I can do with it, the trans is throwing some codes and exhibiting some shift flare.
We use those damn metric inches up here in Canada so I've converted it over to miles. Just a little bit over 200,000 miles. Engine seems to run really good. The ptu's supposed to be fairly recently replaced.
I haven't taken any pics but I kept the ones from the ad. I'll post them.

 

[SM105K]

What’s kijiji, is that some new drug The kids are doing these days?

Gratz on the SHO, or maybe not?! Time will tell.

pics? How many miles?

Damn kids......

 

[glockcoma]

I though that “L” word tuning company could add sport mode through their tunes.
I have an identical 2010, tuned by another tuner and it does not have all those traction control options.


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[Bluezone]

I though that “L” word tuning company could add sport mode through their tunes.
I have an identical 2010, tuned by another tuner and it does not have all those traction control options.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I had a look through some old posts about The l word adding it. Seems it was sort of a hit or miss and unintended result of their tuning.
When the warmer weather comes on I will have to see what I can do about the tranny if anything. Although parting it out sounds rather interesting. Anyone know what's involved to switch over the control module. I know they have to be matching units with the same strategy code. Also that there's a VIN number check. Obviously the key fobs would have to be exchanged.
So what secondary units contain the VIN number and how many parts are there to the handshake from the key fob?
The reason I'm thinking about this is if there is a tune on the module I could just switch it over plus the fact that apparently it has sport mode. Though if the l word is involved it might be taking a risk

 

[Bluezone]

Okay, I found out why the trans is leaking today. I decided to do transmission fluid change out. I pulled the drain plug and with my empty drain pan below it. It was like the Energizer Bunny of fluid coming out. Almost entirely filled my drain pan. I didn't measure exactly how much came out but it completely filled two 5 l jugs and part of another. I would guess, that somewhere around 12 l of tranny fluid came out. The car wasn't even level. LOL Yes it really needed to be changed. Just black. No obvious metallics. I will have to do the drain and fill three more times at least to even know if the tranny will work properly.

 

[76FoMoCo]

most drain and fills should be about 5 quarts. sounds like it might be just a touch over full

 

[DadMobile]

most drain and fills should be about 5 quarts. sounds like it might be just a touch over full

I wonder if since the car wasn’t level maybe more oil could have drained out than normal??

 

[Bluezone]

I wonder if since the car wasn’t level maybe more oil could have drained out than normal??

It was nose high so less than could have come out came out.

 

[DadMobile]

It was nose high so less than could have come out came out.

O Damn!

 

[Bluezone]

Okay I'm done 4 draining refills on the tranny. (No offense to anyone out there).
There was some silver metallics floating in the transmission fluid. Transmission works fine till it gets warm. I did some further investigation seems the thermostatic bypass isn't working. Essentially the transmissions roasting in its own juices. Might be too far gone already.
Has anyone tried bypassing or running without the thermostatic bypass valve? Remember this is intended as a track car so cooler temperatures probably would be better.

 

[Bluezone]

Okay I bypass thermostat for the transmission. Lower temperatures do not help it it's still got problems. So I guess I'm going to part this thing out. Take what I want and need and see if anyone needs an engine.

 

[Bluezone]

All right I've been going around the s h o looking at what I want to take. The s h o is a little floaty in front when you drive it but noticeably stiffer in the rear. The front struts appear to be gone or starting to go on the SHO. The reaction time on the Lincoln to steering input is slightly slower than the SHO. The mks turns much tighter but it has the 24 mm rear sway bar on it now. If you pull a tight turn in dirt in the SHO the back end comes out. The MKS corners flat and makes a slightly larger circle in dirt. So something's going on here.
So when you turn the steering wheel on the SHO the car pitches over noticeably. The MKS not so much. Obviously the sho is loading the outside front tire more quickly. So it ends up having quicker reaction to turns.
Now the Lincoln and the Taurus both have the same spring code CCGG.
So I decided to measure the spring coil thickness. The front springs on both are within a tenth of a millimeter in diameter. So I thought that was a wash and they were the exact same spring.
I decided to crawl underneath the sho and look at the rear springs and sway bar.
I looked at the rear springs and to my eye the coils looked a bit thicker (I used to work in a machine shop). So out comes the trusty digital caliper and I get a measurement of 17.34 mm.
I crawl underneath the MKS and the caliper gives me a reading of 16.69. the rear shocks on both cars look like they're in decent shape.
I don't know if this is the production variance in coil thickness or the shocks are just stiffer in the rear of the SHO. Any ideas anyone?
Whatever the reason is for the quicker steering reaction I think the SHO rear springs and maybe the shocks are going in the mks.
I might look into exchanging the top hats on the struts between the two cars as well. This is assuming there's a difference between the two.