now i know why

now i know why there are so many people in this crown vic forum.
current problem: i have a burning smell coming from under the hood but can't find smoke, kinda smells like plastic burning?

Two wild guesses:
Look for something touching the exhaust and burning , or, possibly, an over rich mixture (possibly due to a bad oxygen sensor ) which is overheating the catalytic converter.

check the floor board over the converter and make sure its not getting extremely hotttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt ttt

could be missing your heat shield on one of your cats too.

could be an electrical problem too.

i guess i should give a little more info. the car is a 93'. it's got dual exhaust, only the pre- cats remain. the floor does get a little warm but not hothot.
i would replace the o2 sensors but they're like 80 bucks and the car only has 36,000 mi

i guess i should give a little more info. the car is a 93'. it's got dual exhaust, only the pre- cats remain. the floor does get a little warm but not hothot.
i would replace the o2 sensors but they're like 80 bucks and the car only has 36,000 mi
You have to ask yourself, "Is my car and my family worth $160? or, should I chance it?"

That may be a little extreme. The EEC-IV should default to reserve fuel trim parameters after the O²s no longer produce a high enough signal. It's fairly easy to test the sensors without replacing them, anyway. I'd suspect that the sensors may be a little sluggish at that age, despite the low mileage, but you would have to remove them for replacement anyway, so why not remove them and test them in a propane flame before getting new ones?