sounds like your starter got a little too wet... it happens and sure has to me, yes, you'll need a new one really soon.
for your lift options, if you don't want to spend a lot you can buy coil spacers, 1.5 inch for the front and 2 inch for the back, for rear shocks, either buy some crown vics of any year from the 90's, i recently bought mustang rear shocks which were surprisingly 1.5 inches longer than the crown vics but ride rougher.. the only real difficulty will be what you decide to do with your front struts, what i listed above should only cost $150, if you can get strut extensions from bds go for it, if not look into OME struts, this will be the biggest expense but people say they're great. then install and good to go, the OME struts are already prepared for the alignment requirements i've heard.
if you buy the boondox 1.5inch spacers all around you will not be happy, the front will sit noticeably higher than the rear. you must have a taller spacer in the rear.
you can see below what i am running. i fit 31's with only rubbing on the frame..