Contour SVT

[mmasters]

Does any one know of a few tuner websites for the Contour SVT. Looking at the possibility of racing one.

[Ron Earp]

When they were out back in the day I don't remember a lot in the Ford magazines about them. There were a couple of shops that did some offshoot stuff from their SHO programs, but they were rare. Now SHO stuff is hard to find too, but there is still one place that advertises in MM&FF, check there.

If you like FWD this should be a cool car. The 5 speed SHO would be really cool too. They were quick stock and they can make weight, they are not very heavy cars to begin with. Brakes on the SHO were decent enough, although if I recall the SVT Contour is a better all around package.

That is a lot of power to get through the front wheels though. SHOs can make upwards of 240 to 250 fwhp with a lot of attention to detail, be a lot of front tire abuse on those cars with the power and braking the weight. Not sure what the SVT Contour can do with a lot of attention, but it'd be fairly strong I'd think.

Ron

[JeffYoung]

Try England.

I'm serious. The Contour was I think the "Mondeo" in the UK and raced (I believe) extensively in the Brit touring car championship. see if there is any info on the web about them.

[joeg]

Jeff is absolutely correct. The Contour is more or less "proper British" (as would also be the Focus), so that is the place to look for suspension bits and the like.

Unfortunately, the Pound to Dollar exchange is bad these days.

[AntonioGG]

It's still the Mondeo and still available. My friend drives a diesel Mondeo, gets 38mpg avg. too and has beaucoup de torque :D

[Limey]

Do a search for SVT in "Ford Race Cars".

I've done some research. Would be a fun car, but would be unlikely to meet min. wt, or be able to wring anything North of 190 whp on stock cams. Brakes likely would be fine at that weight, and would be reasonably nimble........however, whether or not it could hang with the BMW's/Supras and other machinery is another matter.

Cheers, Mark

[Fred]

I built and raced a Contour SVT in World Challenge in 1998-1999. I had factory support for the car. Basically the car is extremely difficult to make into a proper race car. The engine is a modular V-6 and is very difficult to get parts. It ran really hot no matter what I did. I had lots of engine problems. The car made 232 wheel hp with custom made cams, pistons and ecu.

The transmission gear ratios were terrible. Ford made me a custom gear box which helped alot. As for the suspension - everything was custom made. There were loads of problems with the front hubs. I sheared off the front hubs 3 times! The car needs custom hubs and axles. Also shocks were difficult to come by. The car did not handle very well. The front of the car was way to heavy - over 62% front weight. It pushed like a dump truck.

This is not a cheap car to build or maintain. As for the Mondeo's racing in Europe - I spoke to several BTC teams. The cars are totally different in Europe with no interchangable parts.

In short there are lots of easier cars to build into race cars.

I hope this helps.

Fred

[spdmonkey]

To the OP Mark,
Send me a pm and I'll email you the (dwindling) list of tuners for the SVT. I have a '98 that I am going back and forth on building to ITR specs. The problem is parts and having to fab alot of stuff. Its pricey and I don't have the many of the skills. The motor is capable, but will need quite a bit more hp to even keep up with the fast ITA and ITS cars. I would almost definately go forward with my plan IF I had someone else willing to share in the development of this car. Sharing setups etc....

My street version I bought new in '97 and its still fun, but quite dated and its had brake issues since day 1. I have never really solved them since it was the wifes daily car for years. I talked to SVT about the brakes and got the response that thjey all have issues. The pads leave too much residue on the rotors and they wobble/vibrate excessively. I have tried 5 combos of pads/rotors. SVT said use slotted rotors which don't fly in IT. Its definately a good looking car when dropped and setup for the track. i also remember one running in SSB trim at the Runoffs about 6-7 years ago, but it was way off the pace. I also satarted a thread on this car several months ago so see if you can find that as it had some info in it as well.

If anybody wants to move forward on the SVT please lrt me know.

Dave Brown

[mmasters]

Thanks for the feed back. I will do some more research, but think we will pass of the contour. We thought it looked like all modifications were going to be an event to do as well.