I built and raced a SVT Contour in World Challenge in the late 90's. I was supported by Ford and actually had the 1st SVT ever built. Let me make your decision easy - RUN from the car.
Here are some of the shortfalls:
1. The hubs are not up to racing standards. They need to be replaced after every other race or you will shear the wheels off. Believe me I know (Mosport and Limerock).
2. Contrary to what people are saying the car plows worse than a dump truck. There are little or no suspension parts available. Everything needs to be custom made including the shocks. You can not get a car to handle with that big of a motor hanging over the front end.
3. Brakes are so so.
4. Engine - really neat all aluminum quad cam modular motor. With Ford built cams and pistons the car made 232 hp at the front wheels. HOWEVER the engine is really fragile at that HP. It was very very suspectible to overheating. Once it overheated that was it - time for a new motor. Everything warped. I had Ford map me custom ecu's. I do not know of any aftermarket tuners for the ecu. You would have to go to a motec or similar unit.
4. Transmission - really lously ratios. Ford made me a custom gearbox with 2, 3rd and 5th gears changed. The stock box will not hold up.
When I built the car Ford gave me some contact information with the British touring car teams running the Mondeo. They ran a different motor and completely different suspension. Their cars were in the multi $100 thousand range. There is really no comparision to a US car and nothing that crosses over.
In all my years of racing building this car was the worst mistake I ever made.
Hope this helps.
Fred
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Originally Posted by Fred
Thanks for your input though, its always good to hear from someone who's built a car already.
Hoping to have a shakedown day or two in it and then maybe the August Daytona Double.
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