For Sale: Two Contour SVTs just north of Cincinnati (inside the loop)
2000 Silver Ford Contour SVT 2.5L HO, 5-speed manual. http://imgur.com/a/zNZxC 136,284 miles. We got it used about 30 or 40,000 miles ago. Front bumper shows crash damage. Headlights are loose. Hood has no obvious damage. Rear bumper cover is cracked. The engine starts. However, my nephew had a flat and put on a front tire that was a different size than the other tires, and drove it one summer about 20 miles each way to work. I believe the spider gear in the differential is toast. In addition, the pressure plate was probably going as well. You had to turn the car off to shift between forward gears and reverse, which I hear is a sign the pressure plate fingers are messed up. We bought this for my nephew when I was still driving the 1999.
1999 Green Ford Contour SVT 2.5L HO, 5-speed manual. http://imgur.com/a/MlyfR 313,091 miles This was my daily driver from Dec 1998 to Spring 2007. It was running when we parked it, but it hasn't started since. I had a Ford Mechanic who is a friend look at it, and he diagnosed a fuel pump. I put in a junkyard pump, but it still won't start. The next item to check is the crank position sensor, but I've never gotten to it. Full disclosure: I overheated this car and warped or cracked the heads. I did a block sealer, very, very carefully, exactly as instructed on the label, and that seemed to fix it. Although this car has a lot of miles, they're almost all interstate miles. It's 50 miles to work, and 50 miles home. In the photo of the engine, you can see the Mass Air Flow sensor is missing. I have that---we swapped it with the Silver Car's. This car had a lot of high-mileage maintenance: All four wheel bearings had been replaced. I stopped driving it because I bought a VW Golf diesel that saved me over $100 a month in fuel. I intended to keep it to give it to my niece when she got her license, but it was a no-start and we bought something else. The front left quarter panel and the passenger rear door are dented. The hood has rust spots from paint chips.
The Silver car had a big subwoofer in it. If I can easily remove the big copper wires, I'm going to. But there is a decent chance they'll be in the car when it's sold.
Both cars have used synthetic oil (Mobil 1) the entire time we've owned them. The Green transmission was drained and filled with new fluid (Motorcraft of the exact spec called for) somewhere around 200,000 miles. I always felt the high-mileage transmission in the Green car was better than the low-mileage Silver car, so a transmission swap has a good likelihood to work.
These cars are known for a problem called "moosing". That's when the engine won't idle and the car revs high. Both of these cars did it occasionally. Everything I read said it was the Idle Air Controller, and we replaced several, but my Ford Mechanic friend (after we parked the cars) said it was probably just that the upper manifold needed to be torqued (or needed new seals) and all the old air/vacuum lines in the intake area needed to be replaced. Some of them are really worn-out gummy and clearly leak air. Most of the vacuum lines are that hard plastic that doesn't seem to deteriorate, though.
I had planned to use this as a 20xx Challenge Car by swapping the Green transmission into the Silver Car, but I simply haven't found the time to do it. It was pretty common to find a 3.0L Duratec V6 and swap engines, but because the Silver 2000 is running, I hadn't planned to do that. If you don't know, every Contour SVT had a manual transmission. Standard 2.5L V6 Contours had 175hp. The 1999 had 195hp, and the 2000 had 200hp.
The reason I haven't sold them yet is because money has been tight and I knew if my daily driver broke that I could swap the transmission over a weekend and have a working car. But now some other things are happening and I might need space for one more car.
Here's the deal. I want these out of my driveway. The 2000 looks to me to be in better shape. For a 20xx Challenge you can get the challenge car and a nearly identical car for parts. I'm asking $800 total (OBO) if you take both cars. For now, I won't sell them separately. I'll leave it exclusively on this forum for a week or so, but them I'm posting it to Craigslist. These are beautiful cars, and I'd really like to see an enthusiast make a Challenge car out of them. I've been told the stock suspension setup on these is ideal for autocross---there is a lot of negative camber. All I know is that they handle really well and they're really zippy.
Matthew 513 607 8997 call or text 8am-10pm Eastern cedarcreek gmail anytime
