My friends have this Ford Contour with a 3.0 swap from a Ford Escape, Contour intake manifold and a few other goodies like an 5speed LSD tranny, Falken Azenis tires, and a leaky exhaust lol. Its actually a good looking car, tastefully modified with a subtle drop and some 17" rims. Had a very nice sound to it as well... not quite a V8 sound but meaner than our V6's that's for sure. We had 2 runs at it today, both from a stop.

1st run: I had a passenger with me, Contour only had driver. I was outlaunched hard, was losing by half a car in 1st. My traction problems continued in 2nd gear, and by the end of it, I was 1 car behind. Same thing by the end of 3rd. So we shut down at like 90ish.

2nd run: My passenger went in the Contour, and I was alone this time. I got outlaunched again but not that badly. By the end of 1st, I was at his rear bumper. By the end of 2nd we were side by side.*This is where I was desperately trying to roll up my windows and close my sunroof all while looking at the road and the tach so I know when to shift. Now why is there no auto-close button for the passenger window and sunroof on our cars? Anyways, all that for a lower drag co-efficient (hey every bit helps).* With that said, I started slowly pulling away in 3rd gear, and more so in 4th. By the end of 4th (~120mph) I had at least 1 car on him.

Conlusion? He's got me from a roll without a doubt. We're pretty much identical in top end. He'd probably run 14.1 @ 97 or 98mph at the track.

Well it was fun, just thought I'd share.

P.S. This was on a stretch of road with no cars ahead, nor any entry points from perpendicular roads.

P.P.S. Then I woke up.

 

I dont get it...was this really a dream?? cuz you shouldve beat him going in reverse. Escape motor? dont they only make about 200hp/tq?

 

No dude, his car's pretty quick. The dream part is just a legal disclaimer!

 

Contours surprisingly have a decent amount of power for the weight and price of the car. I had a '97 5-speed sport w/ the 2.5L V6 with just a K&N and dual flowmasters and definitely turned some heads. You can also drop in the 3.0L V6 from the taurus or get a vortech or paxton supercharger for it. Personally, if i wouldn't have totalling it (wasn't worth much and someone hit the front end), I probably would've turned it into a sleeper. Of course, now that I have my CL, i wouldn't even think to drive a ford again. Either way, they're nothing ridiculously fast, but for the money and the family car look, they can surprise a lot of people. I've also seen a couple w/ turbos as well.

 

Good races...a 3.0 contour must be pretty fast. my buddy had a contour svt, it was a nice car, it just had alot of issues.

 

oh shit. i forgot that escapes have a duratec motor....

my friend has a ewll modded 2.5 contour svt.. (450$ programer, slp headers, high flow cat, borla exhaust, custom made cold air intake, ford racing wires, bosch plugs, etc etc) and i can beat him on teh highway okay.. hes hoping to break 14.999 this weekend..

he already started working on a ported and polished 3.0 that hes throwing in this winter w/ a lsd and a stage 4 clutch... he wants to slap on a vortech supercharger and hit 400whp.. but i guess they are hard to find now since they dont make them anymore for that pplictaion i bleive......