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2.5L SVT vs 3.0

bitwaster

New CEG'er
Joined
Nov 7, 2016
Messages
7
Location
Northern CA
I am new (see my intro in the classroom thread). I am refreshing/restoring my 99 Contour SVT. It is currently all original with 129K miles. It shows its age only in the paint and a few minor items like the sunroof gear, headlights, electric antenna, stuff like that. All of the is going to be repaired and replaced. Also the shift linkage is sloppy. The engine seems strong for now. The car has been sitting for 3 years and I am looking to refresh the whole car. My original plan was to go ahead with an engine rebuild, new clutch and fix the shift linkage. The tranny guy says the only way to fix the shift linkage problem is to remove the tranny. The slop is inside. The slop is so bad it will sometimes jump out of gear in second . I figure if I am going to pay for paint and R&R for the clutch I might as welll refresh the engine while the block and head aren't damaged and then I will have another 100K miles of care free driving. THIS NOT A TRACK CAR. I am having trouble finding a cost effective path to a rebuild. So, do I put the 3.0 in it now, wait till the 2.5L dies and then do the 3.0, or keep it original and find the path to a rebuild now?

Also, am I correct that the 3.0 is a direct replacement, uses the SVT ins and outs, flywheel, etc without mods? I don't do the work myself and my ASE mechanic doesn't do custom so I have to convince him this replacement is no different than the stock installation.
 
There are a few things that would need to changed based on what style 3.0 you want. For me I did a port match which involved grinding the intake ports on the 3.0 using a bugzuki plate from prt (google prt contour), putting 2 bugzuki plays on the I take ports and using gasket sealer to prevent air leaks, then swapping the valve covers and intake manifolds, the timing chain cover, spinning the placement of the crank pulse gear inside the valve cover, using the 2.5 crank pully, cutting the tabs off of the 3.0 where the alternator connectso so the 2.5 aternator bracket would fit, grining the 2.5 motor valley motor mount bracket to make it fit in the 3.0 valley, splicing in a knock sensor, and a few misc things like fixing the vaccum lines from the sensor on the back of the upper intake manifold. The transmission will fit but you will only be able to use 5 out of the 8 bolts. The bottom 3 don't line up to any screw in points on the 3.0. Then everything else like roll resisters, swapping harneses, swapping coolant tree, plugging in election plus, and using I believe the 2.5 headers all go on fairly easy. But look up the different types of 3.0 you could do like full 3.0, port match 3.0, and hybrid 3.0. I've been told they are in order of how hard they are to swap, full being easier, hybrid being harder. So just do some more research. Blu_fuzz has a great write up about doing a 3.0 swap
 
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