Lets have some fun! ATX->MTX Swap Begins!

He looks as tired as I was when we installed my 3L!

Wow! I didn't know Sam's Club had thrown it's hat into the Contour modification market.

Good luck!

Originally posted by bnoon:
Wow! I didn't know Sam's Club had thrown it's hat into the Contour modification market.

Good luck!

i do tire and battery at sams club

today i dropped the atx subframe, totally degreased and pressure washed the entire engine bay. painted the whole engine bay and subframe, and reinstalled the mtx subframe.

2 rear subframe bolts spun inside, had to cut hole to get wrench onto them, used an air chisel. my dads gonna weld them up for me (been a welder for 35 yrs).

Old ATX subframe taken from the car

Car without subframe

A clean engine bay is a happy engine bay!

Coat of primer in engine bay

Mailman pulls up to my house, look what he brought me, a Torsen!

My friend ryan painting the engine bay, i let him do all the painting, hes a better painter than me

Ryan painting the mtx subframe

Freshly painted valve cover (looks perfect, and 100x nicer than the pic shows)

Engine bay painted with semi-gloss black, and clearcoated

Painted MTX subframe installed on the car

had to call it a day there, it was gettin ready to rain. 5 min after i got everything cleaned up, it started raining really really badly.

stay tuned for more!!!

ummm...WOW.

thats a heck of a project. good idea painting the bay while its out...again.

what hapened anyway, did the ATX blow???

blow, no, but i think the TC was about to go! makin funny noises and stuff

anyways, MTX was what i wanted from the beginning, and now im making that dream a reality

be sure and tear the ATX apart and tell us what was wrong with it!!! im curious.

if you need any parts lemmie know, im not sure if u can use anything off a zetec tho...

thx for the offer but i got more parts than id ever know what to do with them!

bought a whole mtx duratec for parts (had a blown engine)

i stripped EVERYTHING off of it, and cut the shell up with a torch

no problem.

Originally posted by Dragonfly:

Originally posted by todras:
I think he is pooping in that last shot.

OWNAGE!!

Man that looks good so far! Can't wait to see the finished product.

damn you do alot of work for one day!

Originally posted by ZetecNinja:
damn you do alot of work for one day!

He probably has the manuals and doesn't guess.

Air tools cut time in half too. Helps to have done a swap before. Get faster everytime.

wait till saturday (my next day off)

im hpoing to get the engine and trans back in along with installing the shifter/shift rod, and clutch pedal assembly!

my 94A urethane came today for the trans mounts!

Originally posted by todras:

Originally posted by ZetecNinja:
damn you do alot of work for one day!

He probably has the manuals and doesn't guess. Air tools cut time in half too. Helps to have done a swap before. Get faster everytime.

manuals, yup ive bought them from you a while ago!

im not usin them though, keep in mind not only did i do my 3L swap myself, but i stripped down an entire contour down to the bare frame. ive also been developing my mechanical skills with other jobs (rebuilding a 454 for a dumptruck, headgaskets on my bronco 2, etc)

i wouldnt know what to do without air tools!

Good luck man! Thanks for taking the time to take lots of big pictures - it's worth the dialup wait. All of us ATX guys are rooting for you.

Originally posted by Russell-3L:
manuals, yup ive bought them from you a while ago!

im not usin them though, keep in mind not only did i do my 3L swap myself, but i stripped down an entire contour down to the bare frame. ive also been developing my mechanical skills with other jobs (rebuilding a 454 for a dumptruck, headgaskets on my bronco 2, etc)

i wouldnt know what to do without air tools!

You sound like me

I strippped a CSVT for parts, sawzalled it into 3 big chunks, stripped my salvage CSVT almost down to nothing 2 times, just recently purchased a blown motor CSVT, pull that motor and strip it apart,then pull motor from salvage car and put it into the blown motor car.

I pulled the motor out with a friends help then moved it from the pole barn in the back yard to the front yard with the skidsteer and installed the motor all by myself. I have about 4 hours in it in the last 2 days and it's almost done. The blown motor car has had all the suspension swapped out of it and the brakes too boot. Way to be on the MTX swap have fun and try not to chip the new paint.

Your buddy has alook on his face like WTF am I doing this for????

when i stripped my parts car my entire yard was full of aprts, not to mention the shell foa car in my driveway. code enforcement came to my house and made me clean it up and threatned me with fines!

i got lots of spare aprts up at this guys garage, he lets me use 1 bay of it (full of parts and motors, etc)

i wished i had a garage

I had a 2 car garage(my dads) full of parts. I buried my salvage car with all the parts I stripped off the parts car. Then I pulled it outside and threw the leftovers on the trailer. I stripped that car in winter

half the work I've done has been in the winter

Nothing like freezing your balls off with a kerosene heater blasting and gas/oil/antifreeze fumes intoxicating yourself

We have a pole barn now so I have my own little corner with the salvage car on cinder blocks half way stripped again!!! The other car is outside on the side of the garage. Nothing like pulling a motor on gravel

Originally posted by todras:

Originally posted by ZetecNinja:
damn you do alot of work for one day!

He probably has the manuals and doesn't guess.

yea probably, but guessing works too sometimes.

Originally posted by Russell-3L:

my 94A urethane came today for the trans mounts!

ordering some of that for myself asap-got a drag day comin up ad i wanna be ready.

it takes 7 days to fully cure.....

Originally posted by ZetecNinja:

Originally posted by todras:

Originally posted by ZetecNinja:
damn you do alot of work for one day!

He probably has the manuals and doesn't guess.

yea probably, but guessing works too sometimes.

Yeah, sure worked for you....not!

Originally posted by Stazi:

Originally posted by ZetecNinja:

Originally posted by todras:

Originally posted by ZetecNinja:
damn you do alot of work for one day!

He probably has the manuals and doesn't guess.

yea probably, but guessing works too sometimes.

Yeah, sure worked for you....not!

9/10 aint bad...quit your whining

I still wanna see somebody swap a duratec into a zetec

just a quick ? whats your bill up to so far on this atx-mtx project? i was thinking of doing the same project. as soon as i got my car, (seeing as its my first) i didnt know how to drive stick, so i got auto, now im just dissapointed with it. id rather get a mtx seeing as its just plainly put, its more fun to drive hehe. ~thanks in advance~

got the parts car for $600

$650 for the torsen w/ bearings pressed on

thats really about it

now im fixing other stuff, like got the alternator rebuilt, and gettin some new sensors and fixing stuff i rigged.

bottom line i *could* do the swap for $600 and make some of that back selling parts i dont need

You should be sleeping. Sat. is going to be a long day.

Originally posted by Static:
I still wanna see somebody swap a duratec into a zetec

If I could afford the Duratec, engine frame, all wiring, and then redo my exaust at school, and PCM, I could do it

Cant be that hard

Oh then many minor parts such as thottle cable, well i got traction control so the stupid thing for that.....

Id do anythin to get my hands on a good SVT Engine, and install that in my 95 GL

"You wanna race me in my stupid fugly ricer car, but thats only a Contour Grandma Lugger!"
"Ok, ill race you (legally

) *Shift to 3rd gear* (Also id be installin a MTX too

) "Oh where the hell is he?? *look backwards* Oooooooooh! There he is

Damn thats so far behind

figures that my battery takes a crap on me today, apparently my alternator had a short in it which shorted the battery. now i had to buy a new alternator and battery, so there goes around 200 clams. looks like ill have to save another month or too to afford the atx --> mtx swap. hopefully i can get someone like you russell to do it heh, cuz i sure dont feel like getting (censored) over with labor costs. ~later~

today i installed the radiator in the car, the headlight panel onto the car, and the crash bumper onto the car. the headlight panel and crash bumper were destroyed a while ago, so i put the good ones from my parts car on.

i pressure washed the engine and tranny, painted the valve covers, re painted my headers (they are ceramic coated but i like the black look)

i also installed the torsen into my tranny. i was surprised how easy it was. on a scale of 1-10 id say the isntall difficulty was a 5.

the clutch from my parts car is pretty much useless, i was hoping to use it until spring, cause then i can afford a spec clutch and flywheel.

does anyone have a used clutch with a decent amount of life left in it and would sell it cheap? svt prefferably but ill take any! just gotta last till spring

well heres the pics!

painted the clutch pedal, it was kinda rusty!

crash bumper and headlight panel installed on car

radiator installed in car

me spraying degreaser on the engine

me pressure washing the engine

me going crazy with the pressure washer

half of the tranny

inside of the tranny

old stock pegleg POS differential. it accually is in very good shape!

torsen!!!

painted headers and y-pipe

engine without valve covers

torsen inside tranny

fully assembled tranny with torsen installed

another shot of the engine

painted valve cover

next day that i have off im going to install the clutch pedal assembly, and the shifter assembly. im also gonna mod my roll resistors with the 94A urethane. next payday ill buy the 4 o2 sensors i need, then drop the engine back in. monday im picking up my rebuilt alternator

damn man, you've really learned how to do alot of work on your car in the past year...I'm very impressed!

Its [censored] nice... I wish i had the money, place, time to do that....

Originally posted by ContourKev:
Its [censored] nice... I wish i had the money, place, time to do that....

well he may have the money and time, but definately not the place. seems like you're making the best of your work conditions. very impressive man!!

I agree! Very inspirational for all of us "shadetree" mechanics

tomorrow im gonna do even more!!

Russ, you are an inspiration to us all. I wouldn't have the guts to try to pull this off. Time is also an issue, but guts are the larger issue (literally and figuratively in my case.....

)

Originally posted by Phil Rohtla:
Russ, you are an inspiration to us all. I wouldn't have the guts to try to pull this off. Time is also an issue, but guts are the larger issue (literally and figuratively in my case..... )