• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

SVT motor in cougar

K

KaptonContour

New CEG'er
Joined
Mar 13, 2004
Messages
17
Been a long time since I have posted here. Long story short, had my SVT for 14 years, it did a few stints in storage and I have been driving and loving it the past three years. Last month I finally got in and accident with it and its basicly totaled. Got hit making a left turn and every piece of the rear pass sus. is toast. Also rear door folded in as well as the wheel well and the rear quarter is tweeked it the strut mount area. I will post some pics and see what peps think but I don't think it is worth fixing

I need a cheap daily driver now! Been looking at some tours and cougars so I could save some of my mods or maybe do a whole drivetrain swap.
Im going to look at a cougar, its a better deal then any tours close to me, is a 99 with 135k for $2500.
What issues should I look for? Im assuming same stuff as contour, anything else?
What stuff from my SVT wont swap over?

As a side note does anyone still make a duratech based kit car?
 
Motor and trans should be the same. ECU also is the same, if the cougar has the v6, you won't need to swap it out.


If I am correct, the suspension is different, but basically the drivetrain is the same.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you want the SVT ECU as well for the different fuel and timing tables? IIRC, people used to swap SVT ECU's and fuel injectors into standard 2.5's and saw a significant power gain. Would require you to reprogram the Cougar's key fobs but that isn't a biggy.

If you're considering swapping the SVT drivetrain, one thing to note is the fueling system in your SVT vs the new car. You would have to make some changes if one is return and the other returnless.

I would talk them down a lot lower than $2500 for a vehicle with 135k. Drivetrain and suspension wise, similar problems as Contours.

I think the ultimate Duratec car would be the earlier Nobles.
 
they have the same exact drivetrain as well as suspension. the only thing differnent is the body(chassis), exterior, interior.

if u want a cougar. get a v6, with the same fuel system as yours. this will make things a breeze to swap! swap over intake manifolds, injectors, and ecu, and pats chip. and thats pretty much everything. the cams are another thing, but that would require the motor to come out.

other then cams your motor will probably feel exactly or close to the same as in the contour. and it would take you no more then a day to swap the those things over.
 
This is the stuff that the guy said has been done to the cougar. Said he would come down on the price a little due to some cosmetic issues. Also waiting to hear which fuel sys. it has.
Fuel Pump
Fuel Vapor Lines
CV Axles
Shift cables
Short Shifter
Clutch (20,000 miles on it now, still feels like new)
Alternator
Head Gaskets and Seals (2009)
MSDS Headers (2009)
BAT Cat Y pipe
Custom Cat back dual exhaust
Kenwood Head unit
o2 sensors and K+N Intake (2009)
Drivers window switch
spark plugs (2013)
Front caliper (2013)
Ground Control Coilovers (1 month old)
Pacesetter Exhaust System
 
Went to see the car, body is nice and fairly rust free, the rear sub frame is rusty but too bad. The exhaust is really loud for how much power the car has, lol that will have to go.
Has return sty fuel sys, same as my 98.5 SVT. Tires are shot. Got him down to 2300. Seems like they will but just want to make sure, will my 16" wheels and tires from my tour fit? The rest of the stuff will swap too, struts, breaks, control arms, sub frames?
 
KaptonContour said:
Went to see the car, body is nice and fairly rust free, the rear sub frame is rusty but too bad. The exhaust is really loud for how much power the car has, lol that will have to go.
Has return sty fuel sys, same as my 98.5 SVT. Tires are shot. Got him down to 2300. Seems like they will but just want to make sure, will my 16" wheels and tires from my tour fit? The rest of the stuff will swap too, struts, breaks, control arms, sub frames?
Click to expand...
16" wheels will swap over just fine, struts yes, brakes sort of (cougars have wear indicators on the pads but if you don't care you can use Contour pads of the right vintage E0 vs E1), control arms yes if same bolt (2 or 4 bolt), subframes yes.

I did all these things with my old Cougar 1999 that I swapped a 2000 SVT motor into. SVT struts/springs, SVT wheels, Contour subframe, new 2 bolt control arms, new SVT clutch, etc. It was a good car for me, I owned it from 115k to ~185k before it got pretty rusty and rough around the edges.

Biggest issue with the Cougar is the Sunroofs in them are junk. Otherwise it was all about the same as the Contour I thought.
 
offthewallds said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't you want the SVT ECU as well for the different fuel and timing tables? IIRC, people used to swap SVT ECU's and fuel injectors into standard 2.5's and saw a significant power gain. Would require you to reprogram the Cougar's key fobs but that isn't a biggy.

Not if you have the SVT's keys. You can take out the PATS chip from your old key and switch it into the cougar's. Its real easy to take out, the bottom of the black part of the key theres a little square "box". Pry that off and inside theres a little round glass tube. It looks like something that would be a alien implant but thats your PATS chip. HANDLE IT WITH CARE.
Click to expand...
 
SVT motor in cougar

Redlineracer12 said:
(cougars have wear indicators on the pads but if you don't care you can use Contour pads of the right vintage E0 vs E1),
Click to expand...

Only early 99 Cougars used brake pad wear indicators. They were phased out midway through the 99 MY. They are overall pretty uncommon.
 
To swap just the engine the fuel system does not matter. One would just use the injectors and fuel rail from the car the engine is going into.


Now to get the most from putting an SVT engine into a non-SVT, assuming its a real full SVT engine, one would want to use the PCM also. This means the car should be the same year and options as the SVT. This means the PCM a direct swap.
 
B3NN3TT said:
Just because yours didn't have them does not mean that they were not relegated to the early 99 MY.

The point is that late 99 and onward did not have them, which is decidedly NOT FALSE.
Click to expand...

maybe i worded it wrong, but the way you said it made it seem like all of them do. i simply stated mine dont as in not all of them have it. sorry for the confusion
 
BrApple said:
To swap just the engine the fuel system does not matter. One would just use the injectors and fuel rail from the car the engine is going into.


Now to get the most from putting an SVT engine into a non-SVT, assuming its a real full SVT engine, one would want to use the PCM also. This means the car should be the same year and options as the SVT. This means the PCM a direct swap.
Click to expand...

also a returnstyle ecu wont work in a retrurnless car or visa versa.
 
Ok, thanks for the info. Looks like I'm gona get the car and bang it around for the winter and see how it does. So when you say get one the right year and options what am I looking for?
Seems like 99, V6, MTX with return style fuel sys, is the closest cougar to my 98.5 SVT. What other options make a diff? Btw it has no sun roof.
So just to clarify when you do a 3L you use the fuel sys and ecu from the car your putting the motor in, and 2.5 heads are not used because 3.0's have a higher compression to start with and the 2.5 head gives an unwanted increase in comp.?
Yes my SVT motor is real and full and still driving even though my tour only has three wheels at the moment.
It has these intake mods:
BAT intake
proM maf
optimized TB
max honed UIM port matched to TB and 2000 LIM.
headers and bat y
 
KaptonContour said:
Ok, thanks for the info. Looks like I'm gona get the car and bang it around for the winter and see how it does. So when you say get one the right year and options what am I looking for?
Seems like 99, V6, MTX with return style fuel sys, is the closest cougar to my 98.5 SVT. What other options make a diff? Btw it has no sun roof.
So just to clarify when you do a 3L you use the fuel sys and ecu from the car your putting the motor in, and 2.5 heads are not used because 3.0's have a higher compression to start with and the 2.5 head gives an unwanted increase in comp.?
Yes my SVT motor is real and full and still driving even though my tour only has three wheels at the moment.
It has these intake mods:
BAT intake
proM maf
optimized TB
max honed UIM port matched to TB and 2000 LIM.
headers and bat y
Click to expand...

Return/Returnless and 2bolt/4bolt front control arms are the main differences.

I have a SCT multi position chip from my old Cougar laying around. I would sell it cheap if it matches the PCM in the one you buy. It was tuned for an SVT motor running on the stock Cougar fuel system (17# return injectors).
 
Car obtained. Not sure why I would need the chip since I would do a complete swap. Would it help boost the tune on a SVT lite set up? That's proly what im gona do for now.
 
KaptonContour said:
Car obtained. Not sure why I would need the chip since I would do a complete swap. Would it help boost the tune on a SVT lite set up? That's proly what im gona do for now.
Click to expand...
Yeah it would help if you needed/wanted to retain stock fuel system with SVT upgrades. Definitely would be better to have SVT computer if you're using SVT fuel injectors though.
 
You need an SVT computer if you're using the green injectors; otherwise you'll be driving around with a constant Check Engine Light.

The SVT tune does help out on the light-upgrade by giving you a more aggressive spark timing for use with high-octane fuel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top