Alright, donor car is a 99 Contour SE with fogs. Motor is excellent, tranny is ATX and is shot. Car has some rear 1/4 panel damage. Perfect situation, I could barely even pick up a set of used headlights from the junkyards around here for the price I picked this up for. Had this not been the case I wouldn't have bothered. Truth is it's the challange that makes this appealing to me, same reason I port matched my heads and swapped cams over on my 3L instead of just a straight 3L. Overall this isn't a huge project, just gotta mock everything up on the pre98 with sheet metal screws before welding the upper rad support back in.
A couple pics: I bent the last bit of metal on the inner fender supports out of the way, I could have avoided this but taking my time fiddling with the rad support once it was loose. On my car I will be avoid bending it out of the way, either way a few quick taps of the hammer and it would go back perfectly straight, just being picky. So if you take your time you can take it out smoothly and cleanly.
I am gathering an SVT kit, I already have a set of Mach Audio HID headlights from a Focus. Going to black the inside of the headlights a bit and do a projector retro fit into the them. Convert the SE grille to black mesh style.
Lastly pick up a set of these rims:
BTW my car is black now with tan interior. I like the interior in my car so no need to touch it.
Heh and I bought this car as a fun beater to last a few months.
I would much rather do this than selling my car swapping over the 3L etc to a post 98.
Good luck, take TONS of pics and keep us updated. 