Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Branches Southeast throttle hang

I know alot of people have had this and that the SVT contour has a history of doing it.

Funny story - I had the car in the paper for sale. Figured I'd leave it in for two weeks and if it sold, great. If it didn't, no big deal. A week and a half goes by and no calls.

Finally the fone rings and my wife comes running with a huge grin saying, "It's someone calling about your car!" I get on the fone and the guy says, "You the guy with the SVT contour for sale?" "Why yes", I reply, preparing my sales/description speech. Then he says, "You got a problem with your throttle hanging?"

Anyway, my throttle would hang at whatever rpm I shifted at, 3000 for example. As soon as I pushed in the clutch, the rpm's would rise about 5-7 hundred, hang there for about 4-8 seconds, then finally fall. Three throttle bodys later, the problem was gone.

I actually don't think that the throttle hang is a "problem" as defined by service techitions...I believe its there for a reason, you know, to aid in drivability. If the revs dropped to fast, then it would be easy for the car to fall out of its powerband and require faster/harder shifts. I've never had a problem with that or with moosing, but I never really got why some folks identified that as a huge problem.

Did it adversely affect your driveablility?

BTW, you're more than welcome to come out and join us Friday night or Saturday if you would like to meet more atlanta area CEG'ers look for the post about this weekend's meet with directions. Welcome to the GA chapter of the CEG!

Oh yea it affected drivability, most notibly in traffic.

If no one was behind me, no big deal. But if one of these butt-riding drivers was behind me, I'd have to shift immediately, slamming my clutch into 3800-4000 rpm's worth of revs every time. Experiment with shifting into 4000 rpm's in every gear and you'll see what I mean.

On second thought, don't do that.

That problem got ironed out at about 36k though, and since then it drives like a dream. If I can get the starting issue fixed, the only thing remaining will be a stiff clutch after the car's been warm for awhile.

The throttle hang is part of the factory emissions reduction programming. The purpose is to prevent dumping unburned fuel and reducing emisions on engine deceleration.

I hate it though so i did the pipecap fix and got rid of it for good. Sport compact had an article about the focus i think where they mentioned it as well.

Hey Bruce,

How do you like the BAT kit? That's probably a dumb question, but more specifically, how far did it lower your car? I have the original suspension and would love to upgrade but I do not want my car lowered if I can get away with it. If it has to be dropped some, so be it. But if it's too noticeable, I'll say screw it.