Originally posted by The EX- Striped SVT:
All is good War BTW, if someone bought their CSVT brand new its VERY easy to spend that $35K to get their car to run well too, something to consider



Yeah, I suppose, but I knew this guy on a personal level because he was stationed at Ft. Hood with me. He should have been thinking about retirement
I mean I watched him take his car from $20K new, add about $8K for rims and little mods and such, then drop 3-4 grand on the higher stages that dodge sold for it, then change his mind on the rims and realize what I was telling him about his heads, intake and turbine being a bet small for the power he wanted to make.
He then went and dropped $35K on top of that over about a 4 month period. When it was done, hand ported heads, intakes, larger turbo, all polished, I mean everything was bling and chromed or carbon fiber. It looked great.

Funny, he was still no faster in first or second gear than I was being limited by traction, but after that

So having $50-$60K into a car if you include the purchase price... for a neon....well,you see where I'm going with that. I like the neon but I don't like it that much.

A contour like DemonSVTs that is selectively modded for performance and with a specific weight reduction plans is really the way to go. With some deliberate suspension changes for drag racing, more weight reduction and a $100 shot of nitrous, he'd be running 12's all day long..and all night!

I fully believe that the duratec motor is far superior to the Dodge SRT-4 motor. People say it doesn't take well to mods....bullsh|t! It is just that mods have been relatively few and far between because the car is a sedan, it has a tightly packaged engine bay so people don't want to work on it, and consequently the ones out there are expensive.
The motor is phenomenal for what you can do to it. Have you seen what a simple 75shot of nitrous on a stock motor will do?? And the motor handles it like nothing, no problem? Wow. If anyone asked me the way to go on this car, I'd say moderate 3L with a good nitrous kit tuned it. It is soooo cheap to make power that way.

Imagine buying a 98 or 99 Contour GL 5spd for about $1200 bucks right now. Now add $600 for a 3L. Then lets assume for good luck that the tranny is good, and we add in a LSD forks, clutch, and little mods, $1500.
So far that is $3300.
Now you run a $1000 nitrous kit with about a 100 shot.
You run an off-road exhaust, 2.25" duals with headers, $700.
You gut everything out of the car... Free.
You put in a Roll cage, $1000 unless you do it yourself
Finally, Two 15" steely rims with drag radials or slicks, $400-$500
Add $500 for an XCAL2 and a good tune.


By my total that is $7000 total. I promise you that it will run like a bat out of hell, stock suspension and all. Demon pulled a car with a 13.4 on drag radials. A car like this could pull much lower, probably in capable of low 12's if the axles hold....and they probably will hold if you keep reducing the mass of the car and therefore the shock.
You'll need some poly roll restrictors, little things, and that is of course doing all the labor yourself.
You can only go up from there.
Just think, what if you got a blown contour from grandma for Free??


Former owner of '99 CSVT - Silver #222/2760 356/334 wHP/TQ at 10psi on pump gas! See My Mods '05 Volvo S40 Turbo 5 AWD with 6spd, Passion Red '06 Mazda5 Touring, 5spd,MTX, Black