Same thing happened here. I heard a knocking noise and I just thought it was like the speedo or the tach. It kept getting louder, so I took my Contour to the Ford dealership, they said it was the wrist pin.
Then I went down to the CO-CEG meet and Alex(Bicylce019) and Chad(FluidSVT) both said that it is the connecting rod.
It is caused by the oil pan in the Contour, sometimes when you make and hard right or left, the oil take up line isn't taking any oil so through that turn you are getting little oil.
That is the way I understood them to mean. They said you can run a quart over full to prevent this, or you can get the oil pan done by Mirko. So yeah you should probably your car into a mechanic to have it looked at.
