Hmm. "Driving the Dragon" seems nice - Although I'd much rather do something like that in my friend's Audi S4. Although the Contour's manual shifting is certainly far more fun than the boring automatic Bonneville SSEi my wife drives. (Sometimes she lets me take it to the store, but not too often. It's fast as hell in straight-line but handles like a boat
) Perhaps with some wider 17" rims, fatter tires, and some suspension tweaks on the Contour I'll come "Drive the Dragon" sometime . Where IS the Dragon, BTW?
Well, I've got the car back and MAN what a difference! I'd been driving my Mother-in-Law's Toyota Paseo, which is a manual, but the throw is so long and the clutch so worn it feels like I'm churning butter in that thing. The new Luk clutch mechanism that they put in the Contour is smoooth, and the Contour's throw is so short it feels like I'm barely moving the shifter at all - nice. I'm used to shifting by feel, usually ignoring the tach, but now I have to look at the tach because I can barely hear the engine before shifting into 1st, it's so quiet. I actually stalled out while pulling away from the garage...
Hopefully this will solve all the problems and this thing will run for another 5 years or so. The only parts on this car that haven't been replaced now are the tranny and the frame/bodypanels/interior. I plan to look into that metal impeller wheel for the water pump, and to check & make sure all the safety recalls have been done on this thing.
Thanks for everyone's advice & help - I'm sure to stick around on CEG for a while.
