At 7:56am this morning my Contour was delivered. For the last 2-3 months Rara, Shaggy and myself have been working with Livernois Motorsports in MI for a new drivetrain for the Contour. Actually, Rara, Shaggy and Livernios did all of the work, I just provided the $$$$$. She has finally arrived and all I have to say is OMG!!! Livernois asked us to keep it secret until stage 1 was complete. Here are the details of what they all did...
2002 3.0L block
Beginning bore diameter: 3.504"
Ending Bore Diameter: 3.714" w/ new cast iron sleves
Beginning Stroke: 3.1299"
Ending Stroke: 3.3092"
Engine displacement: 3.5L
Rods: Manley Custom Forged Billet Steel Rods.
Pistons: JE Forged Aluminum Pistons w/ titanium wrist pins.
Linvenois Forged Billet steel crankshaft
2001 3.0L Heads
Beginning Intake Valve Size: 35mm
Ending Intake Valve Size: 37mm
Beginning Exhaust Valve Size: 30mm
Ending Exhaust Valve Size: 33mm
7-angle valve job
Custom ported and Polished intake and exhaust.
Increase 5mm intake and 5mm exhaust ports.
Valves: Manley Forged Titanium valves
Springs: Double Coiled high rate springs
Retainers: Titanium
Lashes: Livernois Forged Titanium lashes with steel rollers.
Cams: SVT Cams(For now, 3.0L cams reground for turbo for less overlap.)
Engine Compression Ratio: 9.0:1
Tranny: MTX-75 w/ Cryo-treated internals. Torsen LSD.
Halfshafts: Forged Billet Steel half-shafts.
Intake: 3.0L LIM, Extrude Honed to match head intake ports.
Custom Zero-length runner UIM
80mm Throttle Body
Custom 65 degree intake Pipe
90mm Cobra MAF
42# injectors
9" Fender mounted K&N w/ custom splash shield(Thanks Brian)
Aeromotive Returnless Fuel System
Exhaust: JDM Engineering Custom equal-length Stainless Steel headers w/ Ceramic
Coating from SwainTech
1-5/8" Tubing
5/8" Flange
JDM Engineering Custom quasi-dual w/ a single 3" splitting into 2.5"
(Expect the exhaust stuff to start rolling out forsale in the next 3-4
months)
Computer: Fordchip.com custom tune for SVT Computer.
The obvious stuff:
Battery relocated to the trunk.
ARP Head Bolts
ARP Custom Made Main studs
Upgraded Front Brakes to Wilwood.
Fidanza Flywheel
Clutchmaster's Stage III
Current HP:
324.35@5850 FWHP(Front Wheel HP)
Current TQ:
340.76@4500 FWTQ(Front Wheel TQ)
It sounds very nice. Very throaty. Similar to a 4.6L GT Mustang only a little bit flatter tone and thankfully no drone or rasp.
What's next? Stage 2 is forced induction. Livernois will be developing a custom Turbo setup. I don't know the details yet. Nevin at Livernois speculated somewhere around 470FWHP and 490FWTQ. They will be starting that sometime this summer, or when I have the $$$ saved up for it.
Tonight I'm taking her to Capitol Raceway to see what kind of numbers she will put up.
I cannot say that this has gone without any problems. One of the reasons why it took so long is the first set of tranny internals didn't hold up well. That's the reason why they went with cryo-treated... Actually, all of the problems were tranny related. After the new tranny internals were installed and tranny was put in, the second thing to go were the half-shafts. The new ones are holding strong.
Thanks to:
Rara(Brian) for helping me get the right specs for what was needed to make this fine piece of machinery perform like it should.
Shaggy(Chris) for his tranny insight and tuning input.
Bnoon(Brad) For a good price on 3.0L heads.
AndyW(Andy) and his dad for the past and future use of his dad's garage. I'll be there tonight putting on the new tires.
I should have pics of the entire build process in the next couple of days. They said they have over 200 pics. As soon as I get them, I'll post them.
Here is the dyno:
Dyno Brad, I guess it's time for that 3.5L forum...
--Matt
