Ooh, your opening up a whole can of worms if you try this.
Yes, its possible. No, it will not be easy. The Focus uses a cable shifter, so that part could probably be gotten around, use cable shift Contour parts. The harder part is that the case, where it mounts to the trans mount (unknown about the roll resistors) is different. Apparently the case needs to be built up and then redrilled to accept the Contour mount.
The swap went fairly straightforward for me. I only ran into two issues, one of which is still not corrected. The first was the clutch was being pressed too far, so the clutch wouldnt disengage where it should. The other was that the when I adjusted the position of the clutch pedal, it made it so the switch didnt work, so I can start the car now without pushing the clutch.
Doing it again, I wouldnt do anything different (except for putting an LSD in while it was apart
). I bought the entire front half of a 77K `97. This way I knew I would have everything I needed. I used a SPEC III clutch. The list of parts that needs to be changed is actually quite large, but I enjoy the car more now then I ever did before.
Drivers CV axle
Subframe
Engine harness
ECU
some exhaust heat shielding
the shifter
flywheel/clutch
trans
both roll resistors
Trans mount is a ?, I didnt check differences
pedal assembly
master cylinder
alignment dowels on the engine (Ford can get them)
crank position sensor
starter
the front springs also showed different on the interchange
I think that covers everything that *needs* to be changed. Remember to have the subframe and drivetrain aligned before you head off to have the suspension aligned.
If you are asking how hard can it be, dont expect it to be done in a weekend. I think I put about twenty hours total into mine. Russell-3L put a lot more into his, but he ran into other issues.
If you absolutely must use the Focus trans, give Terry Haines a call and talk to him about modding it.
