Custom search provider

Hello,

Does anyone have any code examples or working solutions to implement a custom search provider? The simplest situation to describe what i'm trying to do is... have SF search a secondary DB with some custom content; so that when I setup my search index, it not only searches my local content (pages, content, etc) but also allows me to index content from a different/secondary custom source.

I have talked with support and they have stated the following ideas, but it's not getting the results I need. I have done this in the past with SF v3, but am just plain stuck when it comes to v4. 

Any help, links, samples, ideas is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,

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1.st use the Search Manager directly. this means that you have to create to create IDocument item. You could inherit the interface and implement it yourself. You have to create a collection of IFIelds and this collection will represent the Name of the field in the search and it's value (take a look at IField interface). Then you can call SearchManager.UpdateCatalogue(catalogueName,documents). This will push items into the search index named catalogueName. After that you have to modify the search control  and search manager like my sample to be able to search over those fields.

2.nd You can create a pipe that will push items to the search pipe and have to create a mapping how to map the fields of the items from your pipe to the fields of search index pipe. or extend the fields of the search like the sample from my post.