I recently picked up a 1996 Neon Highline last month. Its sitting in my garage waiting for a new starter and fuel pump. It has the 2.0L SOHC motor w/ 3 speed auto (sucks, I wish it was a 5-speed). The original plan was for it to be my gas saver. Now I get to looking around and seeing that they have potential. I'm here for suggestions on what mod(s) would be most effective to start off with first on these little cars. This would just so happen to be my first sport compact build!!!

Please, no suggestions about motor or tranny swapping. I don't exactly have the time for that with work and school.

 

Mtx swap, cold air intake, mopar ecu, udp, exhaust, some cool gauges, and a few ricer stickers. :-). Mtx swap is worth it. Plus its inexpensive and direct bolt in.

 

I bought mine '96 in 2001 to drive through one winter and get rid of it. There is nothing wrong with the car, except for its silly look.

Guess what, 7 years and 150000 km later it is still with me, taking me from point A to B. Last March we had a major snowstorm here in Ottawa, ON. I have had about 50 cm (~1 1/2') of solid heavy snow on my driveway. Still my '96 Neon was one of few vehicles going around town pushing itself through the snow banks.

 

main mods for a sohc are and not limited to (please note i miss spell alot of stuff)

cold air intake...home made or a ice man intake work great...ebay and most others are fake cold air intakes.

a pacesetter header...best one made for a sohc...also dont get one if you ever plan to turbo it.

mopar pcm...really great mod unless you want to turbo the car.

under drive pulleys will realy make your sohc gain some low end power

exhaust mods like putting the dohc muffler on make good improvement is power

a mtx trans swap will make a big improvement if you had the time to swap but it is not a direct bolt in it's a lot of work and not for a novice.

you dont ever need to swap the sohc engine it will murder dohcs with enough mods and a 2.4 swap from a stratus is useless unless you want big hp with a n/a engine

2.4 swaps from a srt 4 are useless too...build up what you got and you wont realy notice the difernce


and then there is turbos,nitrous (sucker juice), and the very rare supercharger you can do

also you dont need to be a 5 speed to win races but it dose help...you could however just practice your shifts with the auto. i could get my stratus to shift when i wanted it and i also knew in each of the 4 gears how much throttle would be needed for best performance...like in second gear if you half throttle it in a stratus you will get alot more speed out of it then at wot and if you would put it in third gear around 78mph it would go to 105 way faster then if you let it shift itself (cut about 4 seconds off) i dont know alot about auto neons(ie what gears for what) but i know there the same from friends...so just practice alot with your auto and mod it up thats all you can do with out a swap

 

You people suggesting he get the Mopar PCM, keep in mind he does have an auto. So he needs to add a toggle switch for the torque converter or a tranny cooler to keep the transmission from overheating.

 

head to a junk yard. come home with a 3.0L air intake and a DOHC neon muffler. great place to start and most of the time cheap performance.

 

bruuutal, where are you from, that will determine what you can and cant do

if your from california, and bought the car in california, you need to get your VIN number, call a dealer, and ask if your car is a TLEV car. if they dont know what that means, say "california only model"

if it is, the swap to a mtx tranny is illegal. trust me, i spent $3000 to build up the ultimate street tranny (you can get away with $1000 to do this swap, i just went all out) and now the car cant ever be smogged again in california without switching back to an auto.

also in california, you cant smog the car unless all aftermarket engine parts you put on are CARB certified, parts that are will come with a sticker saying to place it in a visible place under the hood.

if your out of california, find out what you can pass emissions with, and go for it

 

I live in Kansas and the car came from Oklahoma. So it has none of the emissions business.

 

Is the 3.0L intake off a Stratus? I was thinking of just doing a Borla cat back set up.

 

Is the 3.0L intake off a Stratus? I was thinking of just doing a Borla cat back set up.