Same here, who are you talking to, too???

 

I'm still trying to figure out how top speed has any bearing on a car's performance. I got clocked at 172 mph in a 55 mph zone in a 1980 Olds Delta 88 when I was young and stupid (probably before most of you were out of diapers). I guarantee my Neon will out-accelerate and out-handle it any day of the week. Top speed is a magazine number. If it's important to you, you should be racing magazines, not cars.

 

indeed, good point.

 

If what you are describing is truly a "shimmy", it may be caused by a multitude of things but is due to some kind of dynamic inbalance. Basically any rotating component in the wheel/hub assembly is supposed to be constrained to rotation in a plane perpendicular to the centerline of the axle. Motion in or out of this plane or net weight that does lie in this plane will cause lateral vibrations, or shimmy. This could be due to a bent wheel, improper weights, or even excessive runout of the hub or rotor. You might also want to check the rear vertical control arm bushing on the front c arms, tie rod ends, and wheel bearings. Tie rod ends and wheel bearing will usually have some sort of noise accompanying their failure.

What you want to do is take your wheel/tire to a shop you trust and have them try to balance them. If the wheel is bent they will either not be able to get them to balance or they will be using huge weights to do so. I say a shop you trust because a good technician will know if the wheel is bent by the way it balances out and will tell you so instead trying to mask the problem with huge wheel weights. I have had an experiece where really ****ty tires have caused vertical oscillation of a vehicle that couldnt be detected by balancing. This was due to tire deformation during driving causing a static inbalance but I highly doubt this could happen in such a way to cause shimmy.

If your wheels balance out ok, put them back on the car and jack it up in the air and check for play in any of the components previously listed or have a shop do this. Use common sense here, anything that seems loose, sounds rough, or squeaks is shot and should be replaced. Also check your lower ball joints and strut bearings. Visually inspect your c arm bushings for cracks or tears in the rubber. Use a prybar in between the subframe and the c arm to check for excessive motion and watch the bushing(s) while doing so. If everythings seems ok then there is some excessive runout somewhere and unless you have a dial indicator and know how to use it, take the vehicle to a shop and let them figure it out because at this point it is something out of the ordinary. Take note that a runout of 0.005" at the hub could be as much as 0.030" or more at the tire (this all depends on wheel/tire size etc). I usually clean any rust and crap that has developed on the hub face and rotor a couple times a year to try to minimize this; its a good idea to do this anytime you do a brake job too. Vibrations can be hard to pinpoint sometimes but try all this before "throwing" parts at it and your wallet will thank you.

 

Not trying to discount your input at all, which is 100% correct. Just clarifying based on my experiences (dumbing it down, so to speak).

The Neon wheel balancing from the factory was done to 1/8 gram, where most machines (i.e. Wal-Mart, Firestone) only go down to 1/4 gram and often are out of calibration. It's not a huge difference, but may contribute to the problem some. Proper balancing and alignment is a great place to start, but it isn't likely to fix the problem. Why?

- The rotor is held on with a retaining washer. If you put on aftermarket wheels and don't remove the retainer (not needed), it's tough to get a proper alignment. Also, hubcentric rings are an absolute must with aftermarket wheels - the Neon is decidedly hubcentric, not lugcentric.

- The "72 mph shakes" are a very well known Neon problem (to enthusiasts, apparently not to DC of course...). There is also a well known fix - replace the crappy rubber bushings in the control arms (the rear one, specifically) with poly (or new rubber, but those will fail eventually). This fix has been tried and tested thousands upon thousands of times with a phenomenal success rate. There ends up being a little more vibration/road noise, but not enough that most people would notice or care. I "threw money" at my car on numerous alignments and balancing, new wheels, new tires, etc. before finding this out. $250 later (that's what the Prothane kits cost way back when, they're under $100 now...), and a little time burning out the old bushings, and the shakes went away for good.

Wheel hop - same thing... replace the rubber with solid or filled mounts and it goes away.

 

Hell, nrg suspension mount kit and prothane bushings cost about $150-200 dollars.....together maybe you mean just the motor mounts? The whole kit will cover your entire car from front to back and you wanna talk about no flex.....wow that NRG susp. barely moves. And if you have an auto isnt that just a 4 speed anyhow? Five speed is good for like 130 plus MPH in a manual......top speed will matter in a 1/4 mile if your approaching 11s and tens ....not goin to help you when your car shuts down. If you have a lotta stuff done to your car why wouldnt you wanna see the capable top speed outcome? Any car can do a buck 20 anymore if they had your car on the autobon you'd better leave your flashers on cuz little golfs and Beamers would be flyin past you. No offense though I'm used to having cars that never break 85 MPH, (1987 Plymouth Reliant K car........LOL.)

 

I bought my prothane full suspension kit for $130 from modern performance - I think it was about the best I could find although a while back I was searching and I think I saw them for about $120 but I could never find that site again - must have been a scam...lol. While on the subject of the prothane bushings...you guys know the two that fit into the bottom of the rear knuckle with the trailing arm running through them that are held in place with the big washers - I didnt put those ones in cus I read in sport compact car (I dunno how reliable this is) that when they put them on the srt they had uncontrollable oversteer due to them being way to stiff and causing the rear suspension to bind up. My car seems to handle exactly the way it did when I first bought it and the stock rubber was all fresh - no crazy oversteer and strangely enough it doesnt seem be as bouncy as it used to be - im figuring the stiffer bushings are letting my suspension work better - I live in ny and on the highways there are literally speed bumps every 100 ft or so due the weather changes causing expansion and contraction of the asphalt which pushes it up and creates these nicely spaced bumps. The car used to be brutal over these but the poly's seem to have smoothed it out a bit (I also made sure to grease the hell out of them with the teflon lube when I did the install). I'm wondering now if I should try putting those other bushings in and see if the car gets all whacked out, I dunno....any suggestions?

 

I haven't had any problems with them. Been in there over 100k miles now.