first of all, hello everyone

i just got my first neon in a trade, a 98 sport with an autotrans, one owner an really low milage, it great shape other than a a few dents that the owners brother kicked into it just above each rear tire[:@] the timing belt broke and goth the intake valves on the number one piston, it was a PITA to get the head off lol i know alittle about neons, i race on oval tracks against all kinds of 4 bangers, mainly neons, half the field is made up of neons, 4dr, 2dr sohc and dohc, i raced against them for 2 years in a 92 geo storm with alittle tiny 1.6 sohc then switched to a dohc, so i know very well what they can do with a good driver and setup

i joined this forum because i know sooner or later i will have questions, i am currently driving an 85 mazda rx-7 gsl-se, but it gets about 15mpg on a good day, and i cant keep my foot out of it, i wanted and automatic to drive so i can park the little rotary and put a cage and turbo in it for a street legal v8 eater, but i also dont want a pure stock daily driver, i want it to sound good and not like a rice bomb, and run alittle better, i will be looking around here to find ou just how to do that [sm=type.gif]

 

congrats....buy a valve body for your trannie from pa racing trans on modernperformance.com....or just get manual trans swap...itll be better for you in the long run if you are going to autox ....peace

 

im not going going for autocross in my neon, though i would like to have a car for that, i thought about turning the rx-7 into one, but im not sure, i got the neon to replace my rx as a daily driver, i want to keep the automatic trans aswell, but i might look into the valve body

i do have a question actually, i checked the head... what are the odds that when the timing belt broke at highway speeds it only got the 2 intake valves i see that arnt sealing, i checked the pistons and i see where the 2 intake valves hit the number one piston, but the rest look good.. i figured if number one hit, then number 4 should aswell?

 

if it was going about 65 and the timing belt broke and number 1 is messed up better to be safe and check them all out, so you don't have any problems later on. so it last alot longer, with the right care neons last a very long time. my last neon before i got rid of it for a newer lower miles one had almost 300,000 miles on it. and still ran really good. with no major problems except for normal things that go bad after so many miles. gotta love the mopar. some things you'll want to consider doing is putting on an exaust probley one of the first things you should do besides the trans.if you want to buy it buy the name then i'd go with borla, but it is much cheaper to just buy the already mandrel bent pipe and build your own. and also get rid of the cat, either punch it out or get a res/test pipe (neither one street legal but, if you can hide it they don't have to know) or could just get a high flowing cat. also get a cold air to get the intake off the valve cover. you already have a bigger TB then an MtX but could always get it bored out alittle bigger or just buy a whole new bigger one.a TB spacer would do some good too (in my oppinion it does) i'm just wondering but why would you want to keep the auto? seems like a manual would be more fun, sound better, be better on gas.

 

gratz on getting the new neon. Get us some good pics of the ol girl, lol. Good luck on mods, and like these guys said... get rid of some of the stock, more restricting parts off that thing and youll see a major improvement. The intake on the stock older neons were pretty bad from what i hear.

Weclomd to DF btw

 

yeah most of this is all basic things i suppose, i have been around race cars all my life so im not new to cars, we dont have emissions testing here so ill probably ditch the cat for a "test pipe"

i know the 5 speed neon is faster and more fun than the auto, like i said i use to race against them on the track every week, in a geo at that lol but all of my other cars are manual, if i want to have fun or go fast i have 2 other cars to drive, like a full tube frame chassis modified street stock with a 383 stroker, i just want an automatic thats sporty enough so im not disappointed at every red light and one that has a large engough fan base and aftermarket so i dont get bored, and i hate honda, toyota and nissan [>:] and the cops tend to show up when i drive the racecar on the street.... [8D]

ill get some pics once i get a digital camera, hopefully for xmas

what can be expected as far as hp goes from most basic mods? ie good exhausts system, intake and other such bolt ons, without breaking the bank, to much

 

you can get a lotta hp and cheaply. Jeep TB swaps 60mm good for a few ponies... PAce setter, airmass, tta, kirk, and some other headers wont break the bank...great for top end... your valve body for automatics run 180-300 bux to help shifting like a manual...3.0ghetto intake from chrysler minivan good for a few ponies. Mopar perf pcm mere 200 dollars....intank fuel pump from walbro a must, not really goin to change fuel consumption but good if you want more fuel and cheaper then the stock replacement...magnum acr cam swap is good for a little extra hp....magnacor plug wires and ngk iridiums v-powers=very nice...msd coil pack an upgrade...udps are a must as the old crank pully weighs like 16 lbs do a few of these and you will find your car a lot more fun...good luck!!!

 

Welcome!

A '95 stock SOHC manual dynoes at 111ish HP to the wheels. A '95 SOHC auto dynoes at 91 to the wheels... It takes a lot of bolt-on's to get the auto up to speed, no pun intended. The DOHC's make more power (125ish to the wheels for the manual), but when mated with the auto tranny are actually the slowest of the lot because the auto shift point is well below the HP peak.

Without digging into internals and staying naturally aspirated, you're looking at 175ish flywheel HP from the SOHC, and 185ish from the DOHC. I consider cams a bolt-on, particularly for the DOHC... There are things you can do for the auto tranny to beef it up some, but I'm hardly the guy to go to on that...

Take a look at my little site - http://pages.cthome.net/rader/disclaimer.html - and see what inspires you. I know there's stuff that needs to be updated (over a year since I've touched it), a couple of gross misconceptions on my part, etc. But I'm fairly happy with where it's going. Don't neglect the suspension either. If I had it to do over again, that's where I'd start (and do it right...).

Best of luck!

 

yeah im expecting the auto to be alittle slow lol

the last engine i worked with were dohc isuzu engines, 1.6 and 1.8, 140hp - 160hp stock and around the 200 mark once they were in my race car, it was a stock class i ran them in but none of the cars were stock, i saw first hand how poorly the neon auto ran, and i dont want to get flamed or anything, but my geo blew neons away on the track every night, only thing i had a hard time with were early 90 model ford escorts, but there were some really fast neons, with bad drivers so its alittle unfair

none-the-less, i like neons so now i have one, now i just need to get it fixed so i can drive it, how much does it normally run you to send a head to the shop and have it checked and new valves? i think only 2 intake valves got hit, but it could be more than that, and how easy is it to change valves yourself? i have done it before on dohc 4cylinder engines, but never a 2.0 mopar

 

about 400 dollars for the build....here.