Okay well im still researchin more about SOHC Dodge Neon are they easy to put into 14.5-15.00 With some add ons or wut?

 

Depends on what you want to add on. You can get a 1st gen into the 9's and 10's if you got the money and time. A turbo alone will get you those times.

 

The first thing you will need to do to get anything out of the SOHC is replace the crappy cam that is in it. You will get little to no power from most any bolt on mods with the stock cam, so it has to go before you will see any real gains. A turbo kit would be the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get a SOHC into the mid-14's.

 

I run high 14's on the stock '95 cam. Crapsetter header, 2.5" dynomax cat, 2.5" piping and 2.5" Hooker Max Flow out the back. Stock plastic intake mani, ATX TB, and DIY ghetto CAI up front. Cheapo UDP, Mopar PCM, lightweight wheels, sticky rubber, and weight redux are my only other mods. With stock interior (a/c and p/s systems removed), I was still running low-mid 15's and dynoed at 136 whp (yes, that's with the same stock cam that dynoed at 111 whp before any bolt-ons). Now I'm just a smidge above 2200 lbs, with driver . Cam would be fantastic, but I was planning on doing it along with the next timing belt.

Hmmm... 25 extra ponies and still have the stock cam. I'm confused... is that little power? or no power?

A decent turbo kit will put a manual tranny SOHC into the 13's easily on stock internals. With forged internals and a bigger turbo, most folks are hitting 300-350 whp without too much effort, which will put you deep into the 12's if not into the 11's. Chris Barnett's SOHC turbo hit 11's with a Hahn Stage 2 turbo kit on stock internals (includes stock cam) and weight redux.

A well-thought-out nitrous setup will do the trick as well. A 50-75 shot on the stock engine is doable, which puts the SOHC in the 200 HP range - definitely good for 14's. The key here is the "well-thought-out" part... Picking up the cheapest kit you can find on ebay and slapping it on isn't a good idea. Fuel pump upgrade, all the safety/reliability stuff for the kit (fuel pressure cutoff, bottle warmer, etc.), possibly a timing retard unit, etc. So expect to spend maybe $800-1000. Done right, the SOHC should be able to take a 100 or so progressive shot safely and reliably, but I'd be upgrading the clutch, differential, and axles as well.

Best of luck!

 

Your stock '95 cam is better than the other years cam according to highline95jl, it's more aggressive which makes all the difference in the world. Sport Compact Car magazine built up a '97 Neon SOHC and couldn't get but 1-3 horsepower here and there with all kinds of bolt ons to no avail. They even mentioned how the SOHC in it was the saddest and most pathetic cam profile they have ever seen in any stock car ever and it would need to be replaced to stand any chance in building noticeable power. I also have a friend that modded his '99 Neon SOHC auto and it barely stayed in the high 16's.

So, I've read about it and I've seen it first hand with the newer 1st gen Neons, but what I have yet to see is any proof of your claims. I have a good amount of literature on Neon's as well as first hand experience with them as well, not the first couple years of them though. The SOHC in question was never given a year, but was a question of them in general and in general the first thing to change to get any real power out of the SOHC is changing the cam.

 

The '95 cam was only good for about 4 HP over the regular '96-'05 cams. Uses the stock valvesprings though, so the valves float above 7200 rpm and feels remarkably like a rev limiter...

Hmmm... I remember that project car from SCC ('99 Neon actually), just looked it up to see if it's gone anywhere in the last 3 years (hasn't). Started out with 110 HP and 109 ft-lbs to the wheels. Half-assed mods were a halfway decent muffler, hot air intake (AEM), UDP with accessories, Mopar DOHC PCM (runs rich), Kirk header w/dump collector, "high flow" cat, 60mm TB, and a cam gear on the stock cam. Results? 126 HP and 128 ft-lbs at the wheels. A true CAI, better muffler, fuel computer for the DOHC PCM, elimitaing the accessories, and a merge collector on that header would have done significantly better. The project car I'm talking about is on SCC's website at http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/projectcars/ . Obviously you're talking about a different project car that they did where they did a ton of bolt-ons with no results, could you post the link?

Edit:

There's nothing fundamentally different with the "newer 1st gen" Neons and the "first couple of years". Same available engines, same available trannies, same PCM programming. The only difference worth mentioning is weight, where a few more pounds seemed to get packed on with each passing year. A bare-bones '95 ACR would come in at 2350 pounds stock, where a '99 R/T could easily top 2900 pounds with all the power accessories, radio, air conditioning, power steering, sunroof, and sound deadening material. But like I said, nothing fundamentally different.

Digging up old timeslips and dyno sheets is low on my priority list, particularly for a car that will soon be parted out on ebay. I'm living in an 1100 square foot apartment and a storage unit after moving from a 1500+ square foot house with and attic and a full basement - I still don't know where half of my clothes are. I'm also not all that concerned with your doubts of my integrity, if that's what you're implying. I'm not the only one who's had decent results with bolt-ons (and stock cam). In fact, my results are rather disappointing when compared to others that have gone before me...

Going to a more agressive cam is a huge help, I'll give you that. But even a great cam on an otherwise stock car isn't going to be a real head snapper. All of the available cams have the majority of the gains in the upper RPM band, where the stock PCM can't reach. And with the pathetic stock muffler on the *** end, flow through the system still sucks. I consider a cam a bolt-on item, it just takes a little extra work (valvesprings, cam gear) that I couldn't justify, so I haven't done it. Guess I never will... But to say a cam is an absolute necessity for anything more than 1-3 HP is ridiculous, and to quote it from a magazine article that doesn't exist? I'm sure it's just a lapse in memory.

 

The SCC Neon project car actually went about six parts or more, I have them all somewhere, so their websites lack of updating for the Neon sucks, they wouldn't let that happen with a Honda.[:@] So I cannot post a link to what you've already been to, and linked, and that they never updated beyond the first two parts.

If you read what I said you would know that the cam was just the first best thing to get there and then the following bolt on mods would give better, more sizeable gains. I never said that the cam alone would get it where they wanted it to be.

I also have never seen or heard of any 1st gen. Neon approaching 2,900 lbs., my SRT-4 weighs just under that (2,869 lbs.) and it's got the added weight of the turbo and related equipment as well as power everything and sunroof, but it could have been heavier had it been optioned with the Kicker stereo and regular Neon seats with the side impact airbags. My '99 R/T had power nothing and couldn't have been even 2,400 lbs. soaking wet.

 

I never bought the magazines. Did they ever end up swapping the cam? Higher compression maybe? It's funny that it's Mike Kojima doing the buildup... He was a huge supporter of the movement that got the Neon reclassified (rightly so, I'll admit) and nixed Mopar's "trunk kit"... All because he was ticked that the ACR had slotted struts from the factory. It is sad that is hasn't been updated on the site. Possibly because it would embarass import tuners too much? I always laugh when he calls the torque rating "limp-wristed"... Hmmm... 128 ft-lbs at the flywheel on the SOHC Neon compared to, what, 107 on the best SOHC Civic of that era?

There's certainly only so much you can do with the stock cam. Torque starts to plummet by 6200 RPM or so, and power takes a nosedive not long after (obviously... it's how math works...). Even with the higher rev limiter I've got (7450 RPM) and the valves floating at 7200ish RPM, I still shift in the 6900-7000 RPM range to get the best times. SCC got a fair amount of power out of the car with the stock cam though, you have to admit. I've done a little better, I know Neons a little better than Mike Kojima, even on a limited budget. Plenty of others on "the unmentionable" forum have done even better on the stock cam, making much better decisions than I did... And I agree that a better cam is a necessary upgrade at some point, but I'd never recommend it (and the necessary valve springs) as a first mod unless the person was pulling the head for something else anyways, like a broken timing belt and 16 bent valves... There's plenty of fun to be had for not a lot of money.

All right, 2900 pounds may be a bit of an exaggeration... I've always liked poking fun at R/T's though... My Highline weighed in at 2630 with full interior, me, and all my tools (including spare axles). I'm just above 2200 now, including driver (no tools or parts...).

Back to the original post though... My suggestion, if you don't need to conform to class standards - bolt on aftermarket turbo kit and true coilovers. The Hahn or Chill Factory will put you in the 225ish HP range for $3k or so, all said and done. The coilovers will run you $1000-1500, depending on whether or not www.phantomhp.com has them on sale... That's a heck of a bang for your buck. You'll have a sleeper car that will run great times in a straight line, and will outhandle most cars you'll see on the street.

 

Yep, they swapped it out in part 3 with the Crane CHR-250-2SR-8 which netted them a max 15.1 WHP gain and they even said how to change the cam by just taking the mounts loose and jacking one end of the engine up some to replace it without removing the engine or head. Part 3 was titled "Beyond The Bolt Ons" and Part 4 was "Grip". I cannot recall the others, if there even are any (it's been a few years and I don't recall exactly how many parts there were), but these were the ones I had scanned into my computer.