I dont have to worry about bottoming out with an airride or coilovers the best way to go for show anyways . On the put money into go mods remember we all have little neons unless you go turbo there is no mods that can help. Just the simple go mods like exhaust and intake what most go with and arent that expensive. The led neons are only 54bucks shipped so pretty cheap and still can get a intake and drop later.

 

just a disclaimer...im not dissing show cars.

But little or not...you caaan make them go faster. muuuch faster if you have the money. Saving the money you are putting into any suspension mod and putting it towards hp gain mods is smarter if you are looking for performance on the street. Atleast...thats my opinion. I really don't see any gain from suspension mods. Btw, I'm not talking about tires when i say suspension lol. Just stuff like struts, anti-roll/sway bars, springs, and that kinda thing.

 

to all you having problems with lowering your cars and bottoming out, its cuz you lower them too damn low. 2" and even 1.5" is too low IMHO. There is a point when lowering the center of gravity that low does more harm then good. Yes it will look cool, but that’s it. I dropped with a 1" mopar kit and could feel a huge difference from stock and never once had a "too low" problem.

Neon suspension travel is not that much in stock form, never mind taking away 2" from it. Your ride quality is sacrificed since you roughly have about 1" of suspension travel left.

It’s your car, if you want it to look nice... then slam it and deal with the consequences. If you want true performance than scrap the 1.5-2" drops.

 

+1

The stock neon is pretty tight already. Could be tighter and if i was racing at a track I would be doing some suspension stuff. But I don't think anyone is taking long hard turns long enough for the weight to even transfer to one side of the car. And if you do turn that hard then you usually don't need to turn the opposite way quickly(ex: sharp left to an immediate right)

 

Yeah I've been to Yellville which should be right around where you are, I have an uncle with a place on Bull Shoals, and if you tried getting around anywhere near there the neons would break and the drop would probably get you stuck. That's a little extreme though, it is the mountains, but you have to remember to think about all the places that you'll have to avoid with either on your car.

 

so if i raced my 2003 se that has CAI, exhaust, a full tokico strut & spring kit, and srt front & rear sways.... agains 2003 se with just cai & exhaust you are trying to tell me it would be a even race???? Not in anyway shape or form, first i would get a better launch cause the car has stiffer suspension, second i will out brake the **** out of them cause i have almost ZERO brake lean, and third when we come to ANY corner i will burn the **** out of the stock suspension.

did you in car and driver mag they did a test on a car with bad struts and if i remember correctly, it Failed the evasive manuver test, added like 25' onto the stopping distance (60-0 i think) Suspension is a hugh part of how a cars performance... even on the street

 

I think his point wasn't that you don't gain an advantage from the drop, but that there are also disadvantages that lower the overall value of having the drop

 

yea, yellville and bull shoals are right by mtn. home.. i drive on hwy 14 almost every weekend.. talk about curvey.. you wanna have fun on turns go to hwy 14..

 

^^^pretty close pharmboy. I'm not saying you can drive around with a bad suspension. I'm saying the neons stock suspension really isn't that bad. In a street race where you would need performance(or 1/4) you usually don't go around turns...at least I would hope not. I would also hope you aren't using your brakes in straight aways.

The tokico strut and spring would help with the launch and get rid of some wheel hop, not the sway bars. But you could just save your money and buy super cheap motor mount inserts and probably do better. So if it was a neon se with a CAI, exhaust, MM insert vs a neon se with a CAI, exhaust, strut and spring kit, with sways...I think the first neon would do a little better and have saved a couple hundred bucks. You could still save money by buying completely new motor mounts too. Rear springs will never compare to keeping you motor on the ground unless they were super stiff(which wouldn't be good at all). And typically you want your rear springs higher for launches...

My point is most suspension mods won't help you on the straight away street.

 

oh yeah, nharinton, most of your points were for racing in more of a circuit track. I agree with all of your points on that(braking and turning). But thats not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about common street racing or drag racing where those are irrelevant and nearly never used. On the circuit tuning your suspension has to be so precise and takes lots of time. Very important for those races.

And I don't think you will be seeing any of these cars on a track like that any time soon.