I would like to eventually lower it, but for now i really need the seating up higher to get in & out easier. it'll be a while before my leg is back to normal.

And yeah, first time i went into a highway ramp I knew sway bars were a must, especially in the rear which has none right now. it currently handles nothing like my R/T did. But I do kinda like the fact that in the sxt the 4th and 5th gears are actually 'different' (if you've driven a neon R/T you know what I mean ). When I do get wheels & sway bars I was thinking to replace just about everything underneath. its 5 years old 53,000 miles, so replacing struts & such now with quality parts would save me having to do it in the not too distant future. plus I think it needs new struts in back to accept a rear sway bar.

Roll cage? hehe, no thanks
basically I was coming up behind someone who was stopped on a 2 lane blacktop highway (it was just over the crest of a hill). I got most of the way stopped but realized I wouldn't have room to come to a complete hault before tapping them, so I decided to swerve right & hit a corn field instead. I figured a new muffler, alignment, etc. would be in the same price range as a new hood & bumper, but the insurance wouldn't go up with the cornfield. Unfortunately, I must have caught the ditch at a bad angle or something, or it was shaped just wrong. Whatever the case, it broke a tie rod (i think, i never got to inspect it myself) which F'd up my steering royally. My car just on its own swerved back out of the ditch, scraped the side of the stopped car, and drifted to a stop right in the oncoming lane. THEN an oncoming 'dualie' full size pickup truck failed look out his front window and plowed my stopped car head on at 50mph. When I saw that the huge truck wasn't even slowing down, I really kinda thought that I'd end up crushed into the trunk. It was a really hard hit, hard to describe the g-forces involved, but if you've ever hit a bat very hard against a very solid object on a freezing cold day, you know how your hands feel? like that, but all over your body. the windshield shattered just from the jolt, parts of interior broke loose and went flying. but... the passenger cage remained solid, you could open all 4 doors. There wasn't anything resembling a car forward of the passenger cabin, but i was impressed. I would have gotten out and walked it off but I 'submarined' slightly and banged my knee on the dash hard enough to break it and the energy busted my hip socket as well. guess I should have made sure the waist belt was more snug. I couldn't move my busted up leg, so they cut the middle pillar out to slide me through a larger opening. I didn't want them to cut on my car *smirk*, but the emergency people impressed upon me that it would not be repairable anyway so I finally consented.

I wish I could have been able to pull the seats, subwoofer, etc. out before they scrapped it, but I was in the hospital counting the dots in the ceiling. one of the reasons I got another neon is because I was so impressed with the way the passenger cabin held up vs. 6,000lbs of truck.

I didn't get pics no. i asked for some but nobody actually did it, and i couldn't do it. basically there wasn't anything forward of the firewall which looked like a car, engine & transmission under the car, etc. it'd make a great posterchild for S.A.D or M.A.D. except there was no drinking actually involved.

 

glad that everything is ok now, and u got very lucky!!! and i am sure taht u will enjoy this neon like u enjoyed the last

 

I was playing in photoshop, came up with this design :
concept1front.jpg?t=1232770989
concept1back.jpg?t=1232771018
it includes headlights, taillights, lip spoiler, SRT front & rear bumber & sideskirts, the wheels I was looking at, the mini-cuda hood, and a paint job idea which would avoid a complete repaint of the car. (ignore the exhaust, it was simply in the imagery i borrowed to draw this up)

comments? ideas?

 

That would look nice minus that exhaust of course and maybe a different set of rims and also not a fan of the tails.

 

I like the stripes. I would say definate on that.

 

They uh, yeah. I guess I've heard of another 05 R/T, but it was supposedly a rollover from 04. Unless you're in Mexico, then I think they made the Neons until 2006, and may have continued the R/T down there. But I want to say that no R/Ts were made in 2005.

 

Those wheels look like ace Manta's...... I love those wheels!!!!!!, they look better in graphite. Everything looks good except for the two massive cans.

 

i really like those wheels.....

 

I'll have to check the registration slip i have for my former R/T, but i'm pretty sure it said 2005. But then again my registration could possibly be incorrect. 2004-05 were identical years for other models of neon, so its kinda a moot point. I know several parts books (such as headlights listings, etc) list neon rt through 05 though. it may have been an 04... i'll look into this, just out of curiosity. whatever the case, it was abnormally pristine and low mileage for a used car, and I kept it spotless, thoroughly waxed, & full of mobil1 until the accident.

Ok, so we have 1 in favor and 1 against the lip style spoiler idea. I'm not a big fan of wing spoilers, but I do like the factory spoilers for 03+ neons, especially the SRT spoiler. But thinking about the sort of throwback style of the mini'cuda hood reminded me of all the lip spoilers prevalent in that era. I think it matches well with the hood myself, thematically. I've almost talked myself out of the srt spoiler in favor of the lip, but I'll mull it over a while and seek more input I do like the SRT stock spoiler a lot as well.

The stripes, I thought someone might like those I've always loved the 70's musclecar big wide top-stripes. But they didn't seem to work well with the hood I like, so i toyed around and came up with what you see in the picture, as a way of blending old fashioned big stripes with that hood style. a bit proud of it

Don't like the wheels? I'm kinda undecided about wheels. In the photoshop of the car the wheels seem to look slightly 'off' in terms of their proportions. I might have them at the wrong angle. Anyway, here's a rundown of some of the ones i've been looking at (also, i fixed the exhaust ):
concept1back5.jpg?t=1232804426
concept1back4.jpg?t=1232804468
concept1back3.jpg?t=1232804496
concept1back2.jpg?t=1232804533
concept1back1.jpg?t=1232804569

You know what I'd really like though? The wheels from my neighbor's new mustang, which look like this pic :

not that they'd fit, but gees those would go nice. anybody know of a place to get something like that in 5-100?

 

and just a couple other wheels, just added to compare:
concept1back6.jpg?t=1232807555
concept1back7.jpg?t=1232807588