A New Neon Project
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Joined: Nov 2008
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Thread Starter
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Joined: Nov 2008
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Extra cooling is always good, even if i never turbocharge. and an OEM SRT-D bumper is proving to be a real pain to find. So I'm circling back to the SRT-4 bumper. I love the mopar/rt body skirting though, and the srt-4 bumper's lip drops lower than the mopar skirting, which to me is not a classy look. I like the skirting to look matched.
So... i'll just get an srt-4 bumper, and spend a couple days on it with a dremmel and sandpaper before I get it painted. It looks like its about a 1-2cm difference that I'd have to shave off. I can just 'eyeball' it (didn't go to art school for nothing), but if anyone has a suggestion for making it easier to make a very precise even cut, speak up
Also, since the srt-4 bumper has nicely contoured foglight holes, and I'm probably going HID anyway, I am going to forget about the foglights & insert mounts. And instead I just want to put a black screen in the foglight openings (not the little round openings, i mean the larger 'D' shaped openings). I'm also thinking I can use the driver side foglight opening as a spot to rig some sort of ram-air setup with a homebuilt CAI
Anyway, my question is about screening. I want to rig my own screening (so that grille, nostrils, and foglight openings will all match) and i prefer black. What material should I use to screen? I'm guessing black plastic or black painted metal. I'm sure I could figure something out easily enough, I'm just looking for any advice so that it doesn't end up looking like crap after a couple years of wear & tear.
__
Another thought on the skirting. The srt-4 skirts seem to have 4 small door panel pieces. They look like completely flat pieces of plastic that are applied to the bottom edge of the 4 doors to create that matching trim line all the way around the car. They LOOK like they're the exact same height as the mopar/rt sideskirts near the wheel wells. I have 2 questions about these.
1) does the mopar/rt sideskirt kit come with those door bits as well? (my R/T didn't have the door bits).
and 2) if not, are the srt-4 door bits the same height as the leading & trailing edge of the mopar/rt sideskirts? (it looks like they are, but its hard to tell in pics)
The reason I ask is that I'd very much like to have those little door panel pieces. I think they help give the car a very sleek clean look, and help tie together the body skirting IMO.
__
As for pics & progress, patience grasshopper. I'm still in physical therapy from totalling my R/T last august. Some stuff I could do now, some stuff i plan to pay someone else to do anyway, and other stuff I'm just not limber enough yet (mostly the drivetrain work). The external body work will be simple enough to do, so I may start there.
Then again, this SXT handles like boat, I can't believe the difference in cornering between it and the R/T. Since it came with new tires on the sxt wheels, I was going to do the wheels/tires/struts/springs/swaybar/strutbrace last, to get some use out of the new tread on my current tires. and also because with my injuries, I still find it helpful getting in & out to have the car 'up'. But I dunno how long I can live with the stock sxt handling. I'd like to do all of that at once in one shot, and get one allignment afterwards. Planned on doing this in the fall. It handles bad though, needs an alignment currently, and the left rear tire is losing air. I may do this first just because I plan to take all the parts to a local mechanic and let them do it, since I can't really mount tires or do alignments at home, and it'd just be a lot easier for someone to do it up on a rack anyway.
weather is an issue, i don't have a garage. I can just throw a tarp over a project in progress, but Feb. has been pretty cold around here.
hey I bought a leather wrapped dodge logo steering wheel cover, and I even installed it myself! does that count as progress?
hehe
seriously though I've found the mopar skirt kit. and I'm hunting for a good deal on an srt-4 bumper. and right now i'm actually heading off to a couple car stereo places to look at some 6x9's & small amps before my physical therapy session.
So... i'll just get an srt-4 bumper, and spend a couple days on it with a dremmel and sandpaper before I get it painted. It looks like its about a 1-2cm difference that I'd have to shave off. I can just 'eyeball' it (didn't go to art school for nothing), but if anyone has a suggestion for making it easier to make a very precise even cut, speak up
Also, since the srt-4 bumper has nicely contoured foglight holes, and I'm probably going HID anyway, I am going to forget about the foglights & insert mounts. And instead I just want to put a black screen in the foglight openings (not the little round openings, i mean the larger 'D' shaped openings). I'm also thinking I can use the driver side foglight opening as a spot to rig some sort of ram-air setup with a homebuilt CAI
Anyway, my question is about screening. I want to rig my own screening (so that grille, nostrils, and foglight openings will all match) and i prefer black. What material should I use to screen? I'm guessing black plastic or black painted metal. I'm sure I could figure something out easily enough, I'm just looking for any advice so that it doesn't end up looking like crap after a couple years of wear & tear.__
Another thought on the skirting. The srt-4 skirts seem to have 4 small door panel pieces. They look like completely flat pieces of plastic that are applied to the bottom edge of the 4 doors to create that matching trim line all the way around the car. They LOOK like they're the exact same height as the mopar/rt sideskirts near the wheel wells. I have 2 questions about these.
1) does the mopar/rt sideskirt kit come with those door bits as well? (my R/T didn't have the door bits).
and 2) if not, are the srt-4 door bits the same height as the leading & trailing edge of the mopar/rt sideskirts? (it looks like they are, but its hard to tell in pics)
The reason I ask is that I'd very much like to have those little door panel pieces. I think they help give the car a very sleek clean look, and help tie together the body skirting IMO.
__
As for pics & progress, patience grasshopper. I'm still in physical therapy from totalling my R/T last august. Some stuff I could do now, some stuff i plan to pay someone else to do anyway, and other stuff I'm just not limber enough yet (mostly the drivetrain work). The external body work will be simple enough to do, so I may start there.
Then again, this SXT handles like boat, I can't believe the difference in cornering between it and the R/T. Since it came with new tires on the sxt wheels, I was going to do the wheels/tires/struts/springs/swaybar/strutbrace last, to get some use out of the new tread on my current tires. and also because with my injuries, I still find it helpful getting in & out to have the car 'up'. But I dunno how long I can live with the stock sxt handling. I'd like to do all of that at once in one shot, and get one allignment afterwards. Planned on doing this in the fall. It handles bad though, needs an alignment currently, and the left rear tire is losing air. I may do this first just because I plan to take all the parts to a local mechanic and let them do it, since I can't really mount tires or do alignments at home, and it'd just be a lot easier for someone to do it up on a rack anyway.
weather is an issue, i don't have a garage. I can just throw a tarp over a project in progress, but Feb. has been pretty cold around here.
hey I bought a leather wrapped dodge logo steering wheel cover, and I even installed it myself! does that count as progress?
heheseriously though I've found the mopar skirt kit. and I'm hunting for a good deal on an srt-4 bumper. and right now i'm actually heading off to a couple car stereo places to look at some 6x9's & small amps before my physical therapy session.
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Well it didn't take long to figure out what I want to do radio-wise.
I've decided to get a kenwood head unit with both aux & USB inputs. plays cd's, or you can plug a music player into the aux input. or you can plug an ipod into the usb and navigate it from the head unit's controls (or remote), or you can put wma's/mp3's on a thumb usb drive and plug it right into the head unit and play that. I'm especially fond of that feature. some of the audiophiles are probably thinking 'what's so new about that?' but its new to me, i haven't looked at head units in a number of years.
also, it sounds really nice in the store. moderately more wattage than stock, but a lot better bass response, and much less distortion at volume. hard to say how much of that sound quality was the head unit and how much the speakers, but i'm getting both so who cares
the rear speakers in my sxt sound 'bad', not blown, just bad. so I'll swap those out with kenwood 4way 6x9's.
going to leave the front 4 speakers 'as is' for now, since I've always thought the stock front speakers sounded pretty decent for factory speakers. I'm going to wait & see how they sound with the better head unit at least.
So anyway, KDC-MP342U head unit, and KFC-6972ie 6x9's in back. about $300 worth. if/when i do the front speakers and/or a subwoofer, this head unit should complete the set very nicely.
(and I will get to burn that stupid fm transmitter adapter)
local sale and install deal means I wont get to crawl around under the dash. with the sale, an install kit costs more than the install. I guess thats a plus, personally I like to tinker but i'm not going to pay extra to
I've decided to get a kenwood head unit with both aux & USB inputs. plays cd's, or you can plug a music player into the aux input. or you can plug an ipod into the usb and navigate it from the head unit's controls (or remote), or you can put wma's/mp3's on a thumb usb drive and plug it right into the head unit and play that. I'm especially fond of that feature. some of the audiophiles are probably thinking 'what's so new about that?' but its new to me, i haven't looked at head units in a number of years.
also, it sounds really nice in the store. moderately more wattage than stock, but a lot better bass response, and much less distortion at volume. hard to say how much of that sound quality was the head unit and how much the speakers, but i'm getting both so who cares
the rear speakers in my sxt sound 'bad', not blown, just bad. so I'll swap those out with kenwood 4way 6x9's.
going to leave the front 4 speakers 'as is' for now, since I've always thought the stock front speakers sounded pretty decent for factory speakers. I'm going to wait & see how they sound with the better head unit at least.
So anyway, KDC-MP342U head unit, and KFC-6972ie 6x9's in back. about $300 worth. if/when i do the front speakers and/or a subwoofer, this head unit should complete the set very nicely.
(and I will get to burn that stupid fm transmitter adapter)
local sale and install deal means I wont get to crawl around under the dash. with the sale, an install kit costs more than the install. I guess thats a plus, personally I like to tinker but i'm not going to pay extra to
Captain
Joined: Oct 2008
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From: Northern KY(tri-state)
when i got my neon a year ago my front door speakers were blown.so i got some JVC's.since your changing the rear first then you'll find the fronts are alot easier.my fronts put out so much clear music i love it.lol so theres your audio.whats next???
