2nd Gen Neon 2000 - 2005 2nd Gen Neon

2001 ACR suspension options

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Old May 16, 2005 | 03:48 PM
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mechengineer201
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Default 2001 ACR suspension options

I have a 01 ACR that I have autoXed in GS since I bought the car but due to winter rallyXing I ripped up some of my suspension bushings and decided to go with some prothane poly's. This has put me in a bad situation because now I can't legally run the car in stock class anymore. My thought is to try to make the car a somewhat competitive street prepared vehicle but that involves some careful suspension tuning. I love the OEM dynamic suspension struts except for the fact that when you adjust them you change both the bound and rebound simultaneously, which usually results in too much bound for the amount of rebound I like but I am hesitant to get rid of them because there aren't many options I think would show significant improvement over them. These are high quality inverted units with oversize rods designed to minimize deflection in bending and thus help the suspension better maintain its geometry under high lateral loads. What I am after is a strut that will have only rebound adjustment or seperate adjustments and will have similar, if not better resistance to bending. The mopar stage 3 coilovers seem like a good unit but I don't think they would be as good as the dynamics because of the small rod. I also saw that koni has inserts available but they are made as replacements for the standard neon and the R/T which most likely won't fit into the strut bodies I have and they also have the disadvantage of the small strut rod. I don't want to just slap lowering springs or threaded coilovers on the dynamics because I don't want to lose shock travel, which is fairly minimal on the fronts anyway. There is really no way the car is going to be competitve with its stock ride height because the center of gravity is so damn high on the 2nd gens (one of the reasons I think it has such a hard time hanging with the 1st gens not to mention the increased weight and longer wheelbase). The other thing to consider is what will happen with the roll centers if the vehicle is lowered because the front roll on the car is already horrible and results in massive wheelspin, due to unloading of the inside front, when accelerating out of a corner. I don't mind the rear roll because the three wheel effect tends to help the car rotate but I think the majority of the inside rear tire lift is due to outside front compression and front roll (combination of vehicle pitch and roll response to braking and steering input). In short the dodge engineers and the aftermarket, as I see it, haven't really provided much room for improvement over the stock ACR setup or any good solutions except for the obvious need for a limited slip diff despite the minimal power. What I really want is any feedback on the mopar coilovers from somebody who uses them IN COMPETITION (not for show) and what swaybars they matched to them or some other alternatives that won't compromise what I previously stated. I'm not about to spend $1500 on something that isn't going to give the desired results!
 
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