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Hi. Feb 4, 2008
We’ve taken possession of our newest project car. It’s a 1995 Plymouth Neon Sport Coupe in that particularly awesome factory color of Nitro Yellow Green (or NYG for the NeonNerds out there). The Neon has 135,000 miles on the ticker and it runs just fine, despite the fact that the purchase price was just one Benjamin. That’s right, $100.
A hundred bucks won’t buy you much these days, but it did buy us a car that drove down here to Florida from Maryland just fine. It used about a half-quart of oil and it’s got some paint issues, but otherwise, this Neon is a nice, solid car that we just had to save from the crusher (literally).
This particular Sport Coupe is loaded with every option that Plymouth offered, including an automatic transmission, leather interior and cruise control. Our plan is to convert it to a manual transmission and take it to the track, whether that’s the dirt track of a rallycross or the pavement of an autocross or track day.
Strike a Pose Feb 15, 2008
We’ve now gotten a chance to photo document our $100 Plymouth Neon. It’s in surprisingly good condition, but we’ve got a long way to go–the perfect starting point for a project.
The hood suffers from the Neon-Pox, a condition where the factory primer doesn’t adhere to the steel underneath.
The right portion of the front bumper isn’t what it was cracked up to be.
But, it’s only got 135,000 miles on it. That’s low mileage for a 1995–after all, it’s 13 years old!
The engine doesn’t appear to be in that bad a shape. There are a few minor oil leaks, but that’s about it. Oh, and the check engine light is on.
And there are those fancy factory leather seats.
Junkyarding Feb 18, 2008
Tom and Per spent Saturday at several junkyards in the central Florida area. We heard rumors that there was a Nitro Yellow Green Neon at the LKQ in Orlando, but that turned out to be false. We did, however, get a good front bumper cover as well as just about everything we need to convert the car to a manual transmission.
And here’s a look at our budget thus far. Although we’re not explicitly planning on having this car meet the $2008 Challenge budget, we’re not explicitly not planning on it, either. In other words, “Let’s see how this goes.”
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1995 Plymouth Neon: 100.00
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Transmission: 59.99
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Console cover: 4.99
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Cables: 12.99
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Axle shaft: 20.99
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Starter: 16.99
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Pedal assembly: 14.99
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Bumper cover: 39.99
- Computer ecm: 39.99
Total spent: $310.92
Lookin’ Good, Lookin’ Dirty Mar 3, 2008
The makeover is coming along for our Neon project car; we recently painted the hood and new front bumper. Before we covered it in mud and dirt at a local rallycross, we managed to have the car lookin’ pretty good.
We first scraped off the old, flaking paint with a razor blade. After a quick sand and prime, we used a Preval disposable airbrush to paint the base coat and clear coat.
At the TampaRally.Com rallycross the car was pretty good out on the two-and-a-half-minute long layout, but it didn’t have a lot of forward bite thanks to its nearly bald all-season tires.
Nor did it have a lot of rear bite, as the rear stepped out pretty easily on the gravel. That’s OK, that’s what makes Rallycross so much fun.
Shortly after we left the site, the battery died completely. We took it to a (thankfully) nearby auto parts store where it was tested at 46 cranking amps–considerably less than the 650 the battery had when we bought it new. Our guess is that heat and vibration shorted out the battery’s internals. Whatever it was, we’re out another 80-something bucks.
Neon RallyCross Action Apr 15, 2008
Scott and Per took the Neon to Tampa Rally’s April rallycross this past weekend. The car is still in the Stock Front class and we finished first and second in this class, as well as third and fourth overall.
The car survived all 16 runs and made it back home in one piece. The only issues that we noticed were some exhaust leaks and a coolant gauge that tended to run hot after a run or two. We’ve got a new radiator on the way, as well as a short-tube exhaust header from eBay.com