Not another Neon! Refreshing a 1998 Plymouth Neon ACR coupe for daily usage

I know GRM goes loony for Neons, so I'll give this a try. My build is absolutely in the shadow of the Lapis ACR, but I just saw that it just got sold, so y'all are welcome here to get your blue Neon fix. My first beater car was a Strawberry Red (pink) 1997 Plymouth Neon Sport. Every car after that has been an upgrade on the last. Due to Canadian winters ravaging cars, my beater and project have always been separate. For years I've been dumping all of my available resources into my 1993 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 1 RS, which is nowhere near done, and I started to get a bit jaded. My current beater (G37X) isn't fun to drive, and motorsports seems so far away, so it's time to drag out the ACR and go back to my roots. This will be a summer daily car once I'm done with it, and I hope it's just as much fun as I hope it will be.

Meet my Intense Blue Pearl Metallic (PB3) 1998 Plymouth Neon ACR coupe, 1 of 52 PB3 Plymouth coupes in 1998 according to the Neon registry guru. I bought it somewhere around 2010 for $225 at a salvage auction, outbidding the scrapper by $25. The "collision" that wrote it off was basically just enough to knock the bumper off a few clips and put a crease in the hood, but the value was so low that insurance just wanted it off the road. The previous owner(s) were straight-up abusive to it, mechanics that touched it made things worse, and the car was in ruins when I got it. I already had a 1998 2.4L Neon R/T and my Evo, but come on, $225 for a blue ACR is something worth trying.

The last known mileage of this car was 259,999 km (161,555 miles) just prior to it being written off and auctioned in 2010, and I think I saw a cluster with that mileage among the ones that were included in the trunk. I'll re-solder it and reinstall it, since the previous owner likely switched it due to malfunction (or to commit fraud). This Neon was written off and given a salvage title for "SEVERE DAMAGE!" according to CarFax - the previous owner stacked insurance claims for all the damage on the car to pass the threshold for writing a car off, which was common practice back then to get a payout. In total, it had $1,762.20 in damage, which looks about right for a hood, bumper, marker light and bodywork/paint. The sad part is that it looked like your average used Neon, not a wreck. It will wear the rebuilt title forever, but this has always been a very straight chassis that never needed any correction. I'm trying not to repeat the same mistakes I made with my old Neons - I neglected my Strawberry Red 1997 Sport Coupe beater, cheaped out on it majorly and let it die. My 2.4 turbo R/T was extremely nice, but I got overly ambitious with it and gave up. This ACR is just going to be a cleanup of every common issue that Neons have, fixing every mechanical fault that my be lingering, and adding some modifications that don't ruin the experience.

As awful as the car looked, it didn't have any body rot and it was straight. It was a great shell to start with. A new hood and trunk lid, plus some DEPO projectors, and off to bodywork it went.  

Bodywork was pretty straight forward. Just back to stock and a fresh coat of paint. No surprises. It still has a bunch of overspray to this day and needs the front panels aligned. The surfboard was deleted since the car didn't come with one originally.
(sorry for the bad pictures, this was ~2011 on an awful phone)

Then it came to some maintenance. New brakes all around, with Hawk HPS pads, braided stainless brake lines, and fresh rotors.

The interior got some love, starting with stripping it down to the metal and giving it a scrub. One of the local Neonites supplied me with a nice replacement carpet, another sold me his NIB leather shift knob, I sourced a very nice leather steering wheel off the .org, the original seats cleaned up nicely, and trim got some new paint. I'm very grateful to my friends for the help they've given me on this car, and others. Booger shifter bushings went in while I was there. The cluster that was installed in the car had 114,000ish km on it, so I put that one back in. There were two more clusters in the trunk, so there were likely issues with at least one of them, but I'll dig out the one that has the 'true' mileage of 260,000 km.

The next order of business was getting the engine running better, it stumbled really badly when I got it. With basic tune-up stuff it ran okay, but still had a bit of a misfire that could be attributed to wiring. Oh, and it got a new timing belt. Ick.

Mechanically, it was pretty lousy.

The clutch has never worked properly. It has a very strange pedal feel and the engagement point isn't consistent. We've tried a few used replacement clutch cables and they didn't really fix it, so it just needs a wholesale change.

I don't have photos of the installation(s), but the car got a full set of Energy Suspension polyurethane suspension bushings. The car had its original Konis & ACR springs, but we decided to replace them anyway. I talked to Ed Peters (the authority on building/racing Neons) a lot at the time (I hope you're resting easy, Ed), and he sold me a couple of sets of Koni Yellows that were painted black to hide the fact that they were Koni Yellows with camber adjustment in SCCA racing. I also bought a pair of Mopar High-Rate front springs, and a pair of Mopar X-High rate rear springs, which is a happy coincidence since my 2.4T R/T had a pair of X-Highs on the front, and Highs on the rear. A set of new Konis went on the car with the original ACR springs. 

The ACR steering rack was really bad mechanically, and had to go. In its place went a Shadow 14:1 rack, and it's a handful. The slightest movement of the steering wheel turns the car pretty quickly, so you can't really get lazy with this car.

A full set of Bubble wheels was sourced, and 195/60R14 Nitto NT-01s were put on because I found a set locally. She had a lot of sticking power.

It's got a Mopar DOHC PCM in it that works nicely, no plans on getting rid of it.

The coolant boiled over while autocrossing, reminding me that the car still has an electrical issue with the cooling fans, and likely led to harm to the engine. The muffler is rotten, one of the rear suspension lateral links is badly bent, and it still has a bunch of things that need improvement. This is how I left it in 2015, when I moved away from my home city, likely the biggest mistake I made in my life. I'm trying to get back home now, and re-starting the ACR is a major priority when I do.

2023 and beyond

Since the car is cosmetically in great shape and needs help mechanically (the opposite of most of my projects), it should be pretty simple to solve. The intent is to build something that's pleasant for a guy in his 30s to drive around in summer. No loud exhausts, no stiff suspension, no solid engine mounts, no SCCA class rules to limit what I want. It just has to be enjoyable.

I'd like to get the following done:
-Swap ACR springs for Mopar High Rates
-New tie rods, ball joints and rear lateral links (4), and give it a reasonable alignment to balance handling and tire wear
-Suspension Techniques 13/16" rear sway bar
-15x7 +35 wheels with 205/50R15 Bridgestone Potenza RE71RS
-New exhaust with a TTI mid-length header, new OEM cat, Trubendz 2.25" piping kit, and a new-in-box Borla muffler
-Air intake mods, featuring an Iceman cold air snorkus, troggle body from an automatic transmission car (52mm over 49mm) and a fully ported intake manifold, with NeonGoodies spacers & EGR delete
-Rebuilt cylinder head with a 0.030" deck, and a 2.7L rocker & PT lifter combination and custom 420A valve cover
-All new gaskets, both bottom end and top end, with new main & rod bearings
-Basic Ishihara-Johnson crank scraper
-Litens tensioner conversion with all new timing parts and Modern Performance underdrive pulley
-Full cooling system overhaul - new OEM radiator, water pump, all hoses, metal lines, and getting the electrical components working 100%
-New OEM replacement engine mounts with Prothane 'street' motor mount inserts 
-New PT clutch (purchased on Rock Auto for $42!!), new Mopar clutch cable, and a Maddog 50% STS

I'm fully prepped to buy a LSD for the car and just toss it into the nice shifting original 3.94:1 transmission, and may do just that. It's a bad case of project creep, but the Neon needs a LSD badly and the OBX unit is still available. It just needs a little work.

...and whatever else comes up. It should be a very pleasant 135 whp beater and a lot of fun to drive. 

Well, that was the idea until things got a bit complicated. 

 I was in town for a couple weeks for the holidays and decided to take a run down to the local U-pull to get some cheap 2.7L rockers for the build, and maybe some PT lifters. They don't have any 1G Neons on the lot, so the trip was going to be uneventful. After raiding three of Chrysler's finest 2.7L products and putting together 16 rockers without any obvious scoring on them, I spotted a DSM nose peeking out from the end of the line, buried in a snowbank. I have a 4G63T car that swallows all of my money (though nothing it needs ever comes from a junkyard), and I had been looking for a 420A valve cover the day before so I could paint one up. Either way, looking at this turd DSM was going to be a win. 

I took a quick look around, this car sucked. It was under a foot of snow, the body was trash, it had ugly ass wheels and bald tires, it had rust cut out on the quarters, the shock towers were rotten beyond belief, the interior was fully stripped and just thrown back in. It was an abysmally failed project. I dug the snow off of the valve cover and there sat the lowly 420A.

I unearthed the sides of the engine bay and noticed that someone already took the exhaust manifold and cam gears off of it, chopping the timing belt. Odd. The valve cover came off without a fight, and I saw something verrrry strange underneath.

You're probably thinking what I'm thinking. Why does a stock 420A DSM have titanium retainers? It was at this time I noticed that the cams were quite shiny, not the crummy cast look of stock cams. I pulled the cams and went home for the day, since I didn't have the tools to finish the job. The cams turned out to be BC0167 Stage 2 N/A 420A cams from Brian Crower, and when used in a Neon head, they have great specs. Score!

I was worried that the car was going to be scrapped while I was gone, since it was just about the longest tenured car on the lot and nobody seemed to have visited it in weeks. I was prepared to take an extended weekend to pull a whole motor if I found even more hiding under the head. I got back in the morning, argued with the car for a few more hours (not fun in a snowbank), and pulled the head. Stock pistons. Stock everything. What a weird car.

I got the cylinder head back to home base and took a good look at it. I couldn't believe what I had pulled. I see the springs & titanium retainers, new 2.0 style lifters & rockers (bad choice, but nice), aftermarket stainless steel valves, ARP studs and FULL PROFESSIONAL PORTING! HOLY S**T!!!!

So, for the low, low price of $105.00 CAD ($78.07 USD), I scooped one of the baddest 420A heads I've ever seen, plus some ARP studs, 2.7L rockers and a 420A valve cover that I can paint. The problem, though - the Neon's intake & exhaust sides are switched relative to the 420A. I can't use this head on my car. I can use the cams (with modification), the valves, the springs/retainers, the studs, and it would go HARD on a well-supported 2.0L Neon, but I can't use the nice ported head. So 135 hp may have become 170 hp in a hurry.

Project creep is real. Finding that head led me to buying AEM cam gears and the fully ported intake manifold to fine-tune the setup. I was happy to buy the intake used, rather than attacking it with a die grinder for 10 hours to get this result.

Just part of the parts pile, like half maybe?

Neon stereos are awful too, so basic upgrades required. I had a pair of Hertz speakers in my S2000 and LOVED them, so I got their bargain-basement 6.5s and 6x9s for the Neon.

Then I dusted off my old Clarion DXZ945MP head unit I had on the shelf. These came out around 2003 and were absolute sluggers, like $900 MSRP new. They're still loved by audiophiles for the high quality of the unit, fantastic sound processors and endless setting options. I loved satellite radio back in the day and bought a Clarion SIR-CL1 Sirius module for integrated satellite radio in my old Neon R/T. In the time I had it from 2008-2014, it always worked and I never paid for it. It hasn't powered up since 2014, so the deciding factor on what head unit I would use was whether the satellite radio still worked. I took the head unit and Sirius module out to my Infiniti, powered it up, and after nearly nine years of inactivity...it still has free Sirius satellite radio. I'll get an iPhone-to-RCA AUX cable to give it a bit more connectivity, but I'm glad it doesn't have bluetooth. We're going back to the 2000s, people can wait. 

Man, what a score on the head!

And a built 2.0 is fun, but i loved the torqe bump of the 2.4 in my acr. 

Ill be watching this one come together!

Loving this thread - taking me back nearly 20 years (!!!) to my n/a 2.4 crane 18 build followed by srt4 based swap. These were really underrated cars, and I'd happily drive another!

Following. Love the build so far. 

I feel some envy on the junkyard finds. Nice Neon. 

Fall is over here in Winnipeg, and my project car work is winding down for the year due to my unheated, un-insulated working space. I just bought a new house to move home and ended up with something I really liked, but the garage leaves a lot to be desired. I effectively moved in at the beginning of September, and re-started working on the Neon half way through October. Fresh out of the barn after 8 years, it weathered well in some ways, and poorly in others.

The ancient RT-615s can finally retire. A set of Neon bubbles with 2005 date coded RA1s will take over.

Rodents really went to town and ruined most of the interior in the past year, and a lot of the bolt-on stuff to the chassis rusted. If I hadn't bought a boatload of parts for it this past year, I probably would've (and should've) given up on it. But the chassis is still good and there are lots of bright spots to this car, so on we go.

The interior after being gutted and scrubbed of the rodents. I fixed up a few wires that had been chewed through, but I still need a new carpet and new seats. The headliner is being recovered with new fabric soon, and I'll pull the rest of the dash out to clean out the HVAC in the spring. The car smells okay now, so that problem is solved.

The car suffers from most of the routine Neon issues and most fixes are well-known, like 3D-printed window regulators, and a lot of DIYing to fix the annoying issues.

Anyway, the car drove into my garage from the tow truck, on 8+ year old gas, and crossed the finish line right when the fuel line blew out at the tank. Pretty impressive that a janky car on 8+ year old fuel could actually do it. A compression test showed bad results though, 215 - 200 - 120 - 200. The car had overheating issues that the previous owner failed to fix correctly, which likely lead to a combustion sealing failure. The fan control module usually fails on Neons, but instead of replacing it - the previous owner tried to replace ECUs, and eventually hardwired the fan - anything but properly diagnose the problem. I pulled the cooling system apart, and it was pure milkshake with rotten water pipes, a leaky radiator, a failed thermostat, and likely a warped head. It's ALL getting changed.

The block is really ugly, possibly the worst I've seen cosmetically. It also leaks oil out of every orifice - the rear main coated everything.

Despite the highish mileage (260,000 km or 161,500 miles), and long history of neglect, the head looked good. It ran nice with no funny noises, as I recall. I bought an entire exhaust system (TTi mid-tube header, NOS Mopar catalytic converter, TruBendz 2.25" piping and Borla muffler), when it turns out that the exhaust is in great condition other than a cracked manifold and rotten muffler. Oops.

Big thanks to GRMer Run Away for coming by to unjam the CVs from the transmission for me.

Anyway, this car has always had a really strange clutch pedal, which is why the engine/trans came out in the first place. Its engagement point varied so much, I figured all the clutch cables that came with the car all had the same failure that prevented them from keeping the clutch motion consistent. When we pulled off the transmission, we found out why. It became obvious that someone had been in there when some of the transmission bolts were loose, some were missing (!!), and for whatever reason, previous owner installed a Valeo non-modular clutch in this car. They went through the trouble of finding a rareish flywheel, lined it up, slapped it together and called it a day instead of buying a modular clutch kit. That's fine by itself, but the problem is that they didn't replace the pivot ball, which failed, and things went south from there. The clutch has very little use, but the pressure plate is ruined from bad alignment. Fingers are missing, the ones that remain are jagged blades, because the TOB wore through them and was likely on its way to total clutch failure very shortly. So once again, the previous owner did a poor fix on the car and then couldn't figure out why the car continued to misbehave, so they just kicked the can down the road. My $42 RockAuto LuK PT Cruiser clutch, NOS Mopar clutch cable, Mopar clutch pivot ball, TOB, and a donated flexplate will put this all together the way it was meant to be. I won't tolerate any more clutch issues!

But wait, there's more! Not only did this gorilla totally botch the clutch job by cheaping out, they also wrecked several of the flywheel bolt threads on the crankshaft! These crankshafts are extremely hard to find here, there are simply no Neon 2.0L engines around. Shipping one to me is atrociously expensive, so that's out. My dad is optimistic that the machine shop he's dealt with for decades will fix this at a reasonable price, and I'm hopeful. The bills are really piling up on this car. The block needs a tanking and a decking at least, plus the crank fix, in addition to a head decking (which will be used as an excuse to crank up the compression). With that, a junkyard 2.4L is looking really appealing to save money.

Neons are not very well prepared for the elements and they typically died quick deaths in Canada. This one is the highest mileage Neon I've had, so it should've fared the worst. Despite that, I never really realized that the chassis and surrounding stuff is still really good, and there is nothing that a bit of grinding and touch-up can't handle quickly. I'm stoked that the body still looks this good after 25 years! I'll clean up whatever surface rust I can this winter & spring; with most of the bolt-on stuff being replaced, it should look good regardless. The rockers are a known rust spot on Neons, but both look great inside and have already been covered in Fluid Film to keep them from ever rotting out.

After struggling for a bit tearing the engine down last night, I came back today with an air impact and they came off easy. And the news is.....good?!

Somehow the bores still look nearly new. Great cross-hatch, no ridge, very little up/down wear evident. I'm confident these bores are still good, so they'll get a dingleball hone and maybe some new EngineTech moly rings ($27 USD!), and should be good as new. If the pistons show abnormal wear, I'd be happy with a set of standard bore EngineTechs ($68.29 USD!!!) and everything would be fresh. The cylinder head looks really good, no damage evident anywhere. I'll assume it's still warped, which I think is a safe assumption. A friend of mine offered up a DOHC head that's ported on the intake side for free; I'm thinking about bringing that cylinder head, plus my ported 420A head to a machine shop and asking them to replicate the exhaust port work. Or, we could throw the BC valve train from the 420A head into this one and run on stock ports. Undecided, but there are some choices here. I'm trying to get a set of Crane 16s or Crower S2s to use instead of modifying the BC 420A cams.

Situation as of last night, not much is likely to change before the snow melts. Once the engine is refurbished and the trans comes back from the cleaning & LSD/input bearing install, it should go together very quickly.

Great thread. Plenty of pictures and good content. 

Some more engine content before winter:

I removed the oil pan because it needs a good cleaning and immediately noticed a bit of debris in the oil pickup, but couldn't resist the urge to pull a rod cap.

The rod bearings looked great, but the crank is grooved. It absolutely needs a cut. After checking all of the rod journals finding the same thing, I figured there wasn't any loss in pulling the pistons from the bores. And sure enough...

The skirts are barcodes, so the pistons themselves are junk. The bores don't feel awful, but I'll wait on a machine shop to tell me what needs to be done. Now that the crank needs a cut on top of the bad flywheel threads, it's cost prohibitive to fix it, so it's out. A US-based Neon hoarder believes he has a drop-in-ready 2.0L crankshaft that would be a lifesaver, and he's willing to ship it if he has it. If the block needs a bore, I'd be very close to dumping the 2.0L. Pistons and rings would still only be $130 CAD, but a bore is around $240 CAD. I really hope that the rods don't need any correction either, they definitely aren't worth it.

In better news, I bought my favorite all-around Neon cams today, the Crane 0016. They are a great middling camshaft that has good manners and will make peak power around 7,000 RPM or so and rip all the way up to the 7,600 RPM redline. I also bought some Rhoads lifters with it, which are a mechanical variable valve timing solution that tames down big cams. They work to help monster cams make more vacuum at idle, and I thought that I could use them to prevent a rich condition that comes with low vacuum at idle, but I'll use stock PT Cruiser spec lifters and solve the fuel issue in a different manner.

Typically Neoners used a S-AFC to pull fuel at idle, but that same Neon hoarder volunteered to tune me an ECU for my specific setup, which will run far better than the stock ECU or Mopar Performance ECU in the car. Yes, that exists! I'm still optimistic about the situation despite things not looking good today, but it's just money, right?

Thanks for documenting the, uh, joys of Neon ownership.

I'm glad to see you are persevering through the usual pain points of rear main seal and head gasket failure, combined with the previous owner's booger jobs.

Are you keeping the 2.0 naturally aspirated?

Great read! Love other people keeping Neons going.

In reply to RandolphCarter :

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Neons don't get a lot of support or respect, so it's good to see.

It won't be turbocharged, at least not for the foreseeable future. I had a 2.4L swapped R/T with a Hahn Racecraft 16G turbo kit (with FMU - barf), and the kit has been offered for me since it's not in use anymore, but I don't miss the complications with making it run. I don't miss the aftermarket fuel system, rewiring it for Megasquirt, boost leaks, and all of the other issues of a standalone that it brought. Even if it's as slow as molasses in January in Winnipeg, I want stock wiring, a stock fuel system, and trouble-free driving.

If I could get a plug-and-play MS system with a drop-in wiring harness, a simple but effective fuel system all for $1,000 or less with tuning - I'd consider it, but it's not going to happen unless my priorities change.

This is the sort of project I love reading about on here: a dedicated owner fixing something most people won't necessarily care about with luck in sourcing parts. Eager to see how the engine rebuild comes together.

And we're back in 2024! The weather is cooperating to an extent and work is getting done. It's mostly disassembly and lots of tedious cleaning, but some things are going back together and looking good.

I pulled the dash out a couple weeks ago and went to town scrubbing the mouse remnants out of it. Not a ton of fun and not glamourous. The dash itself cleaned up to a satisfactory level, but mice chewed up the rare non-AC heater box and blower fan. It's back together and functional, though the blower motor will be down on efficiency and there will be air leakage to the dash vents. It's a summer car, so not the end of the world. I've spent hours and tons and tons of chemicals to cleanse this car and I think it's finally good enough. It smells like nothing now.

The headliner is a sore spot for me. I waited and waited for a replacement to show up at a local junkyard, but we still haven't seen a 1G Neon here in years. They're just all gone, so I had to fix my old one. Pictures are above if you want a reminder to show how bad it was. I'm not thrilled with the result here, but thanks to the super-low bar of "it's better than it was", and "at least it doesn't smell" - this is a win, I guess. I used clamps all around to glue the opposite sides, which is why the edges don't look that great.

I'm trying to put in the ACC carpet now, which has the 'mass' rubberized backing. This thing does not want to install in a cold/dark garage, it's extremely stubborn. The heater system is back in, and the dash will go back in after I finish the carpet install.

Next we'll go to a little before & after of the engine bay. I scrubbed the heck out of it and freshened what I could.

And after! There is some surface rust below the battery tray but otherwise this is really good for a Canadian car.



 

Moving down below, the rear suspension was pulled out to get some new components. The lateral arms and trailing arms didn't fare well over the years, they need to go. The calipers and rotors are also trash. The lateral link bolts all came out easily, nothing is seized. Major win, these things usually give owners fits, and cost a lot to replace. But look at that chassis! It's amazing for a Canadian car!

More suspension freshening here: the Koni struts I had on the car are very low-mileage Koni Yellows that Ed Peters used to cheat in showroom stock racing with. They got some overspray in the painting process and a bit of surface rust, but nothing that won't clean up. A local buddy of mine and I pooled our springs together, and for three Neons we have: 2x set Mopar High Rate; 2x set Mopar X-High Rate; 2x set Mopar Neon ACR. I think we have 4 sets of Konis and a set of Arvins, too. Anyway, this car is getting basic old Konis with Mopar High Rates, which is a great street combo. I decided to get new front strut mounts and bearings, but will be re-using the rear mounts, a set of non-ACR bump stops, and stock bellows boots. 

The transmission is all sorted out. My ACR has the original 3.94 / 0.81 transmission and it shifted very nicely, so I didn't want to mess with it any more than I had to. Basically just adding the OBX LSD and a new input shaft bearing, since it's right there. My old pink Neon Sport had a bad input shaft bearing and sounded like a rock tumbler, I don't want that. I gave this job to a local transmission shop to do properly (setting backlash, etc) and cleaning up the disgusting case.

First up was addressing the OBX LSD. These work great but need machining on the axle gears to smooth the transition for the axle clip, otherwise they'll just jam the axle and it will never come out. I also added new Belleville washers and bolts, but I was surprised to see that this latest iteration of the OBX LSD actually has the exact same bolts. 

Before & after again:

I don't have the engine yet, but there were some surprises in getting everything cleaned up. I'm hoping to get every engine component back this week, but I'll be out of town for a couple weeks after that, so it won't get done for a while. I know I'm bouncing around everything on this car in a very ADHD way. I'm struggling in getting the rear strut rods pulled apart, so I can't put them back together with fresh parts yet - and need to drop the fuel tank before I put that all back in. Waiting on getting new front wheel bearings and ball joints pressed in before I can re-assemble that whole mess, too. I'm hoping this will move a bit quicker as the puzzle pieces align, I want it done by summer.

Holy smokes a brand new Borla, that's awesome!

Not a lot has been done but I'm making good progress getting the things I need to carry this out.

Biggest news is that a Neon finally arrived in the junkyard. Two, actually. They're both sedans, but one was a 1999 DOHC car and I scooped what I could. I got a lot of important interior bits, a DOHC engine harness, PCM, and a lot more that would've nickle-dimed me to death buying from the US.

First - Koni Blacks (formerly Koni Yellows that Ed Peters painted black to cheat in Showroom Stock Racing), Mopar High Rates, NOS front strut mounts and new strut bearings. I looked up and down but couldn't find out what strut bearing we could use on our cars, and eventually tried Febest CRB-002, which is an equivalent of Mopar 4684418, which was used in 90s Caravans. It fits! If you need new strut bearings on otherwise good strut mounts, that's your answer. They're like $10.

The engine came back from the machine shop! Mostly just a cleanup on the bottom end, +0.020" overbore on the block, polishing the crank (and fixing the aped crank bolt holes). One connecting rod was bad due to a strange fracture cracking result at the factory. It rocked and couldn't be cleaned up, so it had to be replaced.

The cylinder head is good to go. It's the original head decked 0.025", and has a full BC valvetrain (stainless valves, valve springs, titanium retainers). This should net around 10.2:1 compression or so, and be enough to let the Crane 16s do their thing.

I should note that I spent a while looking for the o-ring that goes between the block and bed plate, since the EngineTech gasket kit didn't come with it. The part number for the o-ring is 6034773, but it's long gone. Instead, I got a pack of Viton o-rings measuring 1-1/16" ID, with 3/32" cross section (1.255" x 0.103"). It works perfectly.

Next, I got a new set of dowels for the engine & trans.
Block to bedplate: 4694106 (3)
Head to block: 4448856 (2)
Trans to block: 5240849 (2)

Next, did some arts 'n crafts with the 420A valve cover. Not my best work, but it will do.

Literally everything is broken on this car. The steering joint boot was half missing, lord knows how long the joint was exposed to the elements.

And fixed, thanks to the junkyard parts car. More trouble than it should be.

Got a NOS flexplate spacer, some of Mopar's best here.

Lastly, the carpet is now in and I can start putting the interior back together, starting with the dash shortly. The ACC carpet is okay. It's a bit tricky to install and doesn't fit 100%, especially at the rear floorboard area. The carpet was made for sedans and doesn't go around the coupe brace, so the blue brace will be exposed. It might look cool, actually. I'll show a completed picture with the ACC 'Neon Racing' mats soon.

I've got a couple quick mini updates, nothing crazy but this helps me keep it organized.

I scooted down to the border the other day to grab my interior trim paint, and sprayed out my interior panels in the afternoon. This is Colorbond 163, which is their version of the Agate 'LAZ'  paint. It matches pretty well and I'm impressed with the result.

In between, I went back to the junkyard and grabbed a parcel shelf from a 1996 Neon sedan. The mist grey parcel shelf is definitely a lot lighter than Agate, but it also doesn't smell like mouse whiz, so it's the clear winner.

I also grabbed the rear seatbelts out of the 1996 because I wasn't thrilled with my 98/99 belts that I had collected. These are actually the same color - 96 on the left, 98 on the right. The 96 belts are now installed along with the parcel shelf, and I repainted the rear cross-brace since Mopar only paints like half of it at the factory. If it's going to be exposed, it better look good.

A Barney sedan going to the U-pick soon  There were no Neons here for years, and three sedans all show up at the same time. Better late than never, but I could've used a lot of stuff along the way. I don't have it in me to save another one, so please don't ask lol.

The big hurdle beyond that was the dash. I had never taken one out of a Neon before this project and did not have a good time removing this one. It's super heavy and I knew it would be a nightmare trying to put it back in, but I tried it alone anyway. I definitely felt it for a bit. Some more carpet trimming was needed around the shifter and cables, but the interior was well on its way.

The interior went back together mostly without incident. I added the trunk release lever since it's mighty convenient and weighs practically nothing; not sure why Chrysler didn't make them standard across the entire range. 

Got some NOS front seat belts for a coupe in Agate, they sure are nice to work with.

My headliner isn't as bad as I expected. Still not great, but like everything else I've done so far - it'll do.

The Maddog has landed, just a basic stock height 50-1B spec. The ~15 year old Booger shifter bushings still look brand new. The shifter sure looks a lot better than the boat anchor I pulled out, same goes for the NOS air bag tray. Mine looked awful from corrosion and mice, but a brand new one was $20. Can't go wrong.

And the engine has begun! The crank has been laid in, and the bearing plate torqued. This is a standard sized crank using basic King MB5052AM main bearings, it spins beautifully. The basic Mopar red anaerobic sealant was used here. I hope to have the rods & pistons installed this weekend.

Small progress over the past few days.

I'm currently waiting on a piston ring filer because the EngineTech rings are really tight - even tighter than the FSM's already tight ring gaps. So back to the chassis for projects! Other than what I've done here, I really only have to take the rear trailing arms out and then re-assemble the front & rear suspension, and drop the fuel tank and swap the pump, fix the rubber fuel lines, replace the filler neck, etc. 

First though, back to the junkyard! The Barney hit the main lot over the weekend, and I went to town. It's a 1997 sedan with 80k miles and an immaculate Agate interior.

I grabbed more dash pieces since they were all better than mine (can never have enough since they all crack, though!), a beautiful set of original floor mats, perfect sun visors (mine are covered in mouse poo), a nice Agate rear package tray, and full trunk carpet kit. The tail lights did leak there, but it's the best set I've seen available. I'm considering going back for the floor carpet, just in case, plus that grille bar.

Fun fact: my ACR never came with the "oh sh*t" handle for the passenger's side, which seems mandatory for something that will autocross in the future. The hole for the mounting bracket was covered by some factory butyl, but the headliner that was in the car had the holes for it. Who knows with this thing, really. I got some brackets and the handle from the junkyard, mounted them up with the new sun visors, and it looks passable. My fix of the headliner backing using cardboard didn't work so well, the creases are clearly visible. Oh well.

First on the list for today was to re-assemble the doors. The passenger's side door just needed new window pads, but the driver's side needed window pads, a window guide, a door check, and probably more. 

So we start with the pads. The old ones were awful, they didn't do much at all to protect the windows. I ordered up some adhesive moleskin to replace them and the final result is good.

New 3D printed window guides and a NOS door check for the driver's side. I've honestly never felt a good one in Neons before, they all fail and creak/crack/do nothing. This one feels so nice with very positive angle stops.

I realized that I'm missing the window limiter bracket on the driver's window regulator (item #498 on the "everything is broken on this car" list) because the P/O put a junkyard regulator assembly in and neglected to install *all* of it, so I need to get one before I can proceed. The passenger's side is ready to pop the door panel on.

New rear vents because the mice chewed the crap out of mine.

New tail light gaskets because I have a bad feeling about the old ones. Everything around them was cleaned in the process.

And the trunk is re-assembled! This is the best the trunk has looked in decades!

Lastly, I ordered up one of these Chinese direct-fit Android/CarPlay/NAV things because my vintage stereo experiment failed. With the iPhone to AUX cord, it only feeds the front speakers for some reason. I gave up and got this instead. Install should be really, really easy and I hope the stereo sounds nice and works perfectly with it.

You hardly see any first generation Neons on the road these days; it's great to see one getting such an in depth restomod build.

Back at it. 

The time came for the fuel tank to be dropped out so that the fuel system could be fixed and I would be able to get eyes on the brake lines that I thought might be rusty. The obvious things were the really rusty tank straps, the rotten fuel neck filler tube, the fuel lines that were chewed through, and loads more mouse poop on the fuel tank. Oh, and a mountain of rocks that I pulled out of the frame rail in front of the tank. No clue.

New fuel neck - I got the Spectra FN505 neck with Spectra rubber hose. It's a good product - the old rollover valve slots into the new neck (it's a tight fit), and I got junkyard hoses to replace the busted hoses on mine. The Spectra neck has an additional cup riveted to the top of it near the fuel door - this is for the earlier cars. Owners of 97-99 cars simply bust off the rivets and remove that flange. It lines up nicely.

I drained 15L of old fuel out of the tank. Good thing I opened up the module, since the filter sock totally disintegrated in that fuel. It's got a Walbro in it now, but it's probably gummy and I don't trust it. I'll be putting a whole new Walbro 255 with Neon install kit into it instead.  The metal fuel lines looked okay, so I won't bother them. With the new neck and rubber parts, it should be totally functional.

And I got a peek at the brake lines. They're borderline, but I was encouraged to change them out since I'm already there. With the engine and fuel tank out, it should be an easy swap. I saw people discussing these prior to 2010 on the org and claiming they're like $10 each. I went to a Doge dealer and was told that the right line may be NLA but they're trying to get it. Total cost? Only $124 CAD after tax for the two. Ouch.

I was trying to do some tiny side-jobs one day and decided to prep the new radiator with the old fan, and so I unboxed my NOS Mopar radiator. Err....she's really bent and twisted. F***.

Then was the China-brand head unit, which I was actually shocked by. Other than shaving down the ground terminal spade, it was a direct fit. You can install this thing in less than 5 minutes. It's all direct plug-and-play and everything fits together very well. I'm genuinely impressed with everything about it so far - hopefully it functions as well as it installs.

Progress has been made on the engine! My dad and I are building it together since he has a ton of experience with engines, and we're genuinely enjoying this. We took our time cleaning everything and making sure that there would be no issues with longevity, but I elected to throw together the bottom end without checking bearing clearances since nothing required grinding and the clearances should all be factory-spec. As mentioned, the main bearings are King MB5052AM and installed nicely. We used Mopar 'red' 4318083AC anaerobic sealant for the bed plate, which is a good alternative for the green. This stuff is really a pain to squeeze out of the bottle, but we got a good coat down and torqued it appropriately.

The rod bearings were OEM Mopar 4728997AB. They were very easy to work with, other than one bearing being dinged up in shipping. Good thing I ordered a spare. I have a combination of gasket kits to assemble the bottom, including the EngineTech CR122CS 'conversion' gasket kit. It didn't have the bedplate o-ring mentioned previously, but has the rest. I recommend the Fel-Pro CS9922 kit instead for that reason. Don't buy individual front/rear main seal gaskets, then an oil pan gasket, then a whole kit like I did.

The +0.020" Silv-o-Lite 3228HC coated pistons call for a PTW around 0.0006", and my machine shop did a good job with them. They fit the bores very nicely. The EngineTech M87534 +0.020" piston rings are a bit tight - the gap is even smaller than the factory's already tight gap specs. So I ordered up a piston ring filer and we went to town. I was happy with conservative gap specs, but then my dad asked "are you sure you don't want to run nitrous on this thing?" - which of course was an excellent idea. So we went with 0.019" on the top ring and 0.025" on the second ring, which is nitrous friendly but won't have a ton of blowby. Both are in spec according to the manual, I believe.

With the piston & rod assemblies sliding into the block nicely, they were fastened with ARP 251-6202 rod bolts, torqued to spec (45 ft-lbs) with ARP lube. Then came the Ishihara-Johnson 2.0L crank scraper. We made sure had 0.040" clearance to the rods and crank, and glued down with Permatex Ultra Black. The basic scraper is good enough to cut down the windage cloud that spins around the crank, which is good for reliability and should make a bit more power at higher RPM. I really wanted the deluxe baffle & windage kit, but $95 vs $425 - it's probably not a good investment on this car at this point. With the scraper glued down, the Melling 331S high-volume pickup tube was bolted down; it's far more open than the stock piece, and less prone to blockage. The original oil pump was in surprisingly good condition, so we just took it apart, cleaned it up nicely, added some new o-rings, primed it, and slapped it back together. The Purolator PL14670 oil filter is one of the best, so I spun one on.

The oil pan was previously hot tanked, but I really wanted to knock down the casting flash that plagues these things. Those pimples could break off and run through the oiling system, which could be catastrophic. I hit them with a grinder, cleaned it up really good, and gave it a coat of paint. It looks great, so it was then glued down to the scraper with Permatex Black, too.

Speaking of paint - time to paint the block! With a tiny bit of leftover Dupli-Color black engine enamel leftover from my brother's Mustang engine build, I masked off the block and went to town. The Dupli-Color is super easy to work with and the result is outstanding.

With the bottom end all buttoned up, we were able to move upward. I bought a Mopar 5014134AD head gasket kit ages ago, which has the factory MLS head gasket. Ed Peters said this head gasket is NOT suitable for any engine with an overbore, but I took a calculated risk. The Mopar gasket bore is 3.475" - and a +0.020" Neon is approximately 3.464", which should be safe. I probably wouldn't use the Mopar gasket with a 0.030" overbore with that kind of tolerance, however. The Mopar gasket calls for Mopar 4318035 copper spray, and it was applied generously.

From there, a new set of Fel-Pro ES72166 head bolts were installed and torqued according to the FSM. I dunked a new set of EngineTech L2278 lash adjusters in fresh oil and bled them, and combined them with the least dodgy set of junkyard 2.7L rockers I could put together. In went the Crane 0016 cams, and I bolted them down. The DCR cam alignment tool, seen here, needs some work to fit. The studs are too thick for the cams and it doesn't want to sit down.

Not sure how I feel about 100% stock ports these days, but at least they look nice with the stainless valves.

Anyway, the were cam tower bolts were torquing along nicely when a fellow local neoner dropped in, and of course I stripped the last two as soon as he did. F*********!!!!!! The only proper order of business is to buy the M6x1.0 time-sert kit to fix it properly. I didn't need that $200, really. Feeling defeated, I threw on the engine's hat and called it a day. Extra bling from a Modern Performance oil filler cap!

On the list of things to do now:
-Replace the brake lines (waiting for dealer)
-Disassemble fuel pump module and replace pump, then re-install fuel system
-Put the doors back together (waiting on a window limiter bracket from the US)
-Re-assemble the rest of the interior
-Press new wheel bearings and ball joints in the front suspension - every local shop seems to always be busy and never has time
-Pull the rear trailing arms out of the knuckles and re-assemble it all with new arms; I'm really struggling with the trailing arm nuts
-Finish engine build once the cam tower bolts are fixed

Still slogging through. Every step on this car is an absolute war.

First thing for today is the new brake lines. My $124 Mopar brake lines arrived at the dealer, recall part numbers CAN27052LT and CAN27052RT. I picked them up with my truck (an Infiniti sedan), and got to work. While removing the old lines, I broke a couple of the brittle plastic clips that hold everything together, but the old lines came out reasonably easily. Truth be told, the old lines weren't awful and likely weren't going to fail anytime soon but it's too late to turn back at this point and I won't ever have to do it again. 

The fitment in the car isn't outstanding since the NOS lines twisted a bit over the years, and they don't line up nicely under the car, or in the engine bay. There is some torsion on the clips and the studs holding the clips barely have threads on them anymore, so some junkyard clips hold everything together as well as they can. As long as it works, that's all that matters.

After that, I threw the new Walbro 255 kit at the fuel pump module, but the wires for the float decided they didn't want to cooperate with the install, and instead of risking wiring failures and fires, I just went and bought a new fuel pump module from the junkyard. Dropped the Walbro into my old canister, slapped the new float unit on, and re-pinned the connector. Good to go! Plenty of fuel for a N/A 2.0L that may get a bottle in the future. Tank cleaned up and ready to go back in.

Most of the fuel system out back has been replaced at this point. Here we see new tank straps, the fuel filler neck and its hose, and all of the other rubber hoses that needed replacing. I think it's going to be leak-free. You'll notice that it's soaking wet - I drenched the seams and any problem areas with FluidFilm rust prevention fluid, to keep the chassis reasonably clean.

...and my latest nemesis. My stock tank-to-line fuel hose had a leak and you can't find those things anywhere since it's specific to late 98/99 DOHC cars and went obsolete a very long time ago. I went down the route of 5/16" fuel hose and fuel clamps, which are an absolute bastard to install. I heated the fuel hose over a halogen light while stretching the inner diameter of the hose with some needle-nosed pliers, got it extremely hot and forced it over the barbs of the stock fuel system. It takes a ton of force to do this and it's easy to break things, but I got the stupid hose on and it's not going anywhere.

Side-quest while at the junkyard collecting uncracked dash panels - have you ever seen foam speaker delete pucks? I never had at this point, so I had to scoop them up and place them where my dash speakers used to be.

Next ridiculous item - the rear suspension links. As mentioned previously, my old links were scabbier than a bat ass and less than straight. I originally bought replacement lateral links about a year ago; I got SKP SK521806 for the front links (no toe adjustment on these), and Ultra Power RK641241 rear lateral links (these are supposed to have toe adjusters on them). I went to press in my new Prothane bushings and found that the Ultra Power rear lateral links are really just a rebox of the front lateral links. They didn't mention this at the time, but now they say "except cars with toe adjustment", which is absolutely ridiculous and it's far too late to return them. Every Neon has toe adjustment, so these stupid things don't actually apply to any Neon out there, I want to throw them through an Ultra Power office window instead. 

Anyway, I went to get replacement rear lateral links and found even more BS. Dorman had options for this and they are an okay name in parts, so I took a closer look. The Dorman 521-831 lateral links popped up as applicable, and had toe adjustment. Great!

But wait, why do they show two different style arms on the Amazon listing? See for yourself - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FPL2EX0

From what I can tell, Dorman uses the 521-831 part number on both styles of lateral link since numerous parts sites show both varieties. Compounded to this issue was the fact that Amazon wanted $10 for shipping on one, but $30 to ship two. Nothing makes sense anymore. So I placed two separate orders and they arrived. Lo and behold I received the 'fixed' style and went to work pressing bushings. I now have toe adjustment again, and will do camber adjustment on the Konis.

More side-quests, cleaning and refinishing engine bay parts since everything was absolutely disgusting. I had to use a car wash to get all of the oil and road grime off of each one, and ended up Exxon-Valdezing the wash bay. I spent about an hour on a buffing wheel with an assortment of bolts, too.

Popped on a new dipstick and coolant pipe:

My dad and I repaired the two stripped cam bolt threads with a Time-Sert M6x1.0 kit. It's tricky to get it right but the result is good. The caps torqued down without a problem. No photos of this process, but the kit was $100 well spent.

Next came the timing stuff - I popped on a revised, uncracked 2.0L DOHC rear timing cover that has the provisions for the mechanical tensioner. Added a Gates TCKWP246A timing belt and water pump kit and popped on the AEM cam gears. All of my bolts came back as a jumbled mess from the machine shop, and I'm trying to figure out which goes where. I think I have all of this right.

But ho-lee sheeeeet was the crank sprocket awful. I damaged the old one trying to remove it from the crankshaft on disassembly, the tolerance was absolutely ridiculous on it (likely interference) and I had to have the machine shop pull it off, damaging the old woodruff key in the process. Well, putting the new one on was equally awful. We made some tools out of pipe fittings to make proper spacers that the crank bolt could run on. This was a nightmare. We spent a few hours making the right spacers and by the time we did, this stupid thing did not want to go on. I was reefing on it with a breaker bar, trying bit by bit to get it to sit down. My dad was trying to talk me into stopping since it was creaking badly with every quarter turn of the bolt, but I stupidly went on with it. It reached a point where the sprocket basically won't move anymore, but the last measurement with the caliper was 1.042" from the crank snout to the inner diameter of the sprocket, absolutely dead-on spec. I am absolutely amazed that nothing bent or broke here, but's likely not coming off again without blasting it with a torch. I hope I don't need to do an oil pump at any point in the future or I'm in a world of trouble.

And where we're at with the rest of the engine:

Why isn't the timing belt on? Well, I need to have the cams locked at TDC to time it properly since I have 0.025" shaved off the head, aftermarket cams and gears. I ordered Darrell Cox Racing's timing tool and told them I needed a tool for Crane cams. It locks the cams together through the holes that are found at TDC on the cams. Or, it's supposed to. As mentioned, the tool that showed up from DCR 3+ weeks later has pegs that are too big to fit the cams and need to be lathed down, which adds more complexity and takes a lot of time to deal with. I'm absolutely exhausted with junk parts and awful service. Even when I had a 2.4 turbo car I avoided DCR, and for good reason. This is the first and last time I'm buying anything from him.

Back at it, the rear suspension is in. It all still needs to be re-checked and torqued up but I think I got it all right. There was a wholesale change on the brakes other than the recycled Hawk HPS brake pads and Goodridge stainless brake lines, plus an added Suspension Techniques 13/16" rear sway bar to make the car dance.

I recycled the old Prothane trailing arm bushings, even though I should probably have replaced them. They definitely deform around the knuckle pivot point; and defeault to considerable toe in without the lateral links straightening the assembly, so I hope they don't cause some funny alignment issues or fail down the road.

Some before/after:

Gosh that muffler is ugly.

And since I no longer have to worry about pulling the e-brake cables out of the car to get the trailing arms separated, I was able to put some more of the interior together. The console is in temporarily because the crossover cable on the shifter still has to be adjusted (the transmission needs to be in the car for this) but it looks pretty good. The ACC 'Neon Racing' floor mats are really cool items and obviously match the ACC carpet - both of which are lighter than stock since they don't make the correct carpet color and I didn't want black.