good place for Neon tech?

a couple of my cousins and myself decided that we want to build a Chumpcar... i just happened to stumble across a low miles (under 100k) first gen Neon 2 door with the SOHC/5 speed combo that runs, drives, and isn't falling apart for $250..

so, other than just making sure the suspension bits are all in working order, what needs to be done to these things to make them last with complete rookies behind the wheel in a 7 hour endurance race?

baffled oil pan, perhaps? oil and PS fluid coolers? any easy/cheap brake upgrades?

we don't care about fast- we just want it to hold together and be easy/safe to drive while we learn how to do this "road racing" thing and i've heard that a Neon is the perfect car for this kind of thing..

Haven't been to neons.org in a while. So to answer your question, uh, neons.org.

Just for reliability-timing belt and water pump, shifter bushings, and motor mounts. And hubs, either new stock ones or research the upgrades with parts from other cars.

^ travis nailed it. They're pretty robust. A baffle in the oil pan can't hurt, but loads of ACR neons lived relatively long lives on the track. If I remember correctly, some turbo dodge spindles and brakes can be used as a cheap brake and wheel bearing upgrade. SRT4 and PT brakes are also an option... but with good pads and some brake cooling, and assuming a 5 lug car - brakes should be fine.

Hubs.

The ACR kit is NLA, which is sad. I've broken stock hubs at around 10 hours of track time, SKF hubs at about 12 hours, and ACR hubs at about 18 hours. That's on a front of the IT pack/curb hopping/go like hell pace. Hit the pick'n'pull and bring along a couple of spare knuckles, a clutch, throttle cable and shift cables, make sure the CV boots are good, and make sure the shifter cables are clipped up to the floor properly so they don't melt on the exhaust pipe. Grab a spare rad, and make sure you don't have the tiny non-AC unit. If so, swap it for the big one. Mounts are there, but the hoses are different.

I run my twincam to 7400 on Mobil 1 3w30, and have never had an oil related failure. Broke the crank in half one day, but the bearings were fine. The clutches are sturdy, the trans is relatively so. Make sure you use the proper synchromesh oil, or it will shift like poop.

Well, if you're willing to spend money to make it reliable, a baffled pan and an accusump would be the first things i'd go to other than timing belt/water pump. I'd also put an underdrive pulley on it to make your belt driven stuff live longer if you plan to track it. You can get them used for like $50.

Honestly, i would skip messing around with other neon hubs and just put k-car hubs on it. You have to use 2g neon axles due to a larger spline on the outer CV but they otherwise bolt on. Get 91-up k-car knuckles as they have bolt-in wheel bearings and bolt-on caliper brackets. The caliper brackets thing is cool because then you can get the caliper+bracket from any 91-95 long wheelbase caravan, order a brake rotor for a 92-93 Daytona Iroc R/T, and have an 11.25" front rotor with a 60mm caliper piston, which is big for a ~2450lb car.

Vigo wrote: Well, if you're willing to spend money to make it reliable, a baffled pan and an accusump would be the first things i'd go to other than timing belt/water pump. I'd also put an underdrive pulley on it to make your belt driven stuff live longer if you plan to track it. You can get them used for like $50. Honestly, i would skip messing around with other neon hubs and just put k-car hubs on it. You have to use 2g neon axles due to a larger spline on the outer CV but they otherwise bolt on. Get 91-up k-car knuckles as they have bolt-in wheel bearings and bolt-on caliper brackets. The caliper brackets thing is cool because then you can get the caliper+bracket from any 91-95 long wheelbase caravan, order a brake rotor for a 92-93 Daytona Iroc R/T, and have an 11.25" front rotor with a 60mm caliper piston, which is big for a ~2450lb car.

interesting.. bigger brakes are always a good idea..

what models were the K cars in 91 and up?

Oh boy.. uhh...

Dodge Daytona

Dodge Shadow

Dodge Spirit

Dodge Dynasty

Dodge Caravan ( all vans came in both 5x100 and 5x114.3, you only want 5x100 bearings and 5x114.3 calipers+brackets)

Chrysler Town and Country

Chrysler New Yorker (Salon and Fifth Avenue)

Chrysler Imperial

Chrysler Lebaron (coupe, convertible, and sedan)

Plymouth Sundance

Plymouth Duster

Plymouth Acclaim

Plymouth Voyager

Everything K-car ended at 95 so 91-95. Some models ended earlier.

getting the care next weekend... it's got the 5 lug wheels on it, and it's red so i can finally do the "2 WYCKED" theme that i've been dreaming about..

So much win.

yes, yes there is.. and the best part is that i'm sorta built like Carl and i can take the Mr Gasket scoop off my lawnmower and bolt it to the hood

got the car today.. sadly, it's an automatic.. and also it's got 175,000 miles on it... that's what i get for listening to my non car guy brother..

but it's solid, if a little beat up on the driver's side:

i then spent about 5 hours adding lightness by removing all of the interior except for the dash, front seats, and door panels.. i also couldn't remove the seatbelts since i didn't have my torx sockets... i also took out everything related to the AC from under the hood- that was about 50 pounds of lightness right there..

mechanically, about the only issue is that it's got an auto trans in it... also, both front brakes stick really bad and the heat from the stuck caliper has cooked the right front wheel bearing... i'm just gonna get PT Cruiser knuckles to get the bigger brakes and easier to swap wheel bearings..

it's getting some ice racing laps this winter, then in the spring it gets the cage, race seat, and other stuff to make it Chump legal.

so far, i'm $240 into this thing.. paid $200 for the car, $40 for the year old Interstate battery, and drove it 8 miles home with the brakes sometimes dragging and sometimes not... when they were not, it was a peppy little beast- if only it had a proper manual trans in it...

Was the AC compressor any good?

Remember, you still have to get 2g neon axles to run the PT knuckles.

Are you looking to upgrade the suspension at all?

AC pump was frozen solid.

not going to upgrade the suspension beyond replacing wear items, but i might go with poly bushings because they cost about the same as stock replacement stuff..

Need a set of racing seat brackets, crank scraper, spare oil pan, solid front motor mount?

http://m.grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/200x-classifieds/1st-gen-neon-stuff/70459/page1/

I'll make you a hell of a deal on them :)

Wow, you weren't joking when you said solid motor mount. I was going to swoop in on that one until i saw it.

Perfect for something that's NOT a street car!

Sack up, Sally!

In reply to Vigo:

Just keep the others stock/soft and it will be fine. A 2.4 with the balance shafts wouldn't be too bad ;)

turboswede wrote: Need a set of racing seat brackets, crank scraper, spare oil pan, solid front motor mount? http://m.grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/200x-classifieds/1st-gen-neon-stuff/70459/page1/ I'll make you a hell of a deal on them :)

not much there i can use. probably going with a Kirkey road race seat mounted to the cage, i'll make a crank scraper, and it looks easy enough to make the motor mount solid..

Ok then.

Are you saying you've run the mount and it didnt vibrate like hell at an idle? Because i once did something similar to a k-car and that shiz SUCKED.

Any of those 1st gen parts comparable with 2nd gen engines?

No, they were off my brother's car and he never ran the front motor mount because his wife made him get rid of all the racing parts because she hated the racing seats (her ass didn't fit). He kept the moroso pan on it, which I wish I had nabbed before he had the car hauled off :/

The older 2.2's are much worse for vibration than the newer 2.0's and the 2.4's with their balance shafts are a little more better. Still, I wouldn't run it on the street, unless it was a drag/AutoX car that only gets used on the street long enough to make it to/from the venue.

I think the 2.0 block stayed the same through the years, so the crank scraper should work. Not sure about the seat mounts or the motor mount. Would have to research that a bit. To the GOOGLES!

figured out all by myself that GM steering wheels fit on Neons, so out with the heavy gutted airbag wheel and in with the Lumina Z34 wheel for now...