6-29-01
My first day back at work and what happens? I get into an accident. No really to talk, I was traveling westbound on Topham St in Reseda, when a lady tried to beat me across the intersection by making a left hand turn. If you saw the pictures I posted online, I didn't stop in time.
To prevent writing a short story, let's just say they totalled the car and now I got a new car. Someday I will let everybody know what happen from 5/30-729 almost two months later.
I've very happy with my new R/T even though it's red everybody likes it. This is the second red car I have owned. and now 4th Neon I have either owned outright or driven since early '97. Let's hope nothing funny happens to this one. I have already started to modify my R/T with a new K&N drop-in filter (PN#1006). It's the same one that Mopar Peformance offers on 2000-Up Neons. I also removed the intake silencer for better breathing. How much more? I have no idea, but I plan on taking it to the track this weekend and maybe even put it on Moran's dynojet to get some baseline numbers before more serious mods happen.
As for the Highline, I think I want build it to NIRA Power 4 rules. I think it's the most cost-effective way to be competitive and build a soild street/strip car. I'll be outlining that build up as soon as I feel like creating a web page.
I'll be visiting Thermal R&D to talk to Chuck about making a performance exhaust for the RT/ACR owners. The factory unit is way too mellow for me. I want to hear a little noise back there and pick up some performance as well. The new RT/ACRs use a 2.25 exhaust system like the 1st gen Neons did. All regular 2nd gen Neons are 2.00. Thermal already makes a 2.25 cat-back for 2000-Up Neons, but I would like to use the factory cut-outs in the rear bumper and would need a quasi-dual exhaust system. I think a rear section will cost the least and make a pretty good gain, but I think there's a chance for a 2.5" cat-back to be very effective. We'll see after I talk to Chuck...
I'm really tired of not gaining much more than 7-10hp here and there. So this new car will have nitrous oxide injection in the very near future. I'm looking for mid to low 13's on normal street tires. What's my choice of weapon?
Nitrous Express of course...
NX Neon EFI kit with GenX Plus upgrade (add purge to genX kit)
and later down the road a Mini-Max preset progressive nitrous control unit to help get good 60ft times on street tires and drag radials.
I'll be updating this page more often. Until next time..
5-20-01
I can't voice my disapointment enough! Go to the link below to see what I'm talking about. I'm going to be trying to figure out what happend here and I'll update here later today
5-14-01
What didn't happen would be a better question, than what did.
I contacted Jim Wiland of Hedman headers to see when they were going to start R&D work on 1st gen Neon headers. To my suprise he told me that other projects had fallen though and that he was finishing up the work on the PT Cruiser headers they are going to offer and that they would be ready to start on the Neon the following week. Great! let them have my Neon for few days and get a free header out of it. Sounds good to me! But I wasn't abe to drop my Neon off as planned that following Tues because I couldn't get a rental car right away. So I dropped it off the next day, Wed. My rental was a '01 Neon SE. It's the second time I've driven a new Neon and I like it. Too bad this was an automatic.... Oh well, better than using a Chevy Metro right? They finished with my Neon sooner than expected and I was able to pick it up that following Monday. So after getting bitched at by my dispatcher, I picked up my Neon. It ran a bit better, check engine light was still on, and it "rattled" now. Hmm, well a reset of the PCM took the troubles codes out and the light went off. So it was the 02 sensor that was bad. Well that's not all the bad news turns out by running with the upper stream 02 the whole time, dumped extra fuel into the exhaust system and ruined the converter. I didn't know this until after I had a new high flow muffler installed on the Neon. Jim was against me doing anything to the Neon until I got to drive around with the header some. Well I know Neons better than he does and it's not really going to do anything until you uncork the exhaust with a better flowing muffler. The muffler did help but it still rattled. When I took it back to Magic Muffler.
What was wrong?
When they installed the header, they did it pretty much the same way you do it now with the current headers on the market. You cut the flare off the stock exhaust and weld it to a flange to connect the header to the cat. Simple really, but what they did was just clamp the two pieces together and that produced most of the rattle under the car. I also found out that the cat was causing alot of backpressure. So after parting with $175, I had a new cat and fixed connection...
Wow! The Neon screams now! The torque I picked up from the header and the muffler is great, you don't even need WOT to get good pull from the engine. Even with 106K and counting on it! Totally different car.
What else happen? Got my ICEMAN May 5th. $166 and no shipping charges. It's on the Neon now, but I still have the stock air box on so I can A/B the intakes compared to the header. I would be able to do that for the exhaust as well, but those dorks at Magic Muffler welded the muffler on as well. So unless I get that fixed, it's going to be like that for awhile. I'm going to see about fixing it over the next few days because I really wanna give Jim the results from testing he's looking for.
In other news
I found out Morgan Motorsport relocated to Reseda! Not even 10 mins from here. So I have a Dynojet close to me. That's going to work out very well. I had planned to get on the Dynojet this pass weekend, but I had problems getting the battery out of the Neon and by the time I got the ICEMAN battery tray in, it was too late. Well that was kinda of a blessing because SE-R Club of America's southern cali division is having a dyno day at R&D's Dyno this Saturday. So for $40 I get 3 pulls. Not bad. So I'll be posting results when I get home Saturday afternoon.
I will not be picking up the Crane cam this month. I have too many things to pay for including upgrading my insurance, which almost doubled in payments. So I've made my modifications for this month. Next month I'll be changing all the belts and hoses, including the timing belt and I think add a underdrive pulley. Also I'm going to pick up a G-tech meter because running to the dynojet every time I make a change can get really $$$ in a hurry. So I'm only going to go after I make several changes. So after the results from this weekend, I won't go back until I'm sporting nitrous or the Crane cam.
Stay Tuned!
PS - Picture page coming soon.
4-22-01
Well I finally got the web page uploaded and Im working on the SOHC Powered members page now. More will be uploaded during the week.
I got my wheels and tires finally after many delays at America's Tire. Took them three days, what should have took only one. The wheels are their Rage in-house brand. They are 15x6.5 Rage Race 10's and the tires are Kuhmo Supra 712 v-rated performance tires (205/50-15).
I'll be getting my Jamex springs installed this weekend and also the Neon reg. and smogged. I'm also going to order another ICEMAN intake just in case I never get the one that's currently on Nikki's ACR sedan (used to be OUR ACR sedan). I'm also going to pick up a new muffler and some motor mount inserts from Prothane. I hope Neal can kick me down again. I would get more, but I'm going to lend out some of my "endz" and I think pickup a new TV since I need one as my 20 yr old TV isn't working right. Plus I wanna better TV for Playstation 2, which is starting to show up more in the local stores as I think most of the people that wanted one have one and others are waiting for X-Box this fall. I REALLY wanna start watching some DVD's and put in my pre-order for Test Drive LeMans and Grand Turismo 3.
The project will really start to kick into high gear next month as I will pick up the following parts for the Neon -
Crane Import Power Camshaft (Turbo Grind)
Crane HP valvespring kit
Unorthodox Racing underdrive pulley
MP motor mount and bobble strut
I need to install a new timing belt, that's why I'm going to go ahead and install the new camshaft, springs, cam seal and underdrive pulley. I only wanna take the front cover off once. I might even get a new water pump while I'm in there.
More to come, so stay tuned!
Disapointed
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