Project 2002 ACR

[Adam K.]

Sad that no one really visits the site anymore. So I wanted to share a little and maybe get some opinions. I picked up a 2002 ACR a few weeks back that would love to save. Very possible that it has bent valves and some body damage in the rear. Will need a full paint job as well. First on the list is to remove the head and take a look. Off course the exhaust manifold bolts are in there for good and striped. Planing to weld some bigger nuts on there and see if they let go. The seller already started on dismantling it and gave me mostly everything to get it back together.

[JeremyJ]

I hope you save it! Those cars are so rare. I almost bought a red one, but it needed too much work. It was rough. I hate seeing ACRs like that.

[blueneo03]

Nice find! im excited to see a build on here! all other car forums suck and the facebook versions are a mess of no real information and "will these fit"

this does look like a decent starting point on a build tho!

[Adam K.]

I would love to say I am further with the project as I am. But with everything else I decided to tackle the smell situation. The car is covered with dog hair, urine, and food in every nook and cranny. I took the carpet off and the flooring was all yellow. Cluster Shield and AC controls are broken so purchased new ones. Front driver seat is going to need to be replaced. Top dash pad is going to need to be replaced. Going to remove the entire dash and clean everything. Since dog food has found itself into everything it is attracting ants now. They have made it their home now.

I have taken the carpets out and cleaned them. There is something baked it that is giving me a hard time. Have even taken the power washer to it.

[blueneo03]

Hey, a start is a start and a good cleaning to see where you're really at is a good start.

[Adam K.]

So I have been having a hard time finding a replacement seat for the drivers side. All the ones I have found are to far gone. I found a 2002 ES with a decent passenger side seat at a pull yard. I took apart the drivers side and will use the framing with the ES foam and upholster. Thankfully the 2002 ES neons got the same seats as the ACR and R/T cars.

Here is the passenger from the ACR and the ES



The drivers fram apart. I know it may not be ever seen. But part of me wants to remove the rust and coat them with something.



Other than that I continued gutting the interior. Most of the remainder of the interior smell was in the headliner. I bleached the interior and got most of the urine stain out. I drilled a 1/2 inch hole in the trunk floor and each side of rear floor boards. Hosed down the inside and will be plugging them up with 1/2 rubber plugs.

[blueneo03]

lookin good. i was always on the lookout for those seats when in the JY as they had better side bolster than standard but were always greatly neglected.....

[Adam K.]

Yes, I will start doing the same. Always my favorite neon seats.

They cleaned up extremely well. Washed them on delicate twice and dried them on delicate as well. The foam will need some repair but really happy with them so far.




On the outside it's not looking to well. The car started it's life in Hawaii and is fairly rust free. But majority of suspension components in the rear are bent. This explains why the trunk floor is slightly buckled. Really starting to consider of picking up another neon for the body. It will not be a real ACR after that but I am building it for myself. Still have not pulled the motor but that is coming soon.

[jonnymopar]

Nice to see a real project log here after all this time. Keep up the good work.

[Adam K.]

Finally got some time to tear into the engine. As predicted there is some valve damage. Block bores look better than I feared except one has a somewhat deep scratch.

[occasional demons]

Wow, that's an interesting scratch. I wonder if it wasn't done during the honing process, and just ignored.


Cylinder walls are pretty tough on modern engines due to the high nickel content of the blocks, so it takes a lot of abuse to wipe out the cross hatch.

At 300,000 miles, the 1.7 VW engine in my Dad's '79 Omni still had good cross hatch, and no ring ridge. I gave it a backyard hone, new rings, bearings, and it ran smoke free, in another car, until the car was scrapped a couple years later.

[JeremyJ]

Looks to me like a piece of the broken valve got dragged against the cylinder wall before being ejected. If it's not the same cylinder, then I have no idea what happened.

[occasional demons]

But to get it about the same path as the crosshatch, and not straight up and down, given the speeds the piston travels, even at cranking, would be a pretty tough feat. That was where my train of thought was. It would have to be moving upwards and spinning to make that arc. If it was spinning, it wouldn't have made a nice cut. The piston obviously doesn't rotate.

But that's just my theory...

Plus, being a burned valve, the debris generally gets blown out the port, like a blow torch. Usually starts with a bit of carbon holding it off the seat, and the combustion gasses erode away at it, until it makes a nice groove, and then it's game over. A lean condition can also do it.

[Adam K.]

The damage to the valves are in banks 3 and 4. But the scratch is in bank 2. It definitely looks like it's been there for a while. From what I know about the car the timing belt snapped on the original owner. He had a new timing belt, and tensioner installed. For obvious reasons it ran like crap. So he sold it to the guy I purchased it from. No real miles were put on since then. Does really look like just a crosshatch.

Back in 2005 when I did SRT4 swap to my 2001 R/T I was running a fully built and ported magnum head. I pulled it off and has been sitting in a box since then. Part of me want to just slap it on and see how it runs. I would really like to respray the engine bay but right now it would be great to just have it move on it's own power. Have a number of projects around the house and it's sitting in the backyard. Eventually it will be going into the garage but till I forge my 392 in my SRT8. Great to kind of have it out of the way for now but working in the yard with grass and bugs sucks.

[occasional demons]

Slightly tweaked exhaust valve(s) from a broken timing belt could be why the valve(s) burned. It would only take a few thousandths for hot combustion pressure to leak by, and do it's dirty work.

As far as bolting the head on, why not? The chambers and piston don't look terrible, like there was a ton of oil getting in from that scratch.

[jonnymopar]

Man that scratch has me... well... scratching my head. Even if it was done at manufacturing, you'd think it might have worn itself in a little bit by now. The rest of the bore looks ok, at least from the photo.

[rondert]

That's a cool project. Any progress, OP?