Performance wise...

[02goldse]

Well lately I've been thinking performance so I've been trying to think of my options to go with...

Today I bought a Optima Red Top Battery, a Msd Ignition coil pack, and Valve cover and Spark Gaskets.

So What I wanna know is whats next ?

I want to get some sparkplugs and wires, I know the ngk iridiums are good but what wires run good with that set up ?

Today I'm starting a new look under the hood and I took off the vc and started customizing :)

What else performance wise can I do ?

Air Intake Manifold ?
Headers ?
Rad shroud to look cool ?


Give me some ideas :)

[01WhiteNe0n]

Yeah.. That was me...

[anomalous0]

christ. I've become one of those people who says the following:
Use the search function!!
Or, if you've got some time on your hands, go into the "engine" and "naturally aspirated" topics, go to the very first posts and start reading.
Or you can go to the other .org and read the FAQs. Most of the same rules apply. You're not going to get anything out of your car till you learn alot about it.

[01WhiteNe0n]

Well it doesnt help saying search so why would you even post at all ?
I know how to use the search function.. I also know how to start a thread or is making a thread on a Forum against your "rules"
If your amazingly pro at searching and studied the car link me to something about what I asked.

[kc2005ptgt]

well, if you want performance, think about your overall goal and what you want to acheive....

Do you have a bunch of money to spend? If so, how much? How much do you want to dump into this project? A naturally aspirated neon is hard to make fast without a lot of money. A turbo neon is not reliable without lots of money either. You can always just save your pennies and get the srt swap done, that is best bang for buck right there; srt without the insurance!

If you wanna have a fun to drive DD, I would start with some things in the suspension area first. Get some nice looking lightweight wheels (nothing larger than 16) and put some nice lower profile tires on it. Then start to work on the suspension itself, such as new poly bushings all around, some sway bars, strut tower bars, and then think about what way you wanna go -- lot of money = coilovers (best route) next best bet is some stiffer struts which can handle some nice lower springs to get rid of your 4x4 stance.

Are you mtx or atx? (auto or manual) -- if atx, get rid of it, and swap in a nice 3.94 manual tranny from an rt/acr... OR, if you have the moolah, do the 3.55 from an srt4 from 04-05 with the lsd!!! Also, some good upgrades would be a short throw shifter from maddog, he makes lots of different kinds, and get some poly bushings in there from booger racing. Then pop in the solid shifter cradle bushings form johnny mopar. Do not forget, you are gonna want to keep your wheels on the ground, so replace all your mounts with either solid dogbone mounts, or fill em yourself with some 80A urethane or stiffer.

The best thing next is decide if you like it or not... want more go? Then start in the engine, first things first, find a magnum head and swap it in --- also do the mag intake, and while your at it, replace the cam with a comp 400 cam or #14 crane. Some other options while you have the head off would be to port and polish it, and maybe even find some better, higher compression pistons with forged internals! You are getting into the big bucks now, so think about your options... also, you will need that sucker to get rid of all those exhaust gases, so go with a long tube race header, like the modern performance one, or if you can find it a Fast fabs LTH with 3" merge. Then get the exhaust redone with all mandrel bent 2.5" piping.

A cold air intake is a must by now in case you didnt know, as well as a 60mm throttle body. I would also look into port matching the tb to the intake for even more air flow. Start using premium fuel as well now and I would start looking into megasquirt so you can take advantage of all that new power. A car that breathes really well wont make nearly as much power on your stock spark and fuel tables.

Feeling over whelmed? Good... now you know what it will take to get the neon into the 140+ whp range Sad, yes, but fun to drive sure! And when all that is said and done, you can add a 75 shot of nitrous to it and get yourself into trouble!

Or scrap all that, and go turbo. Start reading the forced induction threads.

To answer your first question about spark plugs and wires, champions do fine, although a lot of us (including me) go with NGK V-Powers. The wires, any 8mm will be fine, anything bigger is overkill.


Second question, air intake manifold is a good start, if you can find the magnum one. Go that route, and do not forget a CAI.

Third, our neons do not have "headers" -- only one header. Go Long Tube Header!

Fourth - radiator shroud? f'reals? Ok, sure...

[01WhiteNe0n]

Well I do have the atx but I plan on building it up b4 swaping the tranny which will probly be next year.. I already have the wheels there not to heavy but there 17's. For the setup I have now is a Borla Cat back, Aem Intake, optima bat , msd coils, Probly some ngk iridiums, No wires yet.
I will probly look for tb and mag intake, For that I guess you need a adapter of some sort ?

For now I'm having fun with paychecks now that the car is paid off so I dont think turboing is in the budget right now.

[anomalous0]

Perhaps you misunderstood me. I wasn't trashing starting a new thread asking questions. We've all been there. I was actually making fun of myself because I always got annoyed at those people who said to search.

My point is, to get the most bang for your buck, basically the thing to do is go back to the earliest posts and do some research on neons.org

Do a search on every mod you're considering if you want to know what sort of power you'll get from it. Just "header" or "underdrive".
Use keywords that even our crappy search function can't screw up, starting with the oldest posts first. Expect to take some time with it.

If you want to know how something looks, search for a keyword under "picture post"

Only after a while and a couple of decent mods will you start to truly understand the addiction. And what I mean with decent mods is mods that acheive the purpose you want from them. If you want, for instance, a nice exhaust tone that's dead sexy, a borla cat-back is just the ticket. It won't get you significantly more power on an ATX, at least until you've gotten some other mods. It's not a waste of money, but for the time being it's more a show mod.

For an ATX neon, since they take a bit more work to go fast (an understatement), I'd focus on handling. You can still take most cars in the twisties with a proper suspension setup.

[aperson]

MAag intakes are a direct swap, you just need to wire it up for the secondaries to open using a rpm switch, wot switch and some relays. For TB's the only direct swaps are for the 60mm ones from Mpx and another company that I don't remember

[kc2005ptgt]

tb's, use either LFS (Lorenzo Fuel Systems) or MPx (Modern PErformance) -- and yeah, I forgot the underdrive pulley Some people think the megan racing one is good, as well as the eBay one (which I believe is also megan racing) -- I got an awesome deal on a almost new Unorthodox Racing, just had to buy belts.

So in the end, you have a good start, but your car like anything else is only as strong as your weakest link, which for you would be one of two things, the atx or the head --- I would go for a nice used mag head, get it ported and polished really well, then slap in a comp 400 cam. Then do more from there, like intake, and you already got the catback so get a nice LTH in there, and like I stated, since you have the head off, do the pistons as well, some good forged rods with higher compression (like 10.5:1)