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So guys I sold my 03 blaze red neon and bought an 03 SRT and forgot to post up a progress log. Long story short I had known about the car for years and had seen it a bunch of times. I was out for a cruise in April with some friends and ended up meeting some car guys who were friends with the owner of the SRT and told me he wanted to sell. The deal was too good for me to pass up because it had 87k on it and was from Texas and the price was only $6000. By April 20th 2010 she was mine and I named her Veronica. Here goes the story...

Here are some pics of the car with the previous owner. He had a Stage 2 kit with a Maxxfab Side exit:





Here is a video with the car and the previous owner with all the old mods:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haeMDL7NXkY


Pictures and progress of Veronica in my ownership will be up shortly. In the mean time here is a post with my old neon
viewtopic.php?t=42458

wheres the LIKE button. lol.

very nice. always gotta show love to a fellow Solar Yellow Neon.

First mod I did was taking the mint Vipers out of my old neon swapping them into the SRT because the stock Vipers were all shitty. They later sold to BlackRoseRacing who is a local to me and are now repaired and in his monster of a neon



When I bought the car the previous owner put it entirely back to stock, no stage 2 or maxxfab SEE, but he did leave the TiAL blow off valve

I ended up going with a K&N drop in filter because I decided not to get a CAI, which I ended up buying anyway so my Modern Performance catch can would fit




Notice the ebay black housing lights, I ended up putting the blaze red back to stock completely and put the aftermarket parts on the SRT:


Next was a set of front and rear DC braces










Next to come was a modern performance powdercoated valve cover. Taking it off scared the shit out of me for some reason.

Welcome to the club, I'm going to tell every new SRT-4 owner that buys a used car this -

CHECK FOR LEAKS!

Before you consider any power producing modifications, check all your vacuum lines for leaks and install some T-bolt clamps easily found on Napa, if you need a link to my detailed How-To let me know, its still on the SRT Forums.

Its cheap insurance against any headaches and post about I made this change and my car isn't as fast as I thought it was.

You can do a boost leak test as well, you can build one yourself or find somebody on the SRT Forums that sells them.

I personally didn't feel the need for a catch can, I replaced my PVC valve twice as the Owner's Manual suggested at mileage points. When I put T-bolt clamps on my car there was some oil on the exit side of the intercooler -



This was shortly after I got it and started making changes. I don't think crank case pressure is a problem with the stock turbo, I don't care what psi you run it at, after a certain point is produces more hot air than power anyway, certainly not enough pressure to cause problems. A check-valve would have been a better solution I guess, but as I said, once I changed my PVC, I never had a problem and I had disconnected the pipes a few times sense then.

Otherwise have fun...

Haha thanks for the re-welcome and I appreciate the help. I've done a shit ton of research since before I even bought the car and already have the upgrade path set. I appreciate the T-bolt upgrade but after extenive research I feel like the worm clamps stock or aftermarket high tension are the better route to go as too many people have issues with the other clamps crushing hoses.

As for a boost leak test I had one performed before buying the car as well as a leak down test and a general overview of the entire car from driving to engine etc. I wanted to be sure if any issues arose that they would be an easy fix. More on this later and thanks again

Before I bought the car I took it to a local tuner shop and got a boost leak test, leak down test, etc. and there were a ton of boost leaks. The main one was coming from the BOV because it was an ebay flange with shitty couplers and a badly siliconed temp sensor. So after research I got the best hardpipe on the market, AGP and went to work. I got it powedercoated locally for $12.

The main reason for the leak was because the previous owner had no o-ring between the flange and the BOV so I corrected the problem when installing it on the AGP hardpipe

looking good

BlackRoseRacing wrote:looking good

How are you enjoying the seats that came out of this? Haha was it expensive to get the recovered? I would eventually like the foam on the bottom section of the driver seat replace on mine, its beginning to lose form...

I had them repaired and the repair that's not holding is of course the wear spot on the drivers side, it's still holding but you can tell its wearing slowly.

When I took off the front fascia I noticed the stock intercooler was all bent to shit and there was a local dude who had a replacement for cheap so here are some pics of the install. I also did up the fuel injector cover

little to glossy, but good job otherwise....

Great work so far. Hard to believe you are running a Tial with the stock airbox. That replacement intercooler looks way better than your old one and awesome job on the injector cover. Probably was still drying.

So no more black housings on the yellow.

MyNeonSaysHi wrote:Great work so far. Hard to believe you are running a Tial with the stock airbox. That replacement intercooler looks way better than your old one and awesome job on the injector cover. Probably was still drying.

So no more black housings on the yellow.

Thanks and no, currently it rocks modern performance angel eye projectors with yellow shorty eyelids

So during the summer I had the car all ready to go to the track and got gas before heading out. When I started her back up there was a loud squelling noise that got louder the longer the car ran. Turned out it was the throw out bearing so while it was at the shop I had them put in the following:

New TOB
New Clutch/flywheel
New Timing belt
New Water pump
All new belts
Tensioner
Etc...

Cost me right around 1500, but it was a preventative maintenance and the guys did great work

I hope you changed the shift fork while you were in there. That's what caused the TOB to fail. It's the fork that wears unevenly.

Nice work so far this site is full of SY neons

I miss NYIRP.

LilSparkPlug wrote:I hope you changed the shift fork while you were in there. That's what caused the TOB to fail. It's the fork that wears unevenly.

Nice work so far this site is full of SY neons

I don't think it got replaced...oh well haha.

You'll go through the same repairs again very shortly if they didn't There's a huge thread on it over on SRTForums, I have pictures of it somewhere. But the metal is soft, so it wears unevenly causing the TOB to mount on an odd angle, this in turn causes issues such as not engaging into gear, the car driving itself, etc.

LilSparkPlug wrote:You'll go through the same repairs again very shortly if they didn't There's a huge thread on it over on SRTForums, I have pictures of it somewhere. But the metal is soft, so it wears unevenly causing the TOB to mount on an odd angle, this in turn causes issues such as not engaging into gear, the car driving itself, etc.

Fawwwwwk I'll call the shop and see...thanks

Yup, helps to do a little homework before you dive into something like that. Hopefully its a performance shop that has worked on SRT-4's before too. I remember one story of a guy getting a base model neon clutch setup in his SRT.

MyNeonSaysHi wrote:Yup, helps to do a little homework before you dive into something like that. Hopefully its a performance shop that has worked on SRT-4's before too. I remember one story of a guy getting a base model neon clutch setup in his SRT.

Funny you should say that actually, they got the regular neon clutch instead of the SRT and didnt realize it until it was installed. I know the guy personally and know it was not his fault, but the dude at the parts place fucked it up

That sucks man! So what kind of clutch did you go with?

MyNeonSaysHi wrote:
That sucks man! So what kind of clutch did you go with?

I just ended up with an OEM replacement I think Lucas? It's pretty nice I didn't need/want anything special

So the car has had the infamous P0440 CEL since I bought it and I have done hours of searching and looking over the car to see what the problem is. The P0440 is a small EVAP system leak most often times caused by a bad NVLD/Purge Solenoid or a crack in the lines somewhere. I went to the stealership to by a new NVLD for $50 but it still didnt fix the code . Here are some install pics








I took the car to another buddy of mine to get the 3M Di-Noc Carbon Fiber Vinyl put on the bumper




The previous got keyed on the hood and did a shitty fix and there were a ton of rock chips that were rusting and bubbling so I sent out the hood and the eyelids to my buddy to get a repaint for $150. I also had him paint the fangs on the inside of the scoop




This was my loner hood off of his SRT

Damn bro that looks ILL! Possibly one of my favorite yellows

We hit 40deg today, heat wave here in WNY. By the end of the week though it's going to be 10deg, so try to get what you can done today!

So money wise this was a good trade, but it was still a bad decision. I bought an AEM UEGO for $70 and traded it for over $200 dollars in new audio equipment. While it was a good trade for the money, I should have kept the UEGO...oh well

So I ended up with these FLI speakers from England that are pretty damn nice. When doing the install I figured out why the sound in the SRT was crap, the previous failed to mention there were no front door speakers...



I had to go to the junkyard and pull the speaker buckets out of an SXT because the SRT didn't even have them. So I drilled the holes properly in the buckets and mounted up the speakers



Here is the finished pics of LilSparkPlug's 3rd brake light LED. It works great, but I forgot to take night pictures

Glad you got it installed That's still my favorite brake light board! Those speakers do look nice....how do they sound?

LilSparkPlug wrote:Glad you got it installed That's still my favorite brake light board! Those speakers do look nice....how do they sound?

The brake light is great! The speakers sound pretty good and combined with the headunit I have they hit pretty hard without a sub or amp.

There is a great statewide forum called NYSpeed and they host a summer and spring road trip BBQ thing. This year I went to the end of summer BBQ and took the backroads to Letchworth State Park making an hour trip, about three hours. It was incredible no speed limits, ditches on either side of the road, and some nasty turns.