The Black “Pearl”s project log/updates

[Pearl_rt]

Hello! Figured I would start documenting my adventures with my neon! 04 rt! A little back story

I got my neon in 2021 from my uncle (the original owner) with 54k miles. He purchased it in Hawaii in 2004-5 when he was stationed in the navy and shiped it back to Massachusetts where he drove it for 3 years and then it sat in a barn for 12 years waiting to get a turbo. Life got in the way and he never got around to it. I turned 16 that summer and needed a car. He talked to my parents and I was basically forced into a neon. Drove the car from September to February constantly fixing not so great work that was done and fixing this that broke. April comes around I crash and fix the car. Soon after I chose to paint it a mix of black (factory) orange, and e blue. Now I am planning on building the 2.0 sohc over the summer along with repainting as spray paint doesn’t hold up to well. (I’m going to do it properly this time). I’m planning on doing a crane 14 cam with eagle rods, 12.0:1 compression je pistons, tti long tube header, ported head, and a custom itb set up with a magnum intake manifold and factory 1gn tbs. That’s all for now will post updates as they come

[INVUJerry]

Id recommend not starting with the magnum upper, but finding a 1gn metal intake to use. Much better platform to start with, and cheaper. The 12.0 compression will be very very steep to use with a crane 14 cam, so I'd recommend either lower compression, or a larger cam. I had a 12.5:1 compression setup with a crane 005 years ago and it was a very very fun ride, but it needed a mix of race gas and 93 to run on the street with the limited tuning I had available to me. The TTi longtube is availble, but you will probably want something with a merge collector eventually. Or have it converted to a tri-y.

Also, you will definitely need a megasquirt ECU to run this. This is far out of the realm of a stock PCM. With that, you wont pass emissions anymore.

[Pearl_rt]

Already cut the mag intake as I had a spare and I’m just going to run 10.5:1 compression still trying to get 4 1gn tbs

[Pearl_rt]

Update for 4/14/23. crank sensor died so i put a cheap parts store one in so i can at lease get to school until i can sell some parts to get a new oem sensor. other then that the only progress i have made is a single tip muffler and putting some old used Raceland coil overs on. hoping to get a new hood, driver cv axle, and some interior trim peace's this weekend. hoping to get the exhaust off and get a cat welded in for state inspection as its needed and the inspection runs out at the end of the month.