supertrick's '01 Dodge Neon R/T *ordering parts for rebuild*

[supertrick_05]

Damn trunk lid for 20$ and front n rear strut bars for 75$.. Where u finding these deals lol

Local Neon/SRT owners...gotta love local forums! LoL

The cruise control will have to have the correct resistors soldered into the switches/circuits to function. Whether or not the Mitsu unit is the same or not is anyone's guess.

I think there was a thread that gave the resistance values, but I can't promise that. You may need to ohm out the dodge swiches for each function, and see if the Mitsu functions match. Otherwise you will need to get matching resistors, and remove the existing? from the Mitsu and install the Dodge values. Or adapt something that is not wheel mounted.

Also, the air bag hopefully has the same resistance, or you may end up with an air bag light. Not sure there would be a fix for that one. :/

I'm hoping I can at least get the cruise working. If I can't get the airbag right, that's fine by me...I don't need it and keep it unplugged. I do really want the cruise to work though!

So anyways, today was a GREAT day for parts! I bought a trunk lid that is real nice (small rust spot, but I will sand blast the spot and treat it...good as new!) and I got the front/rear DC Sport strut braces that need to be blasted and either powdercoated or painted...and I got 'em all under $100! That's what I call fuckin' deals!

[supertrick_05]

Well since I had a shitty mishap with my winter car ('91 Dynasty), I had to pay $260 to get it out of an impound lot and funds are low, so I'm going to sell those strut bars to a friend of mine for what I bought them for and try to sell some other items I have around the house. I'm also looking for a 2nd job, part-time, like a pizza delivery job or something. I heard there is great money to be made doing that.

So anyways, enough about my personal troubles...there is light at the end of the tunnel! I talked to a good friend and he is parting out an '04 black R/T and said he'd sell me the rear bumper and tails for a price I couldn't say no to, and once I have the money we'll meet up and then I'll have a rear bumper to properly mate the Mopar lip to!
I also tried to replace my last blown strut (front pass.) but I need an impact to break the knuckle bolts loose, so I'll have to wait till my friend Laura can let me borrow hers.
From here on out, I will not be buying anymore appearance mods...I'll be collecting parts for my 2.0 high compression rebuild. Since I need to drive the car to EJ's place to do the rebuild, I will have to buy another block (hopefully low miles) and have it gone through at a machine shop and have the cylinders matched with the new Sealed Power DOHC pistons. Should be a real fun experience!

[BlackRT?]

interested in srt side skirts in trade for your rt ones?

[supertrick_05]

If I already didn't have the Mopar rear lip and the 03 R/T rear bumper, I'd say yes...but I do, so no. Thanks though!

Well times were rough the last few months, so I had to sell off my DC strut bars. The alternator took a crap in the R/T as well, so that helped fund the Duralast rebuilt alternator from Autozone. Lifetime warranty FTW! Now the car is running a little strange...when on deceleration with the car in gear but not on the accelerator, the car kinda bogs, then opens up, then bogs, then opens up, then bogs...and so on. Not sure what that's about, as it only does it on decel. So I'm going to quit driving the car until next Spring when EJ and I rebuild the Magnum motor. I'm donating plasma to fund it through the winter so I can throw all of my tax money towards my debts. So anyways, there probably wont be much progress on the car until next Spring, so wish the R/T a long and heavy sleep!

[BlackRT?]

where did you buy the rt front bumper from?
I tryd to order one from the dealer but they wanted a part number and or a vin...

[supertrick_05]

I didnt buy it...the previous owner did. From the dealer. Said he paid an arm and a leg for it.

[BlackRT?]

yeah im about to go to the dealer monday cant find one anywhere hope they have one or can get one..

[supertrick_05]

They are hard to come by outside of the dealer. I'm not sure how much they are, but they're not cheap. At least $300, probably more. I'm going to fix mine to look brand new. I saw some "plastic stapler" thing that Eastwood is selling and I've heard nothing but good stuff about it. That and 2-part plastic repair and it will be good as new.

Well I took the car down to my father's place today, so till next Spring, she'll be hibernating in a pole shed. I took one last picture of it after I got the new alternator in. It's showing off my new "Neon Racing" decal I got from Jason. I love it!

[BlackRT?]

its like almost 500$ msrp.. i get a decent discount off so.. this bumper route is going to be cheaper than a srt bumper dealer wants 775$ for that one

[maxq]

OK so update? did you end up bolting the eclipse steering up?? Was the dodge airbag (03+) direct bolt on or will require mods (not askig for cruise control as I dont have it)

[supertrick_05]

Still haven't done that yet. Will figure it out in the Spring.

[supertrick_05]

A little update on the 'ol gal. I ripped the seats out of the car and will be selling the front Ram Head buckets back to Derek for his car, and I acquired a near-mint front/rear SRT-4 airbag seats for free. The driver's seat needed help, but the passenger and rear seats are perfect, so I swapped over the covers and foam pieces from the pass. seat to the driver seat and bought a brand new pass. seat from Archer Racing for $40, so now I have $40 invested in a brand new set of SRT airbag seats! I gotta get some SEM fabric paint to spray over the "SRS Airbag" decals on the bolsters, but other than that, should look pretty dope!

I'm also in the works of ordering lots of parts for the 2.0 Magnum rebuild that EJ and I will be doing sometime this Spring. I gotta see which oversize bore pistons he thinks I should order, since the car has almost 200K miles on it and I'm pretty sure the stock bore piston will be too small for the worn cylinders. Other than that, all parts are ready to order...

[MyNeonSaysHi]

Nice score on the seats. Rebuild FTW!

[supertrick_05]

Ok, right now I'm also looking at picking up an SRT-4 hood in black from a guy in the cities. It has one little dent and needs to be repainted, but the car needs a repaint anyways, so I'm just gonna rock it as-is for now. The car is currently at my mechanic's shop getting a full look-over and he's going to report any findings. Already found that the oil sending unit was leaking bad so that's being replaced, as well as the battery terminal clamps. I gotta talk to EJ and make sure he's still down for the rebuild, then I can order the rest of my parts. No more pics of cars or toys yet, but soon...

[r/tguy02]

i know there was a guy on the .org selling new dohc pistons, cant remember if they were overbore, but its worth a look

[supertrick_05]

I dont think im gonna do dohc pistons...just stock bore. Im just gonna make the car a nice driver. Thanks though!

[r/tguy02]

why wouldnt you? if you're gonna go through the trouble of completely rebuilding it, it only makes sense to use dohc pistons instead of flat top ones. same price since they're stock and it helps performance. WIN in my book

[supertrick_05]

Well I might just hold up on the rebuild for now...I talked to my mechanic and he said that the car is running rich and that the computer is telling the car to add more fuel than it needs, so I'm gonna have him take care of that and see how the car goes from there. I don't want to rebuild it if I don't have to. Then thats more money that I can stick somewhere else on the car!

[supertrick_05]

Ordered a few parts from eBay this weekend...a Chrysler Neon grille, RH & LH inner fender liners, motor mounts (all 3), and Depo black housing headlights with "euro" turn signals. I also received a Cavalier spoiler (like from my silver car) from z3roneo...thanks buddy!

I also chatted with my mechanic yesterday and he said that the throttle was only opening 70% and the TPS was not performing as it should, so he ordered a new unit and will call me when he installs it and take the car for a drive. I'm hoping that will be the fix I'm looking for...otherwise I'll have to go ahead with the rebuild.

[illestskittle]

I'm a little surprised you haven't posted pictures of your recent legit purchase for your car Brodie!!

[supertrick_05]

The shifter or the wheels? All in good time my friend...all in good time.
Next weekend is gonna be epic! Neon meet in Minneapolis on Saturday, and Sunday I'm meeting up with Chuck (Maddog) to buy an '04 R/T rear bumper and tails from him, as well as to give him a shifter I had laying around to be made into something nobody has made...yet. I'm so pumped about it!

Also, a little update on the car...the R/T has been in the shop for awhile to find the reason why it's so low on power. Well it turns out the previous owner (not Derek, the guy before him) stripped the Magnum intake manifold of its butterflies and internals, so I had to source a used one out. Got a good used complete one for $150 from a local-ish yard and he put it on, but now it's running rich again. It was running rich before my mechanic found the manifold issue and discovered the charcoal canister was saturated, so he replaced it with a new one and it was running close to normal (still a little rich, but much better), then he puts the new manifold on and its running rich again? I dont get it...anyways, I told him I need the car tomorrow, no matter if its running rich or not. Soooo, tomorrow you might getto see a sneak peek of the car with it's new wheels/rubber!

[chew*]

Might be able to shed some light on the rich fuel mixture.

Played with a few exhausts and exhaust setups on our cars and also intake setups.

Put simply srt style or over sized exhausts fool with the pcm timing on our cars, the less restrictive the worse it gets. HP gains torque drops. Colder air is denser and harder to push out. A 3" will even cause backfiring on WOT takeoffs from idle. Anyway so screws with pcm timing, get detonation, PCM retards more.

3 ways to deal with it actually 4.

1 Reinstall stock RT exhaust.

2 install a couple moroso spiral flow to aid in some restriction.

3 install adjustable cam gear ( I'd go this route last, to many horror stories of bolts coming loose and valve damage.

4 piggy back or MS. <---This is how I've dealt with it.

BTW I assume your complaint is bogging out/loss of power on takeoff from idle/stop, once in 3000-3500 rpm range its fine.....

Also airbox mods vs cai

Open airbox trimmed or the K&N/AFE style tend to give a sloppy gain throughout entire rpm range.

CAI tend to give a very narrow torque gain between 3500-4200

[r/tguy02]

Never had those issues with mine ^

[wickedgood4684]

To add to what Chew* said

"Air/fuel mix (and/or exhaust charge) is a fluid so it helps to think of the process as water flowing through a pipe. Any fluid in motion has mass x velocity = inertia. So far so good.

With a NA engine you use the inertia of the exhaust gas flowing down the ex pipe to 'pull' the incoming charge into the cylinder. Yes there is back pressure at ignition (briefly) but once you get the exhaust charge moving it will continue to move (inertia) and pull the fresh air/gas charge into the cylinder. This results in moar torque. This is exhaust tuning at it's finest.

Now suppose the exhaust diameter is increased beyond optimum. The mass is the same but due to the larger cross-section the velocity is decreased. Then the incoming air/gas is not pulled into the cylinder with sufficient velocity. You lose torque.

Suppose the exhaust is too small - then the restriction causes back pressure plus drop in exit mass and velocity - triple whammy. So there is an optimum diameter to the exhaust for any NA motor that promotes max fuel/air mixture being pulled into the cylinder by the inertia of the exhaust.

A turbo is a completely diff situation since the air/fuel mix is force fed into the cylinder - then you need the exhaust pipe to get the feck out of the way and let the turbo do it's thing. Big is better (up to a point)."

http://www.vwgolf.net.au/showthread.php ... -Explained

[chew*]

Never had those issues with mine ^

You run a stock R/T exhaust and only test on butt dyno?
Or flip side high compression? That also changes things.

If so doesn't apply to you.

I know for a fact his exhaust is changed and srt style no muffler the diff between that and a stock r/t is rather significant as far as flow/backpressure is concerned.

I have a exhaust back pressure tester and a stock r/t exhaust setup.

I can run some numbers on stock R/T vs SRT.

I can assure you that it has quite a significant impact on our cars though and gets worse as the pcm "learns" and tries to compensate.

It can also effect vaccuum as link points out.

[chew*]

Another thought on your power issues besides the obvious, tired engine low compression stuff.

Seen alot of R/T heads and cams go through my hands. 2 of many had good cams, rest were junk some according to a micrometer, some just plain obvious.

Those "nice roller rockers and roller cam that are impervious to needing break in and or wearing"

I have seen them with rather significant wear at the top of the lobe or left and right of the top.

When thousands of an inch matter in cams that kind of wear can significantly reduce power.

Luckily this is easy to check.

[r/tguy02]

Never had those issues with mine ^

You run a stock R/T exhaust and only test on butt dyno?
Or flip side high compression? That also changes things.

If so doesn't apply to you.

I know for a fact his exhaust is changed and srt style no muffler the diff between that and a stock r/t is rather significant as far as flow/backpressure is concerned.

I have a exhaust back pressure tester and a stock r/t exhaust setup.

I can run some numbers on stock R/T vs SRT.

I can assure you that it has quite a significant impact on our cars though and gets worse as the pcm "learns" and tries to compensate.

It can also effect vaccuum as link points out.

just noticed this post lol, but no its not an srt or r/t exhaust really anymore, still have a high flow cat and a muffler, high compression as well with a LTH w/3" collector, so you're right it "may" not apply to me...
i've even considered adding a resonator to it as well

[chew*]

magnaflow makes a 20" long straight through for 2 1/4 and 2 1/2 diameter. thinking of replacing SRT resonators with those, should help with backpressure and get rid of raspy sound and more importantly fit in tunnel.

[r/tguy02]

i already have one, just havent put it on, its a 2-1/2" (vibrant?) resonator

[chew*]

i already have one, just havent put it on, its a 2-1/2" (vibrant?) resonator

nah actual muffler i believe, 10416 part # for 2 1/2 diameter

http://providence.craigslist.org/pts/3820248683.html