And so it ends... [56k no]

[Blaise]

Here ends the story. Last night I towed away my first car. If you care, here's a short version of it's history.

My dad bought our 1996 Plymouth neon in July of '96 in St. Louis. By then, the '97 models were in the dealershipss, so what would become our '96 had been dicounted from it's 11.5k sticker to 10 flat. Thank god too, because my cheap-ass father would have bought the '96 3spd automatic cavalier offered at the local chevy dealer for 10.5k instead.



As you can see, the only option was AC. However, at the time I was 11, so I really didn't do much but ride in it for 5 years.

Come my 16th birthday, I didn't get the car like I expected. However, I was already anticipating it so I had begun to do research on www.neons.org on how to make it more fun. I've been a car guy since I was 7 or 8, but I was new to the modification scene.

Come August 16, 2002, I got the car. Oops. The first mod (ha) was done by the mentally disabled guy across the street who decided to drive his nissan truck into my car on day 1. Bastard. At least they paid out $905 for the fix. While they took their time to pay out, I learned how to change my oil and installed a cone filter and slightly larger throttlebody from an automatic car.



Except that I didn't fix the fender at a dealership. Instead, I spent the $900 and some money that I saved on a set of Konis, Mopar Springs, Polyurethane bushings, junkyard alloys, and Falken Azenis. Jesus, this car could TURN. (oh yeah, I hammered out the fender and primered it)

Before:



After 4 days during which I should have died (I did the entire install using my OEM scissorjack and no jackstands):




From here, I tried my hand at autocrossing. I did the STL SCCA Novice school, evolution stage 1, and was well on my way to win 'Novice of the year.' Here's when something strange happened: I found a website called www.stlsr.com. Don't go there, it's a website where idiots who streetrace in the STL area hang out, which I found very cool as a 16 year old. While there, I caught a ton of crap from honda owners, telling me to push my piece of crap economy car off of a cliff. While I knew that my car wasn't great, I took offense to get it from somebody driving this:



After being e-abused by this same guy through the entire winter, I finally worked up the balls to tell him I'd race him. Yeah, I got laughed at. A 2000 Civic Si in '02 was hot ish. Especially ones with mods, no matter how minimal (he had IHE).

So, to prevent embarassement, I ordered a Mopar ECU for my car, a 32" resonator to take place of the stock muffler, and installed a 1lb 33% underdrive crank pulley (stocker is around 8lbs), and gutted the car. No carpet, torched out the sound deadener, no seats, no radio, nothing. I wasn't going to lose. I went to the track, only to be kicked out for being under 18. So what did I do in my wise 16 year old wisdom? I raced the guy on the street. Not for money, but for the respect.

I met the guy on a deserted 6-mile straight between two farms, and beat the everloving crap out of the poor civic. It wasn't even close. At all. I posted a thread, which grew to something like 17 pages by the next morning. Disbelief grew. How was it possible? I had to take my car to the track, and with full weight. Luckily, somebody volunteered to sneak me in, and I raced the car at Gateway the next week with the interior fully intact. With a crappy 2.2 60', I managed a 15.3@88. Not so bad. (And no, I didn't streetrace anybody again, although I got in a similar fued during my senior year [also an '00 Si], but I raced him at the strip)

For a while I didn't try dragracing again, since I wasn't yet 18 and couldn't enter. So I continued autocrossing with little changes to the car. I moved here to our area in August of '03, where this picture was taken:



I had a hard time fitting in autocrossing in Philly. People took it too seriously and I was too far below the average age to be even spoken to. Luckily, I discovered the mutliple dragstrips in the area, and I caught the bug this time. I decided to try to hit 14s in the car without changing anything. I figured if a SOHC neon with stock bottom end, trans, head, cam and manifolds could hit 14s, that would be kinda cool. Christ, it was hard. That fall I made more than 50 passes at Cecil and Atco, resulting in consitent 15.20s. Seriously, I could not do better. Then, on november 31, 2003, I went to Atco to see www.ephatch.com have their meet. We all make fun of EP hatches, so I figured it would be good fun to try to race some of the faster cars there and possibly beat a few.

By the end of the night, I had made 9 passes. My first few were 15.60s (I was sandbagging so I could race them for money), then when nobody would run me I clicked off a 15.1, a 15.0, then another 15.0. Jesus christ. My last race of the night was against the fastest EP hatch of the group. I nailed the launch perfectly and beat the guys 15.0@92 with a 14.94@89.6 with a 2.0 60'. I was screaming all the way back to the pits. Yes, it's a slow car, but oh my god, that was hard. Now, I could modify it further.

The next year was a crapload of trying new parts and not going much faster. By the end of the year I had installed a shorter final drive, a header/catback, cam, and head. With only a 2.2 60' in the same november weather, I clicked off a 14.5@96mph. With further practice the following spring I got it to 14.3@96. I figured after tuning and a good launch I'd be as close to 13s as I had been to 14s two years before. So I put it on the dyno. Gains were good:





So 155whp with the cam timing off by 4 degrees (oops), and on a mustang dyno to boot. I was excited. Time to do it again and hit 13.99 with less than anybody else. Not so fast:











^^ Blew the oil pump on my way to the strip. I now know that it was from spinning to 8000rpm without a proper crank pulley (harmonic balancer) with slight pinging. At this point I fixed the car and seriously considered other options as I was running into random minor problems while not going much faster. Screw 13s. I want to go 11s. I sourced an SRT-4 motor for the car for $1200, and started parting out my stuff to pay for it.

Enter $50 silver neon.



I bought this car with a broken timing belt for daily driver duties while I would put the SRT motor into the white car. Took 8 hours to fix



However, all this was planned with the idea that I would be studying in town and living at home next year (2 years local campus is standard for many PSU students). Come the end of July, I recived a letter that I was to move up to State College in August. At this point the poor white neon was already almost hopelessely parted out for the upcoming swap (head/cam/intake/AFC/ECU were gone). My mother issued an ultimatum, I was to keep one car in her driveway, and only one. With 4 weeks of vacation about to begin and only 6 weeks from school, things weren't looking good.

What a tough decision I couldn't find a buyer for either car to save my life. Luckily, last week I got an offer of $400 for my white car as it sat. As long as I included everything minus the transmission to get it running, the guy would take it. I sold almost all of the aftermarket parts, so I don't feel like I've been ripped off, but still... it sucks.

So here we are. I ran out of time, and last night the white car went somewhere else. I'm sorry Compare the photos, look how the cars changed places in only a few weeks





Meet my new, permanent transportation. It's ok.

[smoger]

nice story, what you did with that neon is seriously impressive. when i drive mine i'd never expect it to see anywhere near 14's, much less without a turbo. kudos to you

[sisforsurfing]

Nice story, I've always wondered what the deal was with the 14 second, SOHC N/A Neon. Good luck at school, better things will come out of it I bet, just not quite yet. Can't be easy to see it go, but you'll get something better, and faster (using less than everyone else.)

[SilverTurboRidin]

Blaise glad to see your pulling a swap...my cousin has a 99 with a SRT swap

[Blaise]

Originally Posted by SilverTurboRidin

Blaise glad to see your pulling a swap...my cousin has a 99 with a SRT swap

Maybe you misread. I was preparing for the swap but had to cut it short after pulling my parts and had to sell the shell.

[SilverTurboRidin]

Yeah i skipped a few parts...But if you DO get around to trying the swap let me know, my cousin has a second wiring harness

[igo4bmx]

keep in mind, Blaise's mom is a MILF