Project Dodge Neon Cams - Tech Project

An accurate tire pressure gauge is a must. This is our homemade unit. When our old pressure gauge got dropped and knocked way out of calibration, we screwed this high quality, liquid filled, shock resistant, super accurate reference gauge onto the old hose and bleeder valve.

An accurate tire pressure gauge is a must. This is our homemade unit. When our old pressur

After installing our bolt-ons and cams, we returned to Famoso. This time we went home with a far more respectable 15.8 seconds at 88 mph. The 60 ft time was once again an abysmal 2.6 seconds. This is a full second and five mph quicker than the stock engine under the same circumstances.

We were somewhat disappointed in the overall speed of the car, however. Some Neon SOHCs with similar mods have pulled low 15s and high 14s. We attribute our somewhat poor second showing to a very slippery track, high altitude and 17-inch street tires. The very stiff, track-tuned suspension is also far from ideal for drag launches.

The drags showed us we desperately need a limited-slip differential and new clutch. Our planned addition of a Phantom Grip limited slip in a future installment should greatly help the car's 60-ft performance. We feel Project Neon has the potential to run 2.2 seconds or better with a little work, especially if we can run on a prepped track at sea level.

Trial By Autocross
Since Project Neon is built to be an all-around, kick-ass, jack-of-all-trades machine, we had to prove its cornering prowess at a local autocross.

A good autocross car does not understeer. On a tight autocross course, understeer means slow times. The car also has to rotate well. Rotating means the car has to be good at pivoting around the front end. These characteristics are often difficult, or even impossible, to obtain in a front-wheel-drive car. Fortunately, the multiple national championship-winning Neon platform has good autocrossing DNA.

Taking advantage of Project Neon's full suspension adjustability, we set the front camber at negative two degrees. More camber means less contact patch on the inner tire, so we stayed conservative. We also dialed in 3.5 degrees of positive caster to get some negative camber gain when the wheels were turned, and added 1/8-inch toe out to also help turn in. In the rear, we ran 1.5 degrees negative camber and zero rear toe. Our initial inflation pressure was set to 37 psi front and 35 psi rear.

At our local autocross test-and-tune practice race run, we were surprised and pleased to find our baseline settings perfect right out of the box. Our pyrometer readings showed we were making full use of the rubber. This speaks highly of the Neon's basic platform and the excellent Ground Control/Koni suspension system. We only had to bleed the tires to maintain the pressure as they heated up and do some minor tweaks to the rear rebound damping to better deal with the rough parking lot surface.

The car exhibited no understeer and rotated like a top when the throttle was lifted, making us look like seasoned autocrossers. Amazingly, we ended up second in Street Touring Class with a time only a few tenths off of the local hero national class winner. We can only imagine how well the car would do in the hands of a real driver. The only area of major weakness was the lack of a limited-slip differential, allowing us to smoke the inside tire at the exit of almost every corner. Can't wait for that LSD.