It's not that you can't make equal amounts of power on smaller motors. It's just that you get to a point where there's no such thing as enough octane, and the metals just can't take that much pressure. Otherwise, you could force 1000psi of air pressure in a teeny little motor, and there would be no reason to have that much weight in the front of your car. Economically, it's more feasible to make more power on a bigger motor, but I can obviously make plenty of power on the 2.0L I have.

 

wow, cant we all just get along, at least he is not build ing power from gutted cats and stickers

 

all you need is to gut the shyt out of your cat

 

Not true. Get on the forums in the midlant section there is a post from a guy I know whos done it, and has a step by step buildup on how to achieve 300whp on a stock turbo. Sorry for the late post. BTW for all of you arguing that a turbo'd neon is different than an SRT4, how is this so? Theyre both 4cyl, theyre both DOHC, and the SRT4 is only .4 liters bigger. In fact the heads on the 2.0 flow better than the 2.4

 

You're right that I was referring to the SRT turbo. I've seen it done. That's pretty much the limit of it though.

Actually, mine's the SOHC model. The cam selection and adjustability of each cam individually makes the DOHC the better head.

3 cylinder heads have been produced for the neons.

DOHC - Obviously 2 cams. In the 95-99 neons, they were available in R/T, ACR, and Sport models. Not all were equipped though. In the 2nd gen neon, the DOHC was only available in the SRT-4 model. It's the same head, however, the SRT-4 trim had less agressive cams loaded into it in attempt to keep the torque dropoff of the small turbo gentle and more easily driven.

SOHC - Came in base models in all years as well as the non-performance higher trims. All were loaded with the same cam, with the exception of the 95, which had a more agressive cam.

Magnum - Also a SOHC head, however, was loaded with a MUCH more agressive cam, especially in the 01 model. The internal parts are interchangeable with the normal SOHC head. The only notable difference in the head itself is that the exhaust ports are huge in comparison. On a flow bench, the stock magnum outflows the DOHC on the exhaust side, but not the intake.

I happen to have the worst head of the 3, with the worst cam in it. That's why when you look at my dyno graph, torque falls off so fast. The cam that I have laying around that I'm going to put in it is actually from the 01 Magnum head, which was the best stock neon SOHC cam made.

As far as the difference between the 2.4 and the 2.0, the 2.4 likes to make more torque at low RPM, but they both will make about the same horsepower on the top end with equivalent parts around it. The reason I chose to stay 2.0 is that more low endtorque tends to just spin tires in a FWD.

 

 

This is an amazing thread to go ten pages in only 4 days. Wow!

My two cents worth: I respect anyone who likes cars and realizes that every car has both plus and minuses and that you can be an enthusiast and have fun with anything.

As to Neons, I've had some pretty streetable ones line up with me on the track -- random luck of the draw on a Friday night --that ran deep down in the 12s. I respect them although I am wary of running again heavily modded Neons because the torque steer is apparently really bad -- I had one pop sideways into my lane one night when he shifted and turbo lag caught him for a eyeblink, --- luckily he was a couple of feet behind my rear bumper bythen, but it was a big scare anyway.

 

Wow. I'd be pretty upset at the guy. They do torque steer quite a bit, but if you know enough about FWD cars to build a fast one, you also know that you need to hold the steering wheel when drag racing them.
The SRT-4neons came with equal-length half shafts that helps the tires to break loose at the same time, but the LSD in the 04 and 05 models doesn't work like a posi rear end. It doesn't keep the tires at the same speed. Just keeps one tire from completely unloading. That doesn't help much for the torque steer.
But hey! A cheap, fast car is generally bought by inexperienced drivers, and the fact that it's hard to drive ensures that there's plenty of go-fast parts sitting in junkyards for the rest of us.