Modern Performance
For those of you who are’nt familiar with Cory Haines’s 1995 Dodge Neon Nitro Yellow Green ACR, its quite a special, and rare Neon.
First off, the Nitro Yellow Green color was a shocking, and nasty color for most people, and most of the Nitro Yellow Green Neons produced sat on dealer lots for months, sometimes even over a year as it was too wild for most peoples tastes. It sold so poorly, that Chrysler only made 1200 of these cars. Neon enthusiasts have no problem with the color, and its one of the most sought after color Neons due to its rarity!
Secondly, the ACR package, is a special Auto Cross built car designed to be a nimble, excellent handling factory production car. The ACR came with tighter steering than regular Neons, it had many things deleted from its production to save weight (fog lights, power windows, locks, side moulding, spoiler, etc).
Cory originally bought a NYG Sport Coupe in 1999, and later sold it around 2003. After owning several Neons, he couldnt get away from the “Neon” bug and was modifying a 1998 Coupe. When looking around for parts for his 1998 Neon, he came across a 1995 Nitro Yellow Green ACR in a junkyard. This car had a destroyed interior, no suspension, no engine, and was basically a shell not too far away from being destroyed.
After purchasing the shell, the NYG was stripped, and sent to the Paint booth for a fresh respray. The process took nearly 2 months and it looked beautiful afterwards.
After combing through junkyards, a complete interior was built, and a suspension and complete motor was installed. The first motor was a 2.0 Magnum motor with high compression pistons and a custom header.
On the dyno, the fully worked over 2.0 sohc put down a peak of 157 horsepower and about 137 lbs of torque at the wheels. Not too bad for a Sohc 2.0 motor considering the motor puts down about 125 horsepower at the wheels.
Next, was to build a 2.4 Dohc motor to put into the NYG. Several different parts were tested out, different tunes were tested and the best dyno tuning session recorded 194 horsepower and 170 pounds of torque at the wheels.
Here are some photos as the NYG ACR was found in the junkyard.
If you have time, read the 35 page thread on www.neons.org about this car and how it was transformed from a shell of a car days from being crushed to a NYG ACR thats back on the road!
This is the first post, in what will be a chronicle showing how we swap a complete Neon SRT-4 drivetrain into Cory’s 1995 Neon NYG ACR. We will swap the SRT-4 engine, wiring harness, pcm, transmission, brakes, fuel pump, and more into the 95 Neon. This drivetrain should result in a minimum of 240-250 horsepower at the wheels and about 255 lbs of torque. This should make a GREAT difference in power, and acceleration in the light 95 Neon.
We’ve created a special category for this swap, if you want to follow this swap just click on category and then PROJECT SRT-4 Swap into 95 Neon to follow.
