(NON-VW!)Say 'bye to NEON article

["Chris Chemidlin" <spredhaus@hotmail.com>]

<x-flowed>This was in a Mopar magazine a while back. Its still fun to read...

Chris

>
>Say 'Bye to Neon
>
>
>
>Story by: Richard Ehrenberg
>
>Ever want to nitrous your ride, but were afraid you'd grenade
>your mega-dollar motor into smithereens, or trash your daily
>driver? Well,fear no more. For the measly sum of $19.95, we can
>absolutely guarantee that you won't blow YOUR motor. How? Heh heh
>heh. Just rent a car from your local, smiling Thrifty agent (we
>highly recommend the sunny Phoenix locations.) His motor + your
>nitrous system =3D no
>problem. Experience the thrill of nitrous, totally uninhibited.
>No longer will you feel the urge to back off because you're
>afraid of scattering YOUR dollars along the side of the road or at
>the strip. It's like hot fudge sundaes without the guilt. Mopar
>Action's staff, the same people who brought you the Rental Car
>Nats and the famous "push-o-war" (nose-to-nose burnouts), are out
>on a brief furlough from Nurse Ratchet's psycho ward, and will
>outdo themselves again by showing you how to knock over 3
>seconds off a bone stock Neon. Yeah, you got it! 16.90 @ 81MPH to a
>zero-traction 13.82 @ 102. Have we got chrome-moly spheres, or
>what?
>
>  We slammed together a supersimple N2O system for our bone
>stock 3-speed automatic rent-a-Neon (with 13-inch wheels!) consisted
>of readily available parts from the NOS nitrous catalog and the
>local NAPA parts store.  Our goal was to make no engine mods
>and unbolt nothing from the car during installation. In other
>words, we wanted to be smarter than O.J., and leave no incriminating
>evidence behind (is America a great country, or what?)
>
>The system consisted of an N20 tank held in the back seat by
>the lap and shoulder belt, a length of braided hose laying on the
>carpet, and routed through the unused clutch-cable firewall
>hole, the cheapest electric fuel pump we could find, nitrous and
>fuel solenoids and two simple injectors. The injectors consisted of
>nothing more than two short lengths of 3/16" brake line tubing
>with the solenoids attached at one end and 2 NOS-modified "AN"
>fittings that accept NOS nitrous and fuel-metering jets on the
>other end. A painless incision into the
>soft plastic air box hose allowed N2O and fuel to be injected
>directly above the throttle body. The whole deal was held in
>place by duct tape and cable ties.  Replaceable jets allowed
>precision tuning of the
>system to any level of insanity desired.
>
>Auxiliary fuel (alcohol "drygas") was stored in the windshield
>washer reservoir and the small electric pump was added to supply
>fuel (the windshield wiper fluid pump will not supply enough
>fuel) to a solenoid. This setup was rigged into the horn wiring to
>open the solenoids when you punch the horn button (we did
>disconnect the horn button).
>
>So how did it work? Awesome. Simply awesome. We started out
>with a 50HP nitrous jet with 100% excess fuel. Hitting the horn at
>4000RPM in 2nd gear felt like 15 lbs of boost. Were we happy?
>Nope! Onward to the 75HP jet and only 50% excess fuel. The Neon
>was amazing. We worked up the guts for 1800 RPM launches in first
>gear.  Oops=97out of nitrous, before you can say: "Thrifty."
>Luckily, we had brought a second bottle.
>
>The entire Mopar Action staff flogged the Neon mercilessly, but
>we couldn't break it (yet). They high (low?) point came when
>"Crazy" Eddie Yeznaian, intrepid rally racer and wildebeest
>extraordinaire,
>  actually power-braked the car to the floor, cut the wheel to
>the left, and hit the nitrous in reverse. Nothin' like nitrous
>doughnuts after a hard day at the office!  (Since this was done in
>the rain, does that make it Dunkin' Donuts?) If you can imagine
>what it must be like to be trapped in a spinning top at 200
>RPM, you get the idea. Where are the air-sickness bags for this
>ride? H-E-L-L-L-P!
>
>After the second full 10 pound bottle of nitrous had been
>greedily half-guzzled by the motor, we decided to go for broke before
>it was empty. We slipped in the killer 150HP jets. Is this
>sick, or what? We more than doubled the stock HP output! Jeeez!
>13.82 @ 102mph. The motor took first gear launches at 2000RPM with
>cylinder pressures that should have shot the plugs through the
>hood, and exhaust gas temps that were slightly hotter than the
>surface of the sun.
>
>  Could the Neon go faster? And, mainly, would the converter
>stay in the transaxle, or launch like a Saturn rocket and slice our
>legs off at the knees? (And, do they rent hand-control Neons?)
>For our last runs of the day, we leaned out the fuel jet for
>only 5% excess fuel and stuck our guinea pig editor, Cliff
>"Pleeeeease don't blow the motor, guys!" Gromer behind the wheel. For
>his first duel, Cliff matched himself up with an automatic Mustang
>GT at the track. The pony car came out of the shoot even with
>the Neon, and pulled ahead by the 300-ft mark. The Neon, now in
>second, gets juiced by Gromer. Result? Like taking candy from a
>baby. Cliff's little rent-a-PL was so far out on the 'Stang that
>he was able to back off in third, turning a 14.15 at 96.7.
>
>Later, in an impromptu street run from a 10mph roll-on, Cliff,
>the sick puppy that he is, hit the horn button in first gear,
>right on the "3" count, the 2-liter Twinkie motor screamed for
>mercy, the tires
>  spun all the way through first gear. We were fender to fender
>with a fast 440-6 Challenger R/T. He ripped his piston-grip to
>second, but we pulled ahead.  Clifford boiled the tires big-time
>into second gear, allowing the R/T to pull alongside. The Neon
>mini-motor wound tight-right to the rev limiter. Did Cliff lift?
>Did he back off? No chance! Ka-boom! A glowing three-foot
>fireball barked out of each side of the hood, and rolled back over the
>windshield. Cheeez! This actually caused the R/T driver to
>lift, but not Cliff! Wow. Say goodbye to Neon.
>
>We pulled over, fully expecting to see rods hanging out of the
>block. Surprise. Only the airbox is blown apart. With the leaned
>out fuel system and the motor running so far into the rev
>limiter that the stock injectors were shut completely off, we must a
>floated the valves and backfired through the intake system. The
>motor was running a little rough (a slight understatement) and
>we're sure we bent at least one valve, or, more likely, blew the
>head off of a couple. Guess we should have followed Mark's rules
>(see sidebar). Needless to say it was the best $19.95 we ever
>spent. We gassed the Neon back up and limped back to the
>ever-smiling counterperson.
>
>                  Thanks, Thrifty.
>
>By the way, if you're interested in renting a Neon for $19.95 a
>day to go mustang hunting, Performance Resource is currently
>looking into marketing a complete nitrous kit (minus the bottle)
>that is jetted and flowed, and that you can bolt onto your rental
>Neon (or your own Neon for that matter) in less than an hour.
>Just so there's no misunderstanding, the kits are not available
>at this time, but they can be whipped together if there's
>sufficient interest out there in Neonland.
>
>Contact: Performance Resource, 12 Barbara Drive, Fairfield, NJ
>07004; 201-343-0680
>
>


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