Good progress on the Neon this past week.

Big learning moment of the week was never to trust measurements taken within 4 hours of getting the flu. Nothing like a pretzel for a main hoop!

Interior is pretty much free of any excess weight from the B pillars forward. Left as much of the weight in the rear as possible. Pulled the dash completely out and was able to pull a lot of legal weight off of the firewall. Total weight loss from the B pillar forward was right at 24 lbs. and that doesn't include the weight loss from gutting the doors for the NASCAR style bars (remember that the interior had already been pulled after the Neon lost it's SSC eligibility).Seat position has been established and we'll be running a Butler Built aluminum seat this year and the Corbeau has been relegated to DE's and PDX's. We're lowering the seat position by almost 6" and laying it back a little. In doing that, the Corbeau's belt guides were in the wrong location, and the headrest submarined below the neck line.

The cage downbars were tricky as the cowl area is different from side to side and there's an odd A pillar line where the door is. In order to get the lateral bar in proper position, the bottom of the pillar has been notched and half of the tube will sit on the rocker, the other half will travel down the rocker and land on the floor.A non pretzeled main hoop was test fit today and all is good now.

The suspension work is going well.Brake ducts are complete. Hub ends were fabbed to route the air directly into the rotor at the hub and force the air out of the rotor vanes. Hopefully this will help the lifespan of the hub as well as the rotors/pads. The bumper ends use the Neons factory fog light holes and a set of ducts sourced from Ebay, modified to fit around the chassis' radiator frame which blocks the route from being an easy hook up.

The lower control arms were pulled and the spherical bearing kit has been installed in the rear bushing location. A poly kit has been ordered for everything else as once we had the LCA off we could tell that the bushings were factory units. New ball joints have been pressed in and new tie rod ends are ready to install. A second (or is it third?) knuckle set has been sourced so that fresh hubs/bearings are just a quick swap away.A ton is still left to go, but we're getting there.

After the suspension gets buttoned up, it's on to the exhaust while the cage work continues.

Share this post: Email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit!