I sent this out before, about a year ago, but it is funny enough to warrant
a repeat...
The original article below is from Mopar Action, and the URL was:
http://www.atsweb.net/neon/nosart.html
Not sure if it is still working.
Cheers,
Steve
Mopar Action, April '98, pp 21-23
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!!)
The setup 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.=20
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.=20
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 musta
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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