When it came to us it was too good to pass up.  The wholesalers wouldn't give us $500 for this sad little neon.  It wouldn't start and our lot crew had it as far away from the public as possible.  To add insult to injury, someone broke in at night and stole the stereo and shift knob.  Where everyone else saw scrap metal we felt touched by fate.  

Anyone following our Autocross season might have heard that we lost the latest classification battle involving one of our cars.  The deleted aftermarket sunroof was done in such a way (sheet metal and rivets) to bump us from Showroom Stock to Street Prepared.  This is quite a little jump in the SCCA rule book.  Some person or persons running in the same class felt that our car did not belong in the world of the pure-bloods and the rules were on their side.

Well, whats a guy to do.  We could move on.  Or, as the old saying goes: If you can't beat em, Join em, then beat em with their own car.  

The rules we set for ourselves:
1) Spend as little as possible
2) Do the work Outdoors and at Night
3) Follow all SCCA/CART Rules
4) Win

The car wouldn't start but we knew it was driven in.  One pop start later we were on our first test drive.  Pretty or tight would not be the word.  There were noises out of a horror movie or a Nine Inch Nails Sound Track combined with some nice wobble and pull.  A bad strut and a bad ball joint or two seemed likely and the noises from the motor .... well its free.  We pointed the car for the nearest back yard and away we went.  We took the south end bridge and off ramps to further assess the suspension.  The car actually handled better than expected considering the feedback we were getting.  Little did we know at the time that our test pilot almost died.  We jacked up the car and confirmed a bad tie rod but also found a surprise.  Our little Neon had one lonely klanking coilover!

With the car parked and five days till race day we got to work.

Josh hit the junk yards first thing Tuesday.  It was harder to find first gen Neons than we had planned.  Most of these unloved little guys have been crushed for scrap.  Conviction prevailed.  After 20 plus calls, a few scouting hikes and some field stripping we walked away (literally) with "like new"  100+kmi OEM front strut assemblies,  a complete air cleaner assembly,  shift knob, oil cap, and the holy grail, an original gadge cluster with tachometer.  

Total cost:  $115

We stopped at the auto zone for some fresh plugs and the only tie rod end in stock

Total cost:  $27

We felt so good about ourselves that we took Wednesday off.

Thursday night we put in the goodies as soon as the sun set.  After cleaning up a mess of hacked wiring the car started on it's own.  Wow.  We were almost disappointed.  As we changed plugs we found that the old ones were each living in a pool of oil... Hmmmm.  The rest our restoration went off will little suprise with a big enough breaker bar, a sledge and a bottle of map gas.  Well, there was one little thing... The tie rod that literally fell apart in our hands as soon as we touched it.   That first test drive might have been the last one.  A quick test with our "new"and a cautious thumbs up.

Friday meant a call to Chrysler for questions on alignment.  They said they use crash bolts to correct camber in their stock cars.  A quick glance at the rule book confirmed it was fair play.  The one problem,  an order would not be in until Monday without paying for rush shipping (see rule 1) and they cost over would cost well over $40 for a set (see rule 1 again)  for what are literally 4 grade 8 bolts.  Dimensions in hand we sent Glen to the hardware store.

We came up with 4 bolts and fresh nuts for $9.  After sunset we put in our crash bolts with a healthy gob of locktiight and got the car back on the ground.  You could see the difference immediatly. 

An alignment saturday morning shows we got our camber pretty darn close!   We also corrected some gross toe in from the tie rod swap.   We stopped by westside customs and picked up our radio. 

(Alignment sheet photo) 

A look at our check list shows that we're just mounted R compound tires away from completion.   How will this all end on Sunday!?!   Stay Tuned....