new to this SOMEBODY please help

[Shadow]

Our customers SRT-4. Stock untouched longblock, 50 trim T3/T4 turbo with 3" exhaust. D-tec, 750cc inj's, large FMI, CAI, clutch upgrade, upgrade cold pipe/BOV, full bodied, 20 psi on pump = 12.7 @ 117mph on street raidials (not D/R's) 26 psi + slicks + 114 octaine (he wanted to be safe) = 11.53 @ 123.5mph. There is no carbin fiber on this car, 100% full bodied. Has been driving it like this for 2 years with no issues. You can make good power with the stock turbo, but for the power you want, you would be way better off upgrading the turbo. You could make 400whp on pump!

[blackbird]

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Pope The structure of the car that is made to be stiff and part of the roll cage construction and so on is inbetween the wheels. In front of the wheels the car is a crumple zone, same as behind the rear tires. The car is made super flexable there to make the car softer when it hits something. The old Dodges use this area for holding the engine which sucks, and they bend. The only thing the front end needs to do is stand up to a 5 MPH hit, thats the bumpers main job. Above that much higher where most SRT 4s get smashed it doesn't matter, the car crushes in to the engine. My brothers wife rear ended a Honda picking it up off the ground 2'. with the aftermarket IC. Stange but true the IC took the blunt and lifted the honda up onto the hood. The IC was welded and repaired and is on the black SRT in my other posts, my brother got a carbon hood and Clay got a big Spearco cheap.

The bar in question is not a "crash bar" similar to a bumper. It's a high-strength steel beam that ties the front end of the car together (since the 2nd gen Neon doesn't use a traditional structural radiator core support like the older cars). The bar is a bumper support with the actual bumper being the piece of black Styrofoam that attaches to it behind the fascia. That piece is what allows the Neon to meet the minimum 2.5 mph, not 5mph, federal bumper impact standard. In a severe impact the entire front end of the car is designed to deform in a control manner but the crumple zones aren't as well designed as many newer cars. In an offset frontal collision when you remove the bar the vehicle can only channel the crash forces down one side of the vehicle which will greatly increase the impact forces transmitted to the occupants. Take a look at the NHTSA's frontal crash testing and the Neon does okay. Look at the IIHS and EuroNCAP offset testing and it does very poorly. And that's before removing a key piece of the unibody.

It has been discussed quite a few times and it's inappropriate to say there are no increased risks from removing it. In fact there are quite severe potential risks and we probably aren't going to hear from people after-the-fact who are in moderate offset frontal collisions that might otherwise have been survivable. A bigger intercooler can offer better performance. Tested and proven fact. But I wouldn't recommend doing it without significant bracing and even then an aftermarket bar may not offer the same protection as stock.

Misleading people to think that it's just as safe is wrong. Can you prove it? I can show that it's probably not. If you want to do some research on your own to see what I'm talking about spend countless hours going through the NHTSA's database and then some of the information on modern chassis design. It can be quite enlightening.

NASSCase Query Page

NHTSA vehicle Crash Test Database

Eric H.

[njshift]

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Pope The structure of the car that is made to be stiff and part of the roll cage construction and so on is inbetween the wheels. In front of the wheels the car is a crumple zone, same as behind the rear tires. The car is made super flexable there to make the car softer when it hits something. The old Dodges use this area for holding the engine which sucks, and they bend. The only thing the front end needs to do is stand up to a 5 MPH hit, thats the bumpers main job. Above that much higher where most SRT 4s get smashed it doesn't matter, the car crushes in to the engine. My brothers wife rear ended a Honda picking it up off the ground 2'. with the aftermarket IC. Stange but true the IC took the blunt and lifted the honda up onto the hood. The IC was welded and repaired and is on the black SRT in my other posts, my brother got a carbon hood and Clay got a big Spearco cheap.

Every part designed into the structure of a unibody car has an intended purpose. Removing a structural piece that is integrated into the front of the frame rails does not seem like a good idea if you still want the car behave the way the factory intended. The front end of the car is not "super flexible" like you say, if it was it would translate into horrible performance. It is designed to be forgiving in a controlled manner during an impact. Any type of added bracing or ways to improve the rigidity of a cars body is important. This is the same reason why the USTCC and SWCTC weld in a piece of tubing to replace the factory bumper beam. They even seam/spot weld the front end beyond the strut towers. What they are trying to accomplish is increasing the vehicles rigidity in order for the roll cage to be 100% effective. OEM safety aside (race cars rely on roll cages not crumple zones), these teams believe that that front crash bar does provide some structural support which is why they replace the bar in the first place.