you know the love affair with your car is over when....

[Sean73]

Power is not a hard thing to come by... 50 shot of nitrous, or maybe a small turbo kit (lots of which are available for honda engines these days and are even smog legal)

 

If you're so worried about Dodge honoring your warantee, should your trans break, why on earth would you consider these mods for a Honda? You will end up right where you are today with the SRT.

 

If I were you, I would leave the SRT stock for a while, and see if the problem gets any worse. Have the dealer replace the tranny fluid and check clutch alignment, on your dime if neccessary. Also, get clarification in writing on what is covered, and not covered under warantee.

[Bartman]

Looks like you can get them for around 20K.

 

http://www.automotive.com/2004/12/pontiac/gto/used-car-listings/index.html

[Guest bastaad525]

If you're so worried about Dodge honoring your warantee' date=' should your trans break, why on earth would you consider these mods for a Honda? You will end up right where you are today with the SRT.

 

If I were you, I would leave the SRT stock for a while, and see if the problem gets any worse. Have the dealer replace the tranny fluid and check clutch alignment, on your dime if neccessary. Also, get clarification in writing on what is covered, and not covered under warantee.[/quote']

 

On the first part... you're absolutely right! If I bought an Si, I honestly would have no intention of doing anything like a turbo or nitrous setup, at least not as long as I was making payments and the car was under warranty. Just saying, for those people who think the Si's 'lack' of power equates to it not being considered 'high performance', it's not as hard to make power as it is to make a great handling car with a great chassis. I've had a few low power cars that were a ton of fun, my '72 240 Z with SU'd motor for one, my '91 Sentra SE-R was another. A high revving motor in a light, capable chassis still made for a lot of fun even if I wasn't winning any drag races. I think the 200 hp of the Si would be satisfactory given the other 'ingredients' that the car has.

 

In the meantime... my SRT is very close to stock as it is. The only real power mod is the Mopar stage 1 upgrade which is supposed to be good for 10hp. It doesn't matter though, there are guys who are having their transmissions fail even on 100% stock cars.

[Michael]

If the preponderance of your concerns is with cost and reliability, then wouldn't it be cheaper to keep your Neon and - if necessary - pay out-of-pocket to get the transmission fixed, than to take a guaranteed loss on a replacement vehicle, only to potentially be disappointed with its performance?

[Guest bastaad525]

If the preponderance of your concerns is with cost and reliability, then wouldn't it be cheaper to keep your Neon and - if necessary - pay out-of-pocket to get the transmission fixed, than to take a guaranteed loss on a replacement vehicle, only to potentially be disappointed with its performance?

 

 

that's what I'm trying to figure out myself. $6000 for Dodge to install a new transmission... I know there are alternatives to this but of course they are all risky.. some third party shop doing the install or trying to find a used trans from a wreck or something. Not something I really want to mess with as it's a crap shoot whether I will end up with a fixed car or a car with even more problems.

 

So lets just call it $6000 if the trans goes. If I get rid of the car right now, sell it private party (private party blue book selling price is almost EXACTLY what I owe on the car right now) then it would actually cost me less than what it would cost to replace the trans thru Dodge. If trade the car in (average offer so far puts me about $2000 negative in equity) then factor in what I've already paid into the car, that puts me just OVER what it would cost to replace the trans thru dodge.

 

Giving up a large amount of performance, horsepower, and the peace of mind factor I would likely get from trading in for something else, are things you can't really put a price on... but, that's the same choice I made when I sold my Z and bought the SRT, THINKING that a new vehicle would be problem free. I traded much higher performance and a car I wasn't making payments on to buy and make payments on a new car that I THOUGHT would give me peace of mind by being problem free.

 

Given the choice again... I'm leaning towards the same choice... maybe I'm just getting old before my time, I mean... performance and a fun-to-drive car are definately still important to me... but I still would rather pay more and have less performance if that's what I would need to do to have a car I didn't need to worry was gonna break down on me.

[veritech-z]

so nobody has solved this problem with some kind of strengthened trans internals yet anywhere in srt-4 land? i've got a friend with a stage 1 on his car, and he likes it. his wheel hop is so bad it actually broke one of his fog light lenses on time. i worked with a guy at ferman acura who had an srt-4, and his dad had a regular neon with an srt-4 swap (he worked next door at ferman chrysler, talk about a sleeper car, the intercooler was flat black and it was on stock wheels). they were buying extra tranny's to keep around for this eventuality. I would say you could probably get one on ebay and have it built for this eventuality for less than the cost of a new one.

 

anyway, as for the solstice/sky possibility: i work in parts at a saturn dealership, and we just got our sky in march. we put the (before installation) $650 gmpp intake kit (which comes with an open element PAPER filter) and the (before installation) $2111 gmpp racing suspension among other things on it to jack up the price. the car was black, and they come with factory 18" wheels with no spare, and enough trunk room to comfortably fit a full size fire extinguisher and nothing else (no exaggeration, the gas tank sits above the differential, so it has to go somewhere). After the popularity tax and all that, it went from msrp $24k, to..............drumroll please.................are you sitting down? If you guessed $36,000 dollars, for a SATURN, you are the big winner on the the price is WHAT?! would you believe it sold? after a month or so. leased actually, but whatever. my impression of the car was this: at the same time on the lot we had an 05 GTO with 12,500 miles and the LS2, 6speed trans and factory lsd going for $26,600. also a covertable C-5, and a coupe c-5, all for less than this 2.4liter no-space mobile. I've got more space in my 77 280z with the fuel cell half sticking out of the hatch than this car does. on the positive: some smaller wheels and this racing suspension would make for a fun car. the new sway bars that came with it were almost double the thickness of the old ones. Oh, i almost forgot, we got a bulletin the same day we recieved our first one that if you try to open or close the hood with the doors ajar it will result in damage to the hood or doors. full open doors, or full closed doors only.

[BrandonsZ]

problem is I can't seem to get my car to do that... get on it hard in first and it's hopppp-ppp-ppp-ppp-ppp. No smoke' date=' no tire squeal, no fun.

 

[/quote']

 

My Z does that, when I pop the clutch on idle. But I think it isn't the same thing you're describing. Also, I have a problem where I can't do a nice long burnout in 1st because the car reaches redline at 45mph in 1st so I usually have a 1&1/2 second (maybe if that) spin then another maybe 2 in 2nd which redlines at 70. At that point I'm already going so fast all I can do is chirp the third so it's not exactly a long easy burn. Maybe if I throttle the gas back a little? It lasted a little longer with a 200# friend in the passemger seat. S30s are just too light.

 

Now My cadillac Eldorado (FWD) that thing would lay rubber for what semed like minutes. 5100# 550ft-lbs 235's up front, limited slip. Just thick black lines and smoke that really filled the air. 1971, they had it down. I could have won burnout contests with that beauty. Best thing was you could also pull the E-brake and lock the back wheels so it would drag the back wheels and peal the front. Needless to say my first set of tires only lasted 5k miles. then I took it a little easier. I don't miss the 9 city 13 hwy mileage.

[280zwitha383]

IMO, never trade in a car that's paid for (if you like it) for a car that you're going to have to make payments on unless they are miniscule, which they're not going to be on a new car. You can make a car reliable and more fuel efficient with a lot less money than you can finance a new car. Well, atleast you can make a Z more reliable and fuel efficient, you might not be able to say the same for other cars. Also, consider multiple, cheaper cars over one new car. Variety tends to make a person more content.

 

CAR PAYMENTS SUCK

[BrandonsZ]

IMO' date=' [b']never[/b] trade in a car that's paid for (if you like it) for a car that you're going to have to make payments on unless they are miniscule, which they're not going to be on a new car. You can make a car reliable and more fuel efficient with a lot less money than you can finance a new car. Well, atleast you can make a Z more reliable and fuel efficient, you might not be able to say the same for other cars. Also, consider multiple, cheaper cars over one new car. Variety tends to make a person more content.

 

CAR PAYMENTS SUCK

 

The registration and insurance on my Z and truck togeather is less than my wife's 2005 Lexus, and they're paid for.