I bought the car new in 05. I never really intended to get into 'modding', but one idea turned into another. Then the hours on the net searching and reading about what others do to their cars, and more importantly WHY got me hooked. I am a corner junkie so spent hours and hours pouring over suspension dynamic stuff and ended up with the funsies I have now! It's never done, but finances are short so the 'project' has been put on hold until I have some pennies to play with.
I started off with putting on a full 3" turbo back exhaust. This netted me some 70WHP in the lower RPM's with a peak gain of 20 or so. It pumped up the ft-lbs a good 50 and decreased my spool rpm (full boost rocks on at about 2k RPM). I kept with a magnaflow silencer and high flow cat. Otherwise I could have added another 10hp or so. I have not dynoed the car, these numbers are just off what other people end up dynoing on the same setup. So I could be a little bit off.
With the exhaust I added in a willwood big brake kit to combat brake fade. The stock system is competent (60-0 in 110ft) but would quickly become saturated with heat during 'spirited' runs and trackdays. I was limited by the ACR BBS's so I couldn't fit in a larger kit. I wanted to go with a 13" kit with 1.25" rotors instead of the stock .81's but they were too big. Still the 12" kit offered better braking in the higher speeds.
I also put in the poly bushes at this time. For anyone that enjoys cornering these pretty much have to be the first on the 'to do' list. They took alot of the 'mushyness' and play out of the car that you would find when cornering hard and gave much better feedback into the wheel. Because the suspension wasn't deforming as much it helped a lot with my bump steer that I would normally get.
The last toy I added at this time was a diablosport predator engine tuner. This allowed me to scrub the error codes and adjust certain engine fueling/spark/boost parameters to lean the car out when in open loop to get a few more ponies out of the engine. This supposedly netted me 30HP and another 50ft-lbs.
I drove the car like that basically until I blew out one of the rear struts. They are a one off kit that Tokico made for Dodge specifically for the SRT-4.... it ended up being cheaper to put a set of coilovers on all 4 corners than it was to get OEM. I ended up getting a set of BC's (which WIM Sell!) and I love them. They are a quality aftermarket suspension part that is sold for a reasonable price! I also added in a set of hotckiss swaybars to get ride of almost all of my body roll.
There are other toys I added in like a WOTbox/2 step launch control, ACT 6-puck clutch (way more clutch than I need, but sooo much fun!), solid engine and transmission mounts, walbro fuel pump (when I was thinking of going big turbo), various gauges, fuel rail, jeez the list goes on.
I snapped my input shaft 2 years ago, that was fun to fix. Replaced my 3rd gear syncro too. I use this car every day, and it gets DRIVEN and love every minute of it. Some may say abused considering I snapped the input shaft, due to an aggressive clutch and a heavy foot. I keep up on the maintenance and make sure I follow warm-up and cool downs. This is where most of the engine wear is going to happen. So far so good!
There are more things I want to do to the car. It's all prepped for a big turbo kit, but I want to keep the drivability up and the maintenance down so will have to see. There are few more things I want to with the suspension like adjustable rear control arms and maybe ditch the poly bushes for a machined greasable bush but money is tight.
A few of my buddies and I had planned to hit the 'ring' next month but the bill for the trip was north of the £1k mark so I had to pull out.
Vipercar93's Project SRT-4 ACR
in Car Blogs
Posted
I bought the car new in 05. I never really intended to get into 'modding', but one idea turned into another. Then the hours on the net searching and reading about what others do to their cars, and more importantly WHY got me hooked. I am a corner junkie so spent hours and hours pouring over suspension dynamic stuff and ended up with the funsies I have now! It's never done, but finances are short so the 'project' has been put on hold until I have some pennies to play with.
I started off with putting on a full 3" turbo back exhaust. This netted me some 70WHP in the lower RPM's with a peak gain of 20 or so. It pumped up the ft-lbs a good 50 and decreased my spool rpm (full boost rocks on at about 2k RPM). I kept with a magnaflow silencer and high flow cat. Otherwise I could have added another 10hp or so. I have not dynoed the car, these numbers are just off what other people end up dynoing on the same setup. So I could be a little bit off.
With the exhaust I added in a willwood big brake kit to combat brake fade. The stock system is competent (60-0 in 110ft) but would quickly become saturated with heat during 'spirited' runs and trackdays. I was limited by the ACR BBS's so I couldn't fit in a larger kit. I wanted to go with a 13" kit with 1.25" rotors instead of the stock .81's but they were too big. Still the 12" kit offered better braking in the higher speeds.
I also put in the poly bushes at this time. For anyone that enjoys cornering these pretty much have to be the first on the 'to do' list. They took alot of the 'mushyness' and play out of the car that you would find when cornering hard and gave much better feedback into the wheel. Because the suspension wasn't deforming as much it helped a lot with my bump steer that I would normally get.
The last toy I added at this time was a diablosport predator engine tuner. This allowed me to scrub the error codes and adjust certain engine fueling/spark/boost parameters to lean the car out when in open loop to get a few more ponies out of the engine. This supposedly netted me 30HP and another 50ft-lbs.
I drove the car like that basically until I blew out one of the rear struts. They are a one off kit that Tokico made for Dodge specifically for the SRT-4.... it ended up being cheaper to put a set of coilovers on all 4 corners than it was to get OEM. I ended up getting a set of BC's (which WIM Sell!) and I love them. They are a quality aftermarket suspension part that is sold for a reasonable price! I also added in a set of hotckiss swaybars to get ride of almost all of my body roll.
There are other toys I added in like a WOTbox/2 step launch control, ACT 6-puck clutch (way more clutch than I need, but sooo much fun!), solid engine and transmission mounts, walbro fuel pump (when I was thinking of going big turbo), various gauges, fuel rail, jeez the list goes on.
I snapped my input shaft 2 years ago, that was fun to fix. Replaced my 3rd gear syncro too. I use this car every day, and it gets DRIVEN and love every minute of it. Some may say abused considering I snapped the input shaft, due to an aggressive clutch and a heavy foot. I keep up on the maintenance and make sure I follow warm-up and cool downs. This is where most of the engine wear is going to happen. So far so good!
There are more things I want to do to the car. It's all prepped for a big turbo kit, but I want to keep the drivability up and the maintenance down so will have to see. There are few more things I want to with the suspension like adjustable rear control arms and maybe ditch the poly bushes for a machined greasable bush but money is tight.
A few of my buddies and I had planned to hit the 'ring' next month but the bill for the trip was north of the £1k mark so I had to pull out.
Here are a few links!
https://www.fuelly.com/driver/vipercar93/srt4?fu=2996203
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15859810@N05/