I'm about to buy my son's 04 srt 4 neon, he has convertible fever and is going to maybe buy an 07 crossfire,, at least he is staying in the Mopar family.. He is 30 and has had the car at least 4 years now, it has 74k miles on it, I have probably ran it harder than he has on the few times I have driven it.. it has had regular oil changes with mobil 1.. it is stock except for (excuse my lack of turbo knowledge) I think it is called a blow back valve or something like that,, as you let off the gas it makes a "venting" sound. I'm buying it to help him out with his next purchase, and to eventually use as a daily driver, I have a 96 neon with 178k on it, and its starting to get a lot of surface rust, so I need something nicer. My question is ,, what is his car due in the way of maintence. it still has all the original parts, ie. water pump, timing belt etc.....I bought him and me a pistol grip shifter for our neons about 2 years ago and put them in..I'll probably take it to Bristol for the street fights sometime, just to see what it,ll run... I need it to last, will probably buy the wife a new grand cherokee this year, and need to do a little work on my 70 Challenger. Any quirks I need to know about these cars,,, its in good shape, except the cd player quit working, radio is fine It has been treated with slick 50 at least once...??? thanks guys for keeping an "old school" guy up to date.

It's the blow off valve that makes the noise. I prefer to get on timing belts sooner rather than later because I've had to fix bent valves before.

Other than that, at that age/mileage I would probably just start running it and change the manual trans fluid when I had the time/ambition.

Daytona,,, will change timing belt when I get it from son,,,, what about the water pump,, is it the same unit as a reg neon, or a hi flow unit,,, will probably go with a genuine mopar pump,, unless there is an aftermarket unit that is better, went back to one on my 96 neon, after replacing an advance store "lifetime" one after only 6 months of use, figure since I'm in there might as well replace the water pump same time as timing belt??? and serpentine belt too, a friend of mine will be doing it for me,,, I have a 7 day a week job and out of town over half of that...I got the son the carbon-fiber look pistol grip for his, for mine I got the genuine plastic immitation woodgrain,,, just like Kowalski!!!! gunslinger is good to deal with... thanks for the advice,,,

Yes I would do the water pump too since it's spun by the timing belt.

do a timing belt/ water pump just to be safe. change the transmission fluid (atf4) plus the limited slip additive.


also another good idea is to add an oil catch can in between the pcv and the intake manifold. under boost oild travels down the pcv hose and ends up caking the throttle body and intercooler, and all the pipes. they can be had for under 80 bucks.


any mods on it?

I recommend replacing the timing belt, timing belt tensioner,
idler bearing, water pump. While there check the middle motor mount. Modern Performance has a nice kit for the srt-4.

http://www.modernperformance.com/product...ntenance_timing

So, you use auto trans fluid in the transaxle ??? its an 04 didn't know if it was limited slip or not,,,haven't driven it in about 2 years. thanks guys for helping this old school guy get a little current.

I'm using Royal Purple syncromax fluid in my SRT's trans. The ATF-4 seems to only last about 20k and it needs to come out. Be nice to third gear. The 04-05 cars had a few issues with third gear going bad.

04,and 05 are lsd. 03s are not.

shift forks tend to bend if you "bang" gears. there is a shift selector extender that fixes the problem, and isnt hard to put in.


if your looking to make a little more power, pick up a diablo sport tuner. with the canned plug and play tune mine made 263hp, and 291tq with the crappiest cold air intake on the market, and stock exhaust.

Thanks guys for all the ideas,,, like I said I'm kind of "old school", he is going to make an offer on the crossfire tuesday, so I'll probably know by wedensday if I'm going to buy his srt...hey what are Dad's for,,, the good thing is that my wife is ok with it because it will be helping him out,, so good ole dad gets a new toy with her blessing,,, but it will eventually become my daily driver.. my 96 neon has almost 180k , but it still runs good, love the pistol grip shifters from gunslingers!!!!! anybody know anything about the crossfires I can share with him,, its 07 with only 25k