yes, as long as it has ICE, the SRT-4 is worthy of a revival. Also, So you want a Lotus Seven / Caterham Seven or What happened to the Super Seven would be a cool video for you do cover one of these days. What bolt pattern do the 7s run anyway? I want to get one and put it on a set of Watanabe 8 spokes.
Same! I bought my brand new 2004 SRT-4 back in October of 2003. I loved it! Mustang GT’s, civics, Accords, WRX didn’t come close to my SRT! I remember keeping up with the S2000’s but would always lose by inches when I was stock. Such a fun car. RIP 🪦 tho, I ended up rolling my SRT-4 in a street race…
I loved my SRT4, super fun, and reasonably quick. Was able to beat on new muscles cars back in the day with my stage 3 SRT4 and it was such a satisfying feeling winning in a 4 door sedan. People enjoyed making fun of the car but that only attracted me to the car more. I would often get made fun of, people saying my car "it's just a neon", but if they lose to my "neon" then all of sudden they start saying they lost to an SRT4 lol. Good times for sure!
Never owned one but always loved the quirky, even obscure and unsuspecting appearance of cars like them. I think thats what attracts me most is their goofy looks and incredible sound. Main reasons why Ive owned an 02 wrx and 05 sti, plus practicality of 4 doors and great visibility. Lots of character too!
Been into the "NEON" Scene since 1998 when I bought my Brand New R/T Neon. That was replaced in 2008 with my 2004 SRT-4 Neon. I love this car and dumped a pile of time and $$ into her. I'm going to be 52 years old in 2 months, and love playing with my SRT-4, it is one of the cleanest I've seen and pride myself in showing this car to others. My soon to be 17 year old SRT-4 has a little over 54k miles.
Still have my rust free, 60k mile, electric blue, stage 3 Mopar SRT4 and it is still my favorite car to drive. I've had a 2011 and 2016 Sti and the enjoyment I get out of my srt4 is 10 times better. It's not a car for everyone but it sure puts a smile on my face. Looking for another one as well to make into a monster street/track machine so I can keep my low mileage low on my 04
@@YoYoGuyRob I believe I have one of each. TiAl will give negligible better spool but not as durable. You’re very correct as they are definitely more rare.
@@njshift Your name rings a bell from the good old SRTForums site. lol I remember when I finally received the big ass box of the brand new Mopar Stage 3 with toys kit after waiting for nearly a year. Early christmas for sure.
Throughout the years I've had a 3000gt vr4, 350z, Mustang GT, 97 Supra TT, WRX, Evo X, and my Neon Srt4 with 180k miles is the only one still on my driveway. I could never get rid of that car. It's way too fun for the price. I wouldn't get much money for it and not worth selling.
If any of you older guys out there (like me lol) remember Sport Compact Car magazine, they had an awesome build series on an SRT-4 Neon and one of the things they did was a side mount, rocker panel exhaust that looked awesome. Good times, good times.......
Love my 2009 Dodge Caliber SRT4, production 671 of 1003 for the 2009 MY. I've owned it since 2017, and I gotta say it still turns heads. Living in the Metro Detroit Area, you often run into people who have worked at Chrysler and often remember the vehicle. Brings a lot of attention during the Woodward Dream Cruise.
Since when is a Getrag 6 speed not Reliable? I own a Caliber SRT-4 It puts a smile on my face all day. I will admit AWD would've been a huge win for the CSRT4.
NSRT4 was my dream car in HS. Once I could afford a decent one , it cost me a 13 year relationship.........and it was worth it. Was shifting gears in tears.......until boost kicked in. Then I was like fuck it. More fish in the sea. 😂
I mean Dodge stopped making the SRT4s for the same reason Ford stopped making the RS, the base platform went away. I remember back then everyone begging for a Dart SRT4. I also wished you would mentioned the Stage kits from Mopar, including suspensions from KW and turbo upgrade from the Stage 3 including 'Toys', which were factory upgrades that bumped power to a level unheard of before.
How did F.I. know I was looking at Neons recently? Always wanted one. Also, who else remember the SRT4 ad about the kid "borrowing" his older brothers Neon for a joyride?
I had one loved it I wish I still made them never had a problem with it I raced mine made about 540 hp and upgraded the turbo to a GT 35 ball bearing turbo. Plenty of fun
I literally just bought one a day ago. 2004 blue with black trim. Got it cheap because it needs a turbo but I love just even looking at it in my driveway. Been a dream car of mine since midnight club
SRT4 was suppose to hit the Dodge Darts. I was going to do a SRT4 project car to where I take the head off the 2nd Gen Base model RS Eclipse (420a motor) and bolt it down to the SRT4 block because it bolts right in. With that setup the headers and intake a flipped. Now your turbo will be in the front instead of in the back by the firewall getting heat soaked
Awesome car. It was in Midnight Club 3. I love the sound of it too. The only other comparable sound for best 4 cyl would be the wrxs. Oh Also did you do a video on what happened to the 3000GT VR4? That would be an interesting one.
Let's not forget about the LNF and LSJ Ecotecs. Very comparable engines and you even get a bit of that WRX like rumble in the low revs with the right exhaust.
This grandma still loves her neon SRT4. Sounds much better to me than any other 4 cyl. My grand babies love riding in it. Lots of fun! The coil overs make it handle better than my Camaro SS. LOL. KEEP ON SPOOLIN!! : )
sweet! im trying to get more females into these hobbies since females can hold advantages by being small and light with racing and small hands make working on cars easier.the tuner car hobby is under saturated with females and want to see that change
I have a caliber srt4 in its rarest form (bone stock) sitting in my driveway right now. Love the thing to death. They definitely don't age well and the body skirts and front bumper fall apart really easy but it will scream down the road pretty good! Neon srt4 definitely looked cooler though lol
I had a Caliber SRT4 and I absolutely loved it. Was making around 330 to the wheels with some basic bolt ons. And the torque steer was no joke until you did some suspension work. But I lost it thanks to a lady on her phone rear ending me at 50mph while traffic was at a stop
Nice. Lack of information on the Caliber SRT4 in this video. Keep them under 400hp and they are tanks. Exhaust and tune 320whp all day. Very limited production though. And like the neon most of them Have been through hell and back.
Why you gotta trash on the caliber srt so hard 🤣🤣 it wasn’t the best obviously but that 6 speed was one of the best fwd manual transmissions of the time. Getrag 6 speed it’s bullet proof and the 4b11 was very reliable only thing is it was an open deck block so it couldn’t handle more than 18 pounds of boost stock. But there’s ppl out there making 900 whp with stock trans. It was definitely a horror show interior wise but drive train wise for the cost it was a very good deal
Army buddy of mine had one of the Cleanest built ones back in 2006 while stationed in Savannah GA. We watched it burn to the ground because of an electrical short while at work on base. Sad day.
Always wanted a neon srt4 in high school, but never could get the funds together to actually get one after i graduated, but i am always on the lookout. My buddy picked up a 09 caliber srt4 stage 1 last yea and man that thing is crazy fast which lit a fire under my ass to find a neon or at the vary least caliber
I am the original owner of my srt4 acr. Such a fun car still to this day. Love it to death. I also do pretty well making and selling custom parts for them too. And yes I agree finding wheels for them does kinda suck. But they are amazing machines designed to go fast and that's it. That goal was achieved perfectly.
A lot of things that really need to be cleared up here. First off, the SRT-4 uses a SKIM key, any issues with the security inherent to that system will allow the car to start, but it will only “run for two seconds”. This is a problem inherent to any car using that system. There isn’t some “more threads about how SRT-4s start and die after 2 seconds” epidemic, not even sure where you are getting that. This issue started about 10 years ago, once the SRT-4 got cheap enough that people could by them with “honda money”, then they started doing the same idiotic garbage that you saw them doing to Hondas, trying to alter the interior electronics with cheap stupid modifications that would end up screwing up the SKIM system. We never saw this in the first few years the car after the car was sold. And it still wasn’t common even when it did start happening. You bring up ANY 17 year old sports car, 350Z, your venerable S2000, Mustang, STi, Evo, etc, and they are going to have problems. You would have been a lot more accurate to have brought up the 3rd gear issues with the T850 NVG transmission in the SRT-4 as the biggest issue we’ve ever dealt with in this car. There would be no debate on that. But even with that issue, when SRT-4s are not abused, they are really reliable, especially the engine. There are thousands on the road today with well over 100k miles on them, still going strong, many of them still doing the weekend warrior thing at the race track. The car did not have a limited slip differential in 2003, the first year it was released. That came in 2004. There was no “writing on the wall” regarding any “recession” in 2005, that had nothing to do with the SRT-4 Neon no longer being built. The PL platform (Neon) was already long in the tooth in 2003 when the first SRT-4 was developed. In 2003 the Neon platform received a mild “refresh” that affected only the exterior, the Neon still had that same 1999 interior, it was one of those sacrifices that was made in order to keep the price under 20,000 dollars. The demise of the PL platform was scheduled in 2005, that is the only reason they stopped building the SRT-4. In fact they only meant to ever expected to sell a limited run of 3000 of them. In the end they sold TWENTY FIVE thousand. If your intent was to imply that the entire LINE died due to the “recession” you should have made that more clear, rather than bringing it up while still discussing the Neon version. The “recession” you referenced was in 2008, a full three years later. No one in 2005 was even remotely thinking about a recession, except one guy, Michael Burry. After all, if all these companies “saw the writing on the wall” in 2005, wouldn’t they have also shorted mortgages and made a killing too? And finally the Caliber. Oh boy… The Neon SRT-4 was quicker, not by some huge margin, but still true. Caliber had “more power, more torque”, yes, correct, but it weighed more, it was basically like a brick going down the road. As soon as you sat down in the Caliber version, it felt wrong. You were sitting up high, it felt like truck seats. The shifter up high nearly in the dash. Even the SRT team wasn’t all that thrilled about having to develop the Caliber into a performance model. The Caliber SRT-4 finally arrived on the market 2 YEARS late. During development, the question was brought up to the SRT team on the SRT Forums about why it was taking so long? “Ever heard the term ‘polishing a turd’ before?” was the answer, but they almost immediately deleted that, and responded again with something about the starter not working in the position where it was located. BUT we saw them say it. DaimlerChrysler did not sell 85,000 Caliber SRT-4s, you should clarify that. That was just the base model The SRT version was only available in 2008-2009, and they only sold 5,562 of them. You keep bagging on “Dodge was bankrupt” and “Dodge was broke”, as though they were the only company that dealt with a huge amount of trouble in 2008. Are you even aware that only TWO car companies actually made money in 2008? Hyundai and Subaru. EVERY other car company lost money, and many were in deep trouble. At the point in time that gas hit 4 dollars a gallon in 2008, there wasn’t a single car in the Dodge lineup that got 30mpg, not one. This was all due to Daimler’s horrific mismanagement and refusal to consider building a decent sub-compact or compact that actually could get 35 or even 40 mpg. That’s a big part of the problems they had during the recession. (interestingly enough, I think in 2021, Chryser/Dodge/Jeep again has no vehicles above 30mpg, someone can correct me if I’m wrong, maybe the Ecodiesel 2WD ram? Not sure). Toyota actually took more government money than any other car company in the world in order to stay afloat, but it wasn’t American money, so it didn’t get that same sort of seething coverage that American car companies received for doing so. At least you did finally mention the issue with “mortgages” later in the video, I’ll give you credit there. I realize you are in the business of selling wheels and tires, but good GOD stance looks horrible, and it looks even worse on the SRT4 than most. There are so many awesome looking SRT4s out there, it is unfortunate that you didn’t pick any of them for your video, instead of cars that look so bad that if the car itself had a choice, it would drive itself off a cliff. Of course, if those drivers ever actually got on the power in the car, it would drive right off the road because of how awful that setup is for ACTUAL driving, much less hard acceleration. I see the question being posed in comments about why they just don’t build the SRT-4 again. A few years back the SRT team was back on another forum chat, the question “Why not build another one?” was brought up. “We can’t”. They never expected the car to get the government green light due to exhaust or emissions in the first place, but it did. The exhaust has no muffler. At the time the turbocharger was actually considered a “sound deadening device” and it allowed the PVO (who later became the SRT) team to build the car with no muffler. Another reason it won’t be built is that the SRT-4 was actually rated worse on emissions than the 5.7L Hemi Ram pickup. The reason for this was inherent to the design. When letting up on the gas, or downshifting, the car was tuned to continue to push a small amount of fuel through the cylinders. This was why the vehicle had such a distinct “snap-crackle-pop” sound to the exhaust, one that every SRT-4 owner knew vividly, and why they could immediately pick out an SRT-4 by hearing it even before they would see it. Whether this design was to cool the cylinders or only served to create that exhaust noise has been debated over the years, but either way it led to the car’s emission standards being eye-poppingly bad. Not that any of the owners cared, go-fast and emissions standards generally don’t go hand in hand with respect to internal combustion. This became even worse if you installed the available Mopar “cat delete” turbo-back exhaust, and/or any of the 3 available Mopar stage packages, all of which said “For Off Road Use Only”. This has always been a running gag in the SRT community, because you don’t really see SRT-4s hitting the rocky trails or sand dunes (and yes, we know, it means not for licensed vehicle use on public roadways, before some simp decides to “correct” this). Another interesting tidbit: the SRT-4 was supposed to have been included in the Fast and the Furious Franchise, but the final product wasn’t ready by the time production began on the movie in question, forcing the movie producers to go another route. Finally, I find it ironic that you are giving away an S2000, a car that is slower than the SRT-4. Que the honda bois rage lol. (yes, the srt4 is faster, no amount of anger changes that).
It wasnt called a neon when it first came out. It was called a. Dodge srt4. Thats why there is so much debate on the neon name. It wasnt called a neon at all.
I currently own two of them….there are nice ones left and many of us own multiple Srt4’s trying to save them from the junkyards! 100% most underrated sport compact car. And no where to fit in. Yeah import scene says we domestic and domestic scene says we import. Either way my car gives me tons of giggles and respectable w’s!
I have one, its a little street strip car. 10 pt 8.50 cage custom BC coils 450lb in the front with custom drag straps 1,000 in the rear Built engine trans mid plate stand alone ecu and so on
I like how ya use the base numbers for the caliber, when in fact only 5674 SRT versions were made. And hey, mines still going strong after 13 years of ownership lol
Someone wanna tell me how Dodge. Ya the Dodge that made a 800hp street legal car missed the opportunity with the Dart. They brought back the Dart as a shitty grocery getter. Imagine we got the Dodge Dart SRT4
No money to be had. They would probably lose money on it. Stalantis already lost a ton of money on the dart. No reason to put more money into it. Would have been cool though
Dodge totally had the opportunity to revive the SRT4 with first the Avenger relaunch and then the Dart BUT.........fail. And now both those models are gone also.
So i have the srt4 caliber. It is a awesome and UNIQUE platform. i wouldn't sleep on them though. There is an huge community for them and though they can be ugly, they walk even outrun the competition
I actually own a CSRT4. The base was CVT. Interior was plastic ofc but had wayyy more features than the neon even as an SRT. And the production numbers were for all models overall. Not anywhere close the amount of NSRT4s produced.
You should see if you're able to find enough content about the elantra sport from 2017 and 2018 which kinda lead to the new elantra N that's coming out! Crazy good cars as far as I've found
Srt4 I have a love/hate thing with these cars...I've had 4 of these ....I sell it...then I miss it and there I go buying another and another..now I'm in the market looking for another lol
Check out my vids on my channel. I have a old video of me shifting my caliber, thing made about 430 wheel horsepower and my blow off valve was so loud it was tons of fun scaring people ran 25 psi. The thing also had coilovers, upgraded clutch with springs so stiff he basically got a work out driving it and an LSD. Even with all those upgrades the thing was still kind of a nightmare to daily drive and traffic or situations where you wanted to get on it but had to drive perfectly straight. That thing liked to walk all over the place. It hooked up really good but that was kind of the problem because when you're on it if one tire started to slip the one that was hooking up with yank you to that side real quick kind of had really unpredictable torque steer. Also surprisingly the thing handled way better than my neon.
Video discussing the SRT4 then show a RU-vid vid of a regular neon blowing it's engine. They probably didn't know. I had one for 6 years and sold it to help buy a house. This car seriously has a special place in my heart. Put the foundation for SRT as a brand. And it ran with cars costing SIGNIFICANTLY more money out of the box. 3 year production run of the fastest car in the world for under 20 grand. The caliber was a pile of garbage in comparison and I don't think there will ever be another of it's kind.
Agreed it was a stupid way to start the video. That was a base model neon the guy was just trying to blow it up on purpose since it was getting junked.He's lucky he didn't get hurt. The boy did he get the attention with that video
Sadly, it was "Re-Engineered" into the Oversized Dodge Magnum, for people who knew that they didn't "Need" a Truck, but still didn't know how to handle a HEMI... Too many where "Totaled" (IIHS Reports) because they where "unfamiliar" with the Power/Weight Ratio. Many sad "Soccer Moms/Wanna-be Cool Dads"...
Just took my straight piped Neon SRT4 ACR for its last drive before its winter nap, it still puts a smile on my face every single time I drive it. I don't think ill ever sell it.
bought one in 05...put stage 3 turbo kit on... Was a blast but no traction in 2nd gear rolling....Where are they all? in the junkyard next to the eagle talons, probes, dodge stealths, and other turboed junk.
If they came out with another form of the Srt4 (OR UPDATED VERSION) it definitely would not be the same and on top would be a disappointment…you just can’t duplicate one’s original image with some of these cars and I feel that the Srt4 is one that you could never remodel
I wanted an SRT-4 when they first came out when I graduated high school. Lol. Almost 20 years later I finally have a Caliber SRT-4 as my daily driver and I love it. Driving in the Midwest where the SRT’s are not that common it turns a lot of heads.
Love driving my SRT-4. Fun lining up with charger rt's, scatpacks, mustang GT(not 5.0), or 5th gen camaros and sending em to gapplebees. My main issue with it is that some of the design choices with the car make my head hurt. Especially some of the tight ass areas to get to just to drop the transmission.
I loved mine because of how fast they were. 2nd was the price. The only reason I got ride of it way because electric problems kept leaving me stranded on the side of the road. I had around 60k. Sold it for a turbo diesel 7.3 so I'm happy now.
Started driving in 2001 in the first year neon. 95 4 door sohc manual trans. Got made fun of because I wanted to go turbo. Why would you turbo a 4 door turd? Then dodge dropped the srt4 on the world and everybody shut up quick lol. Took me till like 8 years ago and I finally bought one. Still have my 95 but I'm the second owner of an 05 stone white Srt4 ACR. Bought her at 83k 100 percent stock from the original older owner. Only at 103k miles and I've kept her pretty stock. Even stock it is a fun car. These cars can handle over 400hp on stock internals, but if you keep it conservative they last forever. Too many people just crank the boost or throw a big turbo and blow them up. My srt4 has been super reliable. Only thing more reliable is my 72 f100. I've been holding off, but I have a nice act clutch setup and all the stuff for e85 sitting in the shed if I get bored with factory power levels in the srt lol. I was waiting for an srt dart. Not a fan of the dart, but they were talking over 300hp and awd. I would love to see them bring another 4 door srt compact to life.
Feel like the SRT nameplate or division never really died. Just anything below an 8 cylinder got axed. Technically the SRT4 would’ve come back with the Dart but fiat interfered as they did with a lot during their time with dodge. Now emissions and government fines will be the death of the hellcat as we know it
@@Chilly.Z34 oh hell yeah. Has potential. Shit even the 2.4 they have sounds good. And there’s a company that’s makes a specific turbo kit for the 2.4 that gets you SRT4 numbers. Had fiat just let dodge do what they do the dart would’ve been less of a failure
