This is my 97 neon. I bought it for $100, put in a new alternator and it ran great. I buffed the exterior and waxed it, and pretty much cleaned the piss out of it.

It has the SOHC motor and an automatic transmission. I went to the junkyard and got all the parts I needed to convert it to manual, it will be going in this weekend (11-31) hopefully. I added stock in-dash tweeters and some Sony 6x9's in the rear and the stereo sounds great. I have a stock CD player that needs a new volume control, once I fix that it will be going in. And I installed a tach cluster. Can't be drivin around with no tach now, can we?

Pics of the 5-speed conversion will be posted soon.

Okay so I finally got around to swapping in the 5-speed.

The parts car was a wrecked 95 SOHC, I used everything from that except the ECU and passenger axle. The ECU and axle are out of a 98 neon. Everything bolted right up and the swap took me 8 hours start to finish. I used a new stock clutch.

Removing the automatic shifter

Automatic dropped

Clutch installed (non-modular cause I'm old fashioned).

MTX installed

And the finished interior.

The car now serves my dad as his reliable economical daily driver. Over 40 miles every day and the neon loves it!