Starscream5000's Build Thread

Appearances aren't everything to me, but there are some things about the Limited trim that are not to my liking.

Chrome badges? Gone:


Chrome door handles? I don't think so:



RC car antenna? I see none here:


Body color front fascia? Hello Plasti-Dip:


Silver interior bits? I originally had them painted with blaze blue plastidip, but as of 7/26/15 they are now wrapped in metallic blue. An almost perfect match to the Blue Streak Pearl coat paint on the exterior:




See that silver shifter from earlier? Hello carbon fiber. I just wish it was offered with a blue ring instead of red...


I've always disliked the stock limited wheels:


What's that you say? Andros Spec D's? They look similar to SXT wheels? They're 6 pounds light per wheel than what's on the car? Yes please. Notice the Mopar Splash guards? Yes, I've got those as well:


18% tint all the way around, including the front windshield:


OEM Rallye headlights installed on 03/21/14:


Plastidipped mopar stripes added Easter '14 weekend:







Another addition to the car the day before I wrapped the interior vents and shifter trim, vinyl eyelids and wrapped racetracks (I will be extending the molar stripe down over the vinyl later on):



Wrapped the mirror turn signals in NEO Blue vinyl on 12/2/15:

There's all kinds of cool lighting on this car. Factory ambient lighting, IP surround lighting, foot-well lighting, race track lights, etc. I wanted to make mine unique, just like the rest of my car.

First of all, a red ring of light surrounding the dash of a blue ass car? C'mon Dodge, what the hell were you thinking? I removed the whole panel, cut it open on the backside, desoldered the red 5mm LEDs (2 of them) and soldered in a couple of 5050 blue LEDs. Notice the HVAC controls? I'll get to that in a moment:


HVAC. Again, red rings. Ain't no body got time fo' that:



I also stuffed some 5050 Blue LEDs into the foot-well light area where the stock 3528 sized LEDs used to be. I think I'll be taking some LED strips I have laying around and adding them in as a single LED in a each foot-well just doesn't cut it. Also shown in this picture is the LED light relocation and modification to the cover. The stock piece there was catching my foot sometimes when letting off the clutch. Can't be having that:




I ordered my car with the standard halogen headlights because I can do HIDs for much less than what they want for theirs, plus I would be replacing the chrome headlights with black anyway. My kits for the headlights and fog lights are 55W lights with CAN-BUS ballasts. No error messages for the headlights here. The bulbs are stock colored 4300K for maximum useable light output:


Headlight ballast mounted to the underside the headlight, pretty sneaky, huh?


Fog light ballast mounted to the frame:


18 5050 white LED parking light bulbs. I have the exact same bulbs for the reverse lights:



LED interior lighting:

LED trunk lighting:

When I ordered my Dart, I had every intention of modding it from the get-go. In fact, my car wasn't stock for even a full day of my ownership.

First up, with only 60 miles on the motor, DRP's prototype batch of his now, Ultimate Induction Intake. I specifically requested it to not be powder coated so that I could paint it myself. I prefer the stealth look when popping the hood. Update 6/13/16: I replaced this intake with a black HPSI intake to quiet things down some, and to take advantage of their ram air capabilities:



Update 7-4-14: installed the Go Fast Bits DV+ prototype diverter valve upgrade. This part fixes any leaking of the stock diverter valve by replacing the plastic internals with stiffer springs, and aluminum and brass internals with a high temp silicone face on the brass plunger.


Next up was an easy mod to do. I removed the stock rear engine mount and replaced it with a Turbo Tech solid polyurethane engine mount:

Another stealth looking mod, flat black DRP intercooler hard pipes:



Not so much of a performance mod as a sound mod, but I deleted the stock muffler and had a Y-pipe with dual 2.5" outlets installed. This is how the car should have sounded from the factory:

UPDATE 6/8/14: My other exhaust mod is the TMC catless downpipe. Coupled with the muffler delete makes this car LOUD, even when you're trying not to be. The turbine noise is several times louder now without the catalytic converter muffling the noise.





UPDATE 5/25/16: OBX copied Thermal R&D's exhaust to the T and is selling it for almost exactly half the price. I couldn't pass that offer up. To my knowledge, I'm the 2nd member on here to install it, and only missing being the first to install it by less than day, lol. I love how this exhaust sounds compared to my Catless exhaust with a simple muffler delete. The car is now much quieter, and no longer obnoxious and raspy.

WOT video:

Update 10-13-15: I had previously deleted 6 of the 8 AGS fins to drop down my IATs. I now have removed the entire AGS assembly, left the motor plugged in, and used a screw as a stop to prevent the motor's arm from over extending and tripping a CEL.

While we're on the subject on interoolers. I installed my own custom big FMIC. This reduced the IATs a little more and gave me a nice increase in power and removed the bottleneck in the intake system. Everything after the turbo is now 2.5" piping until the throttle body:






I also installed Tork's stage 1 ECU tune at the same time as I installed the intercooler. Best bang-for-the-buck mod hands down on this car:



Update 7/4/16: removed my old oil catch can setup and installed a dual Kobalt air/oil separator on the line connecting the intake manifold to the stock oil separator:


MPx front strut bar painted black:

You would think that with everything I've done to increase the car's performance, I would have fairly low gas mileage, right? Wrong. The only modification I've to my car that has actually reduced my gas mileage was removing 6 of the AGS fins. Doing that made the car less aerodynamic and knocked around 1.5-2 MPGs off each tank from what I can tell.

I am a proficient hypermiler. I've owned a couple Geo Metros before ordering my Dart. Both of those cars were highly modified to get super high gas mileage. Both of those cars have seen 70+MPG tanks in the past. I know how to drive a car to get good mileage. My daily commute consists of 18.6% city driving and 81.4% highway driving, totaling exactly 56 miles per day if I just go from work to home like I normally do.

I consider my Ultragauge EM to be the single most important modification I've done to the car in the pursuit of getting great gas mileage. This device plugs into the OBDII port and reads off numerous engine parameters such as Throttle Position, Engine Temp, Boost, RPMs, MPH, IATs, HP, Torque, etc:




Using my Ultragauge (and having a steady foot), tanks like this are possible:


Here is an up-to-date record of my gas mileage since owning the car: