Since 90% of my experience is with SOHC's figured I'd have some useful information to contribute.

So you have a SOHC neon and want to build it up. Keep in mind, SOHC's respond better to mods, but generally speaking will not put out the same ammount of power as the DOHC plant will, but that, by no means, means they are slow. The first question you need to ask is what direction do I want to go? Turbo, All Motor, Nitrous, Turbo w/ nitrous, etc. What level do you want to take the car to. Do you want to maintain streetability? Do you want balls out power and damn streetability? Once that question is answered, that narrows down the field of what parts you want to run, that wont be detrimental down the road, and also will let you select parts that you wont have to remove down the road once you get further into your build. All Motor: Most people think all motor is the cheapest way to build a neon, which, to a point is true. For bolt ons etc, it is by far the cheapest up front, however as time goes on and you want more and more power, you can invest enough to buy a second, and in some cases a third car. This IS however the best option for the daily driver/strip/autox car, as its much easier to stage upgrades, and keep power output to a manageable level. The big things to focus on in an all motor buildup are: Compression. You will need compression to be competitive. Anything from a DOHC bottom end which will put you around 10.2:1 i believe, to custom pistons as high as 13.5:1 or higher depending on how much you want to spend and if you plan on keeping it on the street or not. Cam. The cam choices we have are severely limited due to the construction of our heads. Instead of the traditional cam cap setup, we have solid cam journals machined into the bulkheads on the head, and they are pretty restrictive on cam lobe sizing. There are ways around this, such as lowered lobe centers and lash caps which is used effectively on only the largest SOHC cam(crane 15, haven't heard of the official designation for it, but its .400/.400 lift, and 232duration@.050 lift on both sides). Some other methods have been tried with limited results, and the results usually were not real reliable for street cars. Along with the cam, a good port and polish job is essential. There are many places to get this done at, Howell Automotive(www.howellautomotive.com), Eddie Fierro, Blackdog Motorsports, all do very good work. I personally prefer Howell Automotive's work, then Eddie Fierro, but that is more due to a personal thing with one of the guys at Blackdog, and not an indication of their work when it comes to head work, as their headwork is very high quality. The most power will be found from a port and polished Magnum Cylinder head, which bone stock flows as much air as a race ported non magnum SOHC head.

Now your probably thinking great, the head is flowing like the Suez Canal, how do i get all that air to the head. The Intake side leaves us SOHC guys with a few options. The Magnum intake manfiold(01+ Magnum D4RE Motor) is a very good active intake, using a dual runner design making for a very broad and useable powerband. There are a few variations of this manifold, available through Fast Fabrications which have shown impressive gains, although dyno charts are still on the way waiting to be posted, the other option is the Indy Intake manifold, which is also an awsome piece, netting gains of 25hp on a dohc with minimal bolt ons(intake, header, computer) and around 19 lb ft of torque on the same DOHC. SOHC gains are similar and also as impressive. The other option, which is the most expensive, would be Individual Throttle Bodies, which can run anywhere from 800-1500 depending on how it is set up, and will net the most power, unless you have a very application specific plenum manifold built, and when I say specific, i mean purpose built specifically for your car, based on flow from your head, compression, fuel maps etc. Either of these options will be very expensive, and very worth the power you will see from them. These options are also, NOT, and I cannot emphasize this enough, NOT any where close to street friendly. They can be driven on the street, but it is not for the faint of heart. At this stage on the intake side, your throttle is an on/off switch. The exhaust side is just as critical as the intake, if not more so. There is alot of controversy over which header is the best, so let me put it like this. For maximum power, a stepped longtube design will net the most gains. Collectors will be something to be discussed with the person building the header if it is a custom header as the collector is critical to header performance. For off the shelf units, Pacesetter and Mopar both have very good short tube designs, with AF/x, Blackdog and Kirk all making longtube designs. The Kirk is the most mild of the long tubes, using the smallest primaries and the smallest outlet of the three, netting impressive gains over stock, but not the maximum gains to be had. I am planning on doing a BD/Kirk/AF/x header comparison relatively soon so the gains will be apparent with those being the only change. The rest of the exhaust is pretty straight forward, 2.5" piping has proven to be the best overall for the 2.0L platform, with a straight through muffler and solid 2.5" catalytic converter. 3" is simply too much for a naturally aspirated motor, until you are pushing the limits of what the engine is capable of producing.