[PJ]

The SRT-4 is pretty cool but the engine is ridiculously heavy on account of the engineers being rushed and over-building...

The SRT-4 is an opposite example, for 2 reasons. One, they built the SRT-4 for the "tuner market", meaning that they figured at least half of the damn things were going to be modified fairly early in their lifetimes, and obviously the associated Mopar Performance parts that is an integral part of Chrsyler, being able to produce upgrades and keep your warranty was a great move by the guys at SRT/Dodge. Secondly, the timeline on the SRT-4 was EXTREMELY rushed. That engine had to be in the PT Cruiser turbos a couple months before the SRT-4 was launched too. The engine engine program was VERY rushed. And what does an engineer do when rushed? Overbuild because of the lack of time to do proper FEA type stuff. Use large factors of saftey, and make sure the damn thing doesn't break. Of course, this leads to one of the heaviest 4 cylinders ever built, and the requirement of the SRT-4 steering rack to not be able to turn very far, and also led to Dodge only supplying 6" wide wheels because the engine tranny combonation was so much longer than the original engines found in the other Neons.