Our cut-rate rallycrosser Dodge Neon ACR wasn't the most reliable car right off the bat.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/cut-rate-rallycrosser-part-3-breaking-and-braking/
How many of you guys have bent valves before? Most of my cars have had non-interference engines, so I never had that problem myself. It's that potential for catastrophe that has made me refuse to do timing belts for friends with interference engines. Is it easy to screw up that job?
As long as you get the whole kit you should be fine. I would expect most catastrophic failures are due to crumbling tensioners or other parts that come with the kit. I've thrown belts on non-interference engines for those reasons. I still stray away from interference engines all together.
The only time i ever bent valves on anything was when i was 16 or 17 and put a too-long bolt into a hole it shouldnt have gone into which broke the cam gear and subsequently bent the valves. That was on a dakota pickup.
since then, ive never bent a valve. 1 decade down, several more to go.
Although i did have a neon which i sold to someone who had the belt break and bend the valves. Hah! sucker..
I had an idler bearing seize and cause a broken belt and bent valves. Once.
I have a couple of Neon R/T's, one with 450,000 miles and the other with 326,000. The bearing seized at about 200,000 and had never been replaced. I now replace them when I do a timing belt (every 100,000 miles or if a water pump fails).
The 450k car won the 2007 SCCA Rallycross national championship with 390k on it. The "low" mileage car has seen numerous track days in south Texas heat.
I wouldn't be too worried about the engine.
2.4 with stock cams is non-interference. The motor literally bolts in with about $100 in bracketry from Modern Performance and a few pin switches harness-side. You can even use the 2.0 cam gears, provided you purchase the appropriate spacer. Later 2.4s used a slightly different head design. Something from a 90's Stratus/Cirrus or Caravan will work with little effort.
A 2.0 exhaust cam will pick up some power as well, not sure if the lift is enough to cause interference, however.
How did it jump timing? Rocks/debris didn't get inside the timing covers, did it?
I'd highly recommend either Gates or OE (Gates is the OEM) belt. The Goodyear is supposed to be decent, but the Mopar "Valueline" (boxed vs. the bagged part) was less than the Goodyear last time I bought one. I sell Dayco components at work and wouldn't run the ir timing components on either of my Neons.
Also it is recommended to run the manual, litens-style, tensioner vs. the old hydraulic unit. I believe those started in 04 according to this thread:
http://forums.neons.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=276308&p=2512128
The DOHC isn't very hard to set the timing on. I have never done with with adjustable cam gears, however.
Last but not least, Galeana's Van Dyke Dodge here in Detroit gives good discounts (usually 10% over cost) to "Neon racers". The dealer's owner was heavily involved with them during the 90s. Great guys to deal with.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to throw them out there.
You could also run one of them fancy-shmancy racing timing belts.
Timing Belt part numbers for Gates Racing Belts:
2.0 SOHC - T245RB 2.0 DOHC - T246RB 2.4 DOHC - T265RB
The price on those isn't as bad as I originally thought.
In reply to parker:
That's impressive durability for the DOHC. I was going to build a DOHC race motor for my SpecNeon until at the 2007 NASA national championships the pole setter snapped a rod in the warm up the morning of the race. The year before, Kevin Fandozy probably would have won had his DOHC not popped a rod in qualifying. He swapped in a junk yard DOHC and made a great run of it though.
Since then, I've stuck with SOHC neons for all my racing. It makes the same torque, just 1000 rpm lower for slightly less power. I haven't lost a race to DOHC since 2008 (SN is still alive locally).
Of course in SN we can't legally change the rods. With better rods its not an issue.
Yeah, the sohc top end will keep you from tossing rods by not rewarding you for going to rod-tossing rpms. lol.
Looking forward to my next neon. I supposedly have dibs on another 95 sohc/5spd coming up for sale soon. 
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