The Beginning.....2001

September 2001

There is not much going on right now with the project since I am getting married later this month. I expect to start in on building my dream car hot and heavy next month after the Honeymoon. I want it to be the baddest Fiero ever to hit the street (or track). Every time I revisit the idea, my dream car gets closer and closer to a full racecar. The current plan is to take a street chassis, completely strip it down to the frame, put in a tube cradle with a normally mounted Turbo 6 on a Porsche 930 transaxle. I will have to cut the firewall to get the engine to fit. In addition, I will need to weld a roll cage in to the space frame for stiffness. The interior will be stripped and only metal and aluminum dashboard will remain. I expect the car to be light. 500 HP with about 2200 lb. I am not set yet on the engine. I am also not exactly sure where to start. Since everything will be custom, it may make sense to start with the engine and work outward.

October 2001

What unbelievable luck! A friend told me about a Fiero tube chassis and fiberglass body on E-bay for sale. I won the bid with 11 seconds left and by a difference if $40! Before winning the bid, I went to check it out, it looks like it could be original, but I have my doubts. However, the body appears to be an original DGP tube chassis body. This thing must be rare. It even has the scoop over the roof that was not allowed in many of the races. I need to find out more information about the previous few owners to get some of the history documented. After talking with Joe Huffaker about it, I believe that it is not an original at all. Anyway, it appears to be straight and I can work with it. I will now modify the plan again to use this chassis instead of a production one. This will provide a fantastic platform for my project. There are several tubes that need to be rewelded and enough surface rust to keep busy for some time. Lots of work ahead.
The project has taken a big twist. The goal now is to build a modified IMSA car with a normally mounted engine and a full race suspension. This will basically be an IMSA car with a normally mounted 500 hp engine on a Porsche 930 transaxle instead of the 330 hp SD4. The SD4 just is not enough horsey.

November 2001

Well, this month was a lot of work. I have started to reweld many of the welds on the front bay of the car. Lots of grinding and welding, and grinding, and welding, and …… you get the point. I bought a digital camera to use as a tool to document the project. I have taken many pictures of the chassis as I purchased it and of each of the fiberglass components. There is a strange 0001 marked on the inside of each of the panels and the rear fenders do not seem wide enough. I have started doing research on the original components and have now started a project book to collect data and log the project. I bring it to the meetings for all to see. As the project goes along, I plan to put in some digital pictures. Not much to tell this month, just boring paper work and lots of dirty work on the chassis.
I started looking for blueprints for the chassis to determine the suspension mount points. I called Joe Huffaker and he gave me several names. Among those was the name and telephone number of Terry Satchel (sp?). Terry worked for Pontiac at the time and was the engineer who designed the tube chassis and suspension setup. I had no idea who I was calling. Terry picked up the phone on the second ring. I told him who I was, what I was doing, and that Joe had given me his number. “Oh, how is Joe?” he said. We then started to chat. He told me that he and a friend of his had built one of the cars up in Detroit for their own racing team and that he had lost track of the prints, but his partner may have them. Terry then told me that he was responsible for the design of the ’88 suspension since the 84-87 sucked so bad and that he was not happy that the program got killed just after things started getting good. Terry told me that he now works for Roush Racing designing Winston Cup chassis. I apparently had called his direct line! He seemed like a decent guy, but was all too happy to tell everyone all of his accomplishments.

December 2001

I have been reading many books this month on suspension and chassis design. I already knew many of the concepts from the classes I took on the subject at Purdue. It appears that I will need to change the design so that the back end of the car is symmetrical about the longitudinal centerline. This means cutting out and welding in several new tubes. I am very concerned that the torsional stiffness will not be good enough. To help develop this design I have created a scale wood model of the chassis and a test platform to check the torsional rigidity. I was able to complete the model by the end of December. I will measure the base line and modify it next month to determine the best design.
I began ordering components this month. I was told that there was a Porsche shop down in Georgia that was good to work with. I called up PAP and ended up placing an order for a 930 transaxle with a refreshed gearbox. I was told that it would take about 6 to 8 weeks to find and rebuild the box.

INDEX:
Page 1 = Overview, Vehicle Summary, History 
Page 2 = 2001 - The Dream
Page 3 = 2002 - Getting Going
Page 4 = 2003 - It's ALIVE!
Page 5 = 2004 - Making Improvements
Page 6 = 2005 - Here's to a better year...
Page 7 = 2006 - The Story Continues...
Page 8 = 2007 - Wider is Better ; )
Page 9 = 2008 - Wider is Better - TAKE TWO ; )

Page 10 = 2009 - Details... Details... Details... 

GO TO THE NEXT PAGE TO SEE THE PROGRESS IN 2002 ----->