2008 ..... Wider is Better - TAKE TWO ;) ....
This year my goal is to have all of my projects ready for the 25th Anniversary of the Introduction of the Pontiac Fiero Show in Pontiac, Michigan. July 2008. Contact me at rrunner@egyptian.net for details or go to:
http://www.michiganfieroclub.com/Anniversary.html
January
I have received good news about the quarter panels. They should be available by the end of the month. If I can get them by the end of February that would be FANTASTIC! I also have received word that the roof panel will be ready to ship soon. Once I have all of these pieces I will be in business. My intent is to remount the entire body to make sure everything is straight and gaps are tight. I have been looking at the mounting points and decided that it is time to remake the front and rear clip. When I built the front clip it was to make everything fit. This prototype body is made for a drag car, so the wheel base is actually smaller than the IMSA. That made me adjust the suspension for the shortest wheel base possible. Not a great situation. I'm lucky that the car drives correctly at all. So this time, I can do it right. I will determine the center line of the chassis, determine the correct wheel positions and adjust them accordingly. The body will be made to fit the best nominal suspension setup.
So back to the front clip. It needs to be remade. I will make it much lighter this time using 0.045" and 0.065" walled steel instead of the 0.095" I used last time. This will take the anvil out of the nose. Much more thought will go into minimizing the amount of tubing used. I want to start decreasing weight. I had thought about using aluminum, but I was told that for the minimal weight savings, a thin gage steel was easier to work with. Since I only have a MIG welder, the choice became obvious.
As a side note, I did get a chance to weight the car again. It is slightly under 2200 lbs. The plan is to take 15 lbs out of the front clip, 8 lbs out of each wheel (using the aluminum rims), and a pound or two out of the rear clip. That should offset the additional body. Infact I am expecting a total weight reduection of about 40 lbs. Let's hope that this is how it works out. Fingers are crossed.
January 12 Weekend Update:
The roof panel will be shipped in a about a week. The roof is packaged and waiting for my payment to ship. Once it arrives, all I will need are quarters to get a serious start. In the meant time I will remove the current body and take off the front clip in preperation for the rebuilding of that part. I also intend to make dummy shocks (rods to replace the shocks) with rod end bearing s that can raise and lower the suspension. The purpose will be to hold the suspension in the correct location while it is on the lift. I will also be making careful suspension measurements and modeling it on Performance Trends Software. We will see how that goes. I want to learn how E.J. set up the suspension mount points, the best setup and what it means to the tire contact patch.
I took the body off Sunday morning. Being very careful (I have done this tons of times) it took about 1 hour. Obviously in competition it would take 4 or 5 minutes. Usually when I take the body off I am working on one section so part of the car is disassembled too. In this case I am setting up the suspension, so the entire car is assembled.
I thought I would take some pictures to show what is REALLY under the skin. Not much of a production Fiero. If you compare it to an original Huffaker car, it is similar.
It's hard to envision this racing down the track. It looks so different without the body.
January 26 Weekend Update:
The roof panel arrived safe and sound. No problems. I am one step closer to having all of the components to make my body transformation.
This weekend (and last weekend) I have been working on the suspension position. When I originally set up the car, I changed the length of the suspension arms to make everything work dimentionally. The rear clearance is very tight and the body had to fit. Since the body had the drag quarters, it was a challange. Anyway, I decided that since I was getting a new body for the rear, the wheel base and track width should fit with ease. I decided to determine EXACTLY where the suspension was and correct it as needed. My friend Dave seems to be influencing me. I saw how he was setting up his suspension for his IMSA Fiero (yes, there is another one being built :) ) and decided that now was the time.
The first thing I did was fabricate some dummy shocks (tie rods with heim joints on each end) to allow for suspension movement to be adjusted and to hold the suspension at ride height while on the lift. The lengths were set for a ride height of about 3" in the front and 3 1/2" in the rear.
I determined the center of the car using plum bobs hanging off of suspension mount points. I did this for the front and the rear. Next I needed to make a fore/aft locator. I took two pieces of 1" square steel tubing and clamped it to the bottom of the frame so that the faces were at 5" and 90" from the center of the lower front chassis tube (lower front side of the "box").
I used the rear tube as my guide and set the 1" square tubing parallel to it. I hung plumb bobs (one on the DS and PS) from the rear tube and held a scale against the square tubing to make accure measurements. By lineing up the strings when reading the scale, I ensure an exact measurement. Then I clamped the front square tubing to the frame and measured each side until it was perfectly parallel to the rear square tubing. Next I ran string between each square tube perfectly parallel to the centerline of the car. This gave me a cross car reference point to measure the track width. Since the square tubing and centerline plumb bobs are connected to the chassis, I can move the car up and down on the lift without worrying about messing up the reference points.
Surprizingly my suspension position looked pretty good, except for the wheel base. It measured 95 7/8". That is 2 1/2" too long! No wonder the body didn't fit well. Heck I'm lucky that it fit at all. After careful thought, I figured it out. I had used the wheel sizes from the Prototype IMSA Fiero to purchase wheels. Ther fronts measure 23.5"x11"x16". And here inlies the problem. IMSA only allowed 10" wide wheels for competion in the GTU class. I had always noticed that the wheels came very close to the front fire wall when turned to the lock. E.J. knew this and set up the car to stay within the front fender guidelines I specified and keep the wheels from hitting the fire wall. To do this, he must have had to move the front axle position forward 2.5".
I have decided that it is more important for the geometry to be right so I have shortened the rear trailing arms (upper and lower) just a little over 1 inch to move the wheels back. I have aligned the shocks so that it is perfectly perpendicular in the Z plane as looking from the side of the car. This is the best position for force transfer.
Next I focused my efforts on the rear. Surprizingly it was pretty close, however the bump steer was off and the track was not centered.
I corrected the bump steer by adjusting the upper and lower trailing arms until all bump steer had been eliminated. I used a laser with a "line" making attachment, aimed at the floor, attached to the rotor. I set a piece of metal with a straight line on the floor aligned with the laser beam line then I adjusted the dummy shock to simulate a compression of the suspension. It is desireable to have a little bit of toe in under "jounce". As I extended the suspension downward, I set the caster so that there was NO toe change.
With the rear suspension in the correct postion I learned that the lower rear A-arm did not have enough clearence to allow the wheel to move upward more than about 3/4" before it would hit the frame. I either had to modify the frame or modify the arm. I decided to modify the arm.
No, this is not a gun.... this is the rear lower A-arm member. I removed about 3/4" fo an inch in width from the "finger" plate (the handle of the "gun") welded on to the adjustment tube. As you can see from the picture I am getting ready to weld in some additional structure for added (overkill?) strength. Anyway, I am pumping the full HP load through this member and want to be safe. The plate is currently 3/8" thick steel and is still (with my modification) 1 1/4" wide at its narrowest point.
The quarter panels are complete and paid for. I will arrange shipping but it is likely that they will arrive by the end of February. This will make the body 76" wide in the rear. :)
I removed the front clip and weighed it.... 45 lbs! I'm sure I can do better this time. I am hoping to drop 20 lbs.
February
February 2nd:
Today I installed new rear trailing arms (22"). I also re-tapped the front PS upper trailing arm to allow for full adjustment.
Next, I installed the modified rear lower suspension arms. As you can see, my modification made the clearance to the frame much better. I used POR 15 for a coating to prevent any rust and chip problems. This is my favorite stuff. This one modification will allow me to set the entire suspension in the correct location.
I began the repeated measurments to make sure that everything was in the correct position. First, all of the wheel centers must be set to the proper wheel base based on the zero position of the car. Second, the track mest be set evenly at both axles. After setting the track width, the wheel base was verified.
I then verified the rear caster, bump steer and camber. I set both sides to about 1.3 deg. Right or wrong, I'm going to try it at this angle.
This is how I measured the bump steer on the front. The adjustment is made by adding or removing spacers from the bolt that connects the inner tire rod hiem to the end of the rack. I monuted a laser to the rotor. The laser has an attachment that will spit the beam to form a line. Anyone can pick one up from Harbor Freight (or just go to Lowes) for about $20.
I scribed multiple parallel lines on a piece of aluminum to serve as a measuring stick. Actually you could use a scale at each end to simplify things. Then I raised the suspension from the normal ride height by rotating the dummy shock rod. This simulates a bump condition.
The idea is that the laser stays parallel to the original line. Naturally there will be more camber, but typically you want the no toe in or toe out under a bump condition. The spacers at the end of the rack were adjusted until this condition was met for each side.
I adjusted the arm lengths until the correct cambers was established for each wheel. The digital angle finder is a must for this type of setup. It is easy and accurate. I highly recommend one. This particular one can be purchased from Sears for about $20.
2/16/08 Update... Rear quarters have ARRIVED! 
2/24/08 Update...
I worked on the front clip most of the weekend. Frabicating a new clip raises a lot of questions that I had not anticipated. All of the body mounting is now fair game. I believe that I have the front fascia and fenders in the right place. Below are progress pictures of the clip.
Here is the wheel and fender in the new location. It is tight. I will need to use different width wheels for sure. Something slightly smaller than a 23.5" tire on a 16" rim would be helpful too.
I am also working on a chin spoiler to help improve down force. The intent is to run the outline of the chin in 1/2" tube steel and add support so that it can stand alone. The body could be removed and the chin would still be in place.
This picture shows that the nose tip actually takes a slight tip upward toward the front of the car.
March
3/2/08 Update........
Here are a few pictures I snapped from this weekends work. I made the chin air splitter once and didn't like it (Saturday). It was too big. I think it was about 5 1/2" inches which would put quite a bit of down force on the nose of the splitter further away from the support. With it being a cantilevered (sp?) beam set up, the torque and bending moment would be pretty high. I figure the chin may need to hole about 500 lbs of force evenly distributed. I scaled it down to the pictures you see below. About 4 1/4". I have also found a pretty good way to hold it up as can be seen. Next week I do more for the reinforcement and triangulation. I am trying to get a weight reduction out of this but, I think my middle name is overkill. We will see.
3/9/08 Update...
This weekend I finished 90% of the front clip. As you can see, a big difference....
Old Clip :(
New Clip! :) 
The new clip weighs 13 lbs less than the old one. Not as much as I had hoped, but it is an improvement AND I now have a front chin to help with front end down force. Cool.
I started to do a real ROUGH body layout. It looks like will need to do some cutting of the old mounts to get everything to fit before I jig it up. I put on the new rear quarters for the first time today. From the face of the rotor (at the wheel studs) to the INSIDE of the quater panel wheel well lip measures just under 8.5" That is fantastic! I should easily be able to get 15" in there.
Here is the front end with the new chin frame showing 
Now this is what I call a QUARTER PANEL!!!
These panels added just over 6" to EACH SIDE of the car. I'm thinking 16" dia x 14" wide rims with 15" wide tires will fit with 3/8" of clear space.... but let's not get to excited. First I need to do a proper jig of the body.
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3/30/08 Update...
I made LOTS of progress this past weekend. I have now mounted 85% of the body. For those who have not tried it, it is much harder than it looks. I have learned so much in the past few years that this time, I was determined to make every thing as close to perfect as possible. Well... at least for a race body. They don't exactly fit perfectly. If you are with in 1/4" on gaps and panel position, you are kicking but and taking names.
I managed to position all of the panels where I wanted them, fabricate and fasten Dzus mounts (some are just tacked in.. in case they need to be moved), figured out the crazy roof attachment and how to fasten it down with the minimum amount of fasteners (to keep the body clean), and fabricate a new rear clip with MULTIPLE attachments.
The hood was not fitting correctly after making the front clip. I fabricated the fender to hood bracket for the aft end of the hood and fastened them together. This kept the hood and fender in the same relative position. Later I will come back and tack the bracket to the frame to set the final position. I found that the aft side if the hood was shifted about 1/2" toward the DS. After I figured out the problem, I ended up modifying the DS aft hood bracket to allow for more PS travel. 
Next I fitted the roof to the rear quarters moving and cutting, moving and cutting for days. Finally I got them to set in the centered position while keeping tight fore/aft gaps. I also made sure that the RCB (rear center bumper) was centered and perfectly level. If any thing is off, it will be veyr obvious. Even after all of this careful fitting, I was still havnig problems making the gaps correct.
I solved the rear quarter/roof fit by lowering the back of the roof. In fact I lowered it by mor than 1 inch! That is a lot. Anyway, you can see from the picture that it now slopes down into the fastback very nicely. I am somewhat satisifed. I was hoping that the mating pieces would not be as rough and that the panels would align better in this area since it is very visible. BTW... I took a measurement of the roof height... 44" to the top of the roof. Pretty low. :) This is at a 3" ride height.
Next I fastened the roof down and the forward corner as seen in the previous picture. I have been working on the mounts from the front of the car to the rear. Next, came the mounting of the rear quarters and RCB. I decided to bolt the three pieces together as a temporary fix to stop shifting of the panels.
I mounted the front of the quarters and positioned the doors in the proper location. It is CRITICAL that the door rubstrips are aligned. If not everyone and their brother will know something is wrong with the car. True or not, it won't matter. It just looks bad. I had problems with the PS door but I believe I have a fix (more fiberglass cutting but NOT on the prototype panels. Good heavens NO!) Anyway, I found out that the old clip was not useable because I needed to lower the RCB a full 1 1/2". The picture shows the mounted (for the most part) rear end with the tail lights taped in for fit check.
Here is the new rear clip that is 80% complete. I still have to figure out how to mount the rear decklid with the minimum amount of fasteners AND beable to transfer the down force of the wing to the frame (ie wheels). As it turned out the body was too narrow for the deck lid to fit (this one is for you Dave! :) ) I fabricated a Cross Car (C/C) brace with an offset so that the thin flange of the quarters fit on the lip. I effectively widened the top of the quarters about 1/4" to 3/8" while adding structural support up/down and support for the wing downforce. See the detailed picture below.
These pictures show the cross car wideneing bar. Note the 8" long 1.5" wide fore/aft (F/A) flat plate under the quarter to decklid flange for up/down (U/D) support. Also note the lip that is welded on top to contain the flange. With 1" square tubing underneath and C/C, this is structurely sound. Even with the widening if the quarters, it was still necessary to significanty round the edges near the aft end so that the deck lid would fit. I think I put about a 4 mm raidius on them for a length of about 3 inches. (we use both metric and english at work.. so please forgive me.)
If all goes as planned, I should have the body ready to be painted by the end of April. Cross your fingers for me!
Below is a picture showing the width of the car as compared to before. Please notice that the front fenders are the same as the previous width of the car.
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April
4/13/08 Update....
This picture shows the rear center bumper with the tail lights mounted. Both pieces can be mounted independently.
There are three holes shown in the rear center bumper flange. The upper and lower holes are used by Dzus fittings to align and hold the quarter to the bumper. Notice that there is a hole in the center of the flange. This is where I run a 3/8" boplt to tighten the gap between the rear center bumper and the quarters. It makes a nice fit but is not necessary for the quarters to stay on the car. It does thead in to the end of the steel bumper of the rear clip.
This is a good picture of the rear clip. Although a few tubes need to be added, you can see the basic structure. Notice the wing support to improve load transfer from the wing down force.
In order to get a good fit, I had to extend some of the surfaces of the roof and quarters. Below are some pictures showing that. 
I also had to close up gaps betweeen the tail lights and the quarters.
This the support for the aft end of the quarters. Thsi alows the quarter to be mounted without falling off of the car while the dzus fittings are mounted. 
Another shot of the rear clip/wing support.
Wing support. 
This is the bracket I made to support the front of the decklid/wing. Simple but effective.
4/25/08 Update...
Last sunday I mounted the body panels to look at the total fit. I need to have the car ready to paint by 4/27. Here are the pictuers of her on the ground for the first time in 4 months! Starting to come together! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves....
Yes... that is the correct ride height. The wheels are the same as on previous pictures. The quarters are MUCH wider!
WIDER IS BETTER.. : )
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May
I accomplished a lot of work this month.
This is a picture of the bottom of the front end. The intent is to make a close out panel that will smooth the air across the bottom of the car and therefore improve downforce and lower drag. Notice the Duzs fitting attachment ponits. There are many but you can also see the ones for the tip side as well, so it looks like more.
I received my tires today. WOW! 14" of rubber on the ground is a lot of rubber. I sure hope they fit. The measurements say they will but the proof is in the pudding. These are "scrub" tires that I purchased for a substantial discount. Great for track days where 1 second in lap time does not make a difference. I picked them up for $85 per tire! That is a LOT better than the new price ($400 to $550 per tire). Woo hoo! Go scrubs.
Here is a picture of a pre-painted, nearly complete front clip. Notice that the center tow opening does not have the mounts for the scuff plate yet. I did not discover I needed one until later.
This is a picture of the rear clip getting painted. I had to adjust the wing angle bacuase it put too much stress on the body during mounting.
I took this momemt to change out the clutch. As you may recall from 2004, I spun the clutch due to an incorrect preload setting on the clutch plate. I tried to nurse it back to health, but no luck. I intend to upgrade to the next stage of clutch.
Front clip painted silver with the radiator installed.
This shows the rear clip installed for the first time with paint. I will assemble the body while I am waiting for the clutch to arrive to verify fit one more time.
I finally got around to making the sheet metal surround for the radiator. Naturally this will ensure that the air entering the grille opening will not escape and maximize heat transfer efficency.
The chin air splitter is nearly complete. I just finished the top sheetmetal for the chin. Notice that it is not flat but has to follow the contour of the lower fiberglass edge. This was tricky to make while keeping it removable. I used a kitchen cutting board cut in to the proper shape and size to make the supports.
Here you can see the angled pieces I made from the cutting board. Also notice that they are press fit over two pins on the frame. Easy installation and removal while avoiding the use of fasteners.
The first pictures of the rear quarters PAINTED! Wider is better. 
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This a picture of the nose with the front fiberglass removed. Notice that the splitter is raised at the back to meet the bottom edge of the fiberglass. Looking closely at the picture on the right, you can see the white plastic I used for the "wedge" to hold up the back of the splitter. This was the key to making it match the fascia airdam.
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The rims arrived! Three piece aluminum Bogart 16" rims. They are 10" wide in the front and 14" wide in the back. The back rims are shown.
LOOK! .... It's the SHORT CAR! This is a picture of the first mounting of the tires on rims and wheels on car. The rims arrived on Friday and I had them on the car Saturday morning at 11:30. :D I could hardly wait. Naturally I found that there needed to be some more body adjustments. Unfortunately you can only do so much with the old wheels that were "close".
The car is starting to look mean. Not the best picture, but one of my favorite angles.
The brake ducts are all hooked up. I had to change the position of one of the support legs on the front clip to make the duct pass through. I also used double 3 inch openings in teh turn signal opening. Unfortunately I only had time to hook up one. Hooking up the second would require making a new brake cooling defuser for the rotor. Not in the timing plan at this point.
The back rear center bumper is missing. Still no clutch to put in the car. .
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June
Still waiting for the clutch, I put the body on to take some pictures. Drum roll please...
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Right about now my appendix gave out. I had to have it removed in the emergency room. Fortunately it did not rupture, but it did cause me to stay in the hospital 5 days and take it easy when I came back. No work on the car the first weekend in June! Help! I'm on a tight schedule.
But the next weekend (14th and 15th) I slowly began to work on the car again. Naturally I am being careful even though the doctor said I was off any restrictions (previously heavy lifting was off the menu).
On June 13th ant 14th I installed the new KEP stage 2 clutch. The flywheel and pressureplate were the same but turned and cleaned at KEP. The disk is new. This is now a sprung disk to soften the blow to the transmission and help with gear noise. Also the clutch assembly is now rated fro about 800 ftlb. That will work well with my engine (about 30% safety margin). I took extra care to set the preload on the clutch fork correctly. I now use a dial indicator to read the movement of the fork lever arm. I then adjust the pre-load adjustment screw until the arm moves 0.010". Basically I am just taking the play out of the assembly. Actually it is hard to set it at less. By the time you can be sure that the arm is moving, it has already traveled 0.010".
Here is a picture I took with the back end off and the tires exposed. That is a LOT of tire. It is hard to tell with the quarters on. I made the rear quarters removeable independantly for ease of working on the car. Working on the engine or any system in the rear is as simple as taking off the deck lid, then removing a quarter, and setting on the tire to fix the problem.
I finished making the center close out for the new front clip (under the steering rack). The entire front end of the car is now closed and smooth for aerodynamics. I added a scuff pad at the nose to take the abuse of hitting the chin. This piece is removable for towing.
This shot shows the rock guard I used to protect the radiator. IT looks good and is completely functional. It is made of medium stainless steel and is intended for track use. I did the same thing with the scoop. This will keep the rocks out and keep the filter from collecting some serious debris. 
Here is the nearly completed front end. Still needs the graphics. Also, this picture shows the wings painted blue. I thought it was a nice little touch. Just my opinion. 
Next came the alignment. (hence the roller plates) This took me about 14 hours. The problem is that it is a round-robin type of adjustment. Start with a rough tow setting and correct ride height (both of which are affected by the caster and camber). Next, set caster.
Install the substitute rods for the shocks and adjust the suspension for bump steer. Put the shocks back in and adjust the camber and the a fine tuning of the toe. Go back and measure each setting again. It takes a while.
A good picture of the power plant with the scoop.
Here are a few more pictures of the assembled body this time with all of the internals. The transmission is in along with the exhaust and all rear clip parts. It's getting closer! for all practical purposes the car is "complete". (I hate using that word!)
Here is a "coke can" picture to show how low the nose it. It is designed to be about 2.75" off the ground. Mine is set for about that. Loading it in the trailer will be next. I need to install new ramps.
July
Here is a picture of my oldest Daughter setting in the drivers seat. She is growing too fast! Soon she will be able to touch the pedals and then "Daddy... can I drive the.... ? Not ready for that yet. : ) Anyway, she loves the car, but not the loud noise it makes. Just need a little more time. : )
I added two 7 foot ramps to the door of the trailer and a center board to make it possible to roll my tool box in. It works pretty well but the chin of the car still scrapes the door at the transistion from the new ramps to the door (gray part). I can put a piece of 1/2" ply wood under the front wheels there to get it to fit, so I'm not to concerned. The other option is to tilt the nose of the trailer upward to lower the back. That works too.
I also applied POR 15 to the roof. The tin on the roof had a slight rust too it and I didn't want it to start leaking. This trailer needs to last me a long time! That turned out to be a fairly major task. First I pressure washed the entire trailer and scrubbed it with a brush a the local car wash. Then I applied "Marine Clean" with a sprayer to get any oil or residue off the roof. Then I masked the edges and used a roller to apply "Metal Ready" that neutralizes the rust completely and puts a zink coating on it. I think it is similar to Navel Jelly. Anyway, two applications of that the a pressure wash. I needed to make sure that this stuff stayed off the paint of the trailer and the truck. And it needed to stay wet on the metal for at least 30 minutes. That was a trick! I let the roof dry overnight.
The next day I applied 2 coats of POR 15 gray with a 1/4 nap roller. It took about 1 hour per coat. However for a better bond, the second coat needed to be applied while the 1st was still tacky. I had to start the 2nd coat immediately after the 1st. It wore me out. The 2 top coats of Silver UV stable POR 15 top coat was the same way. That is what you see in the picture, the sliver top coat. IT looks great, will stand up to a hammer, will permenantly eliminate the rust problem/potential, and reflect more heat. Win, win, win!
I added some flush tie downs at the back of the trailer. Now that I have the wider quarters, the car only fits in the trailer forwards. These tie downs have 2 big angle iron piece under them to suppor the load and transfer a portion of it to the frame of the trailer.
I also had to come up with a "tie down" for the front of the car. I cannot access the wheels or suspension with the new chin air splitter so I had another idea. I had made an opening in the nose of the splitter for toeing. My idea was to stick a block of wood between the splitter and the trailer floor and clamp the wire frame of the splitter to the trailer. I used a 3/4" piece of steel with a notch and 2 long 5/8" grade 8 bolts. They threaded to large pieces of angle iron under the trailer tied to the the steel frame. If the trailer tips over, I expect the car to be hanging from the roof. : )
I added a blue stripe on the rub strip like I had on the old body. I think it breaks up the large yellow panels nicely.
I also want to do the side windows in black vinyl. This is a picture of the die cut mock up. First I laid tape in the shape I wanted. Next I will remove it and cut the die cut to match the shape. 
Here is a picture of the finished vinyl
The car is now (are they ever?) complete!
Here are some closeups. After the change summary I'll show you the whole car!
Here is a complete list of changes in the past 7 months:
1. - Moved the brake and clutch fluid bottles from the frame to the fire wall to reduce/eliminate leaks and still gravity fead the master cylinders.
2. - Changed the Rear master cylinder from 7/8" to 3/4"
3. - Moved the front sway br position forward about 3/4".
4. - Calculated the correct sway bar rates for the car given the suspension geometry.
5. - Plumbed the entire suspension. Places each wheel center in the correct location (F/A and C/C), and remade A-arm lengths as needed. Wheel base is now 3/4" longer than stock. Moved wheels inboard to correct location to clear fenders at full retract.
6. - Remade the front clip with integrated 4" front air splitter for down force. Reduced weigh by 12 lbs. Leveled to the car chassis F/A and C/C.
7. - Used close out panel on the bottom of the front clip to smooth air flow under the car.
8. - Integrated a tow hook opening in to the front clip. This is used for towing but also securing it to the trailer and a scuff pad fits in the bottom to protect the nose of the car.
9. - Remade radiator enclosure to funnel more air and make easier to remove and maintain. Now uses Dzus fittings.
10. - Fabricated SS wire mesh to the back side of the front nose openings. It is functional as a rock guard and better looking.
11. - Found a better way to mount the radiator. Roll it in and use poly end links as rollers!
12. - Changed fan mount. Now is easily removable with only one bolt at the top. Lightened by using less steel.
13. - Added adjustable throttle linkage. Changable from cockpit.
14. - Installed new KEP Stage 2 clutch (800 ftlb.) No more slippy slippy!
15. - Installed new wide body Rear Quarters, Roof, Rear Center Bumper, ad Decklid.
16. - Remade rear clip to hold new body panels. Made rear quarters (actually all panels) to be removable individually for easy access.
17. - Remounted entire body for better fit.
18. - Changed wheels and tires. Purchased 3 piece aluminum Bogart wheels (14"x16" dia rear and 10"x16" dia front) Tires are Goodyear G19 road racing slicks at 14"x25.5"x16" rear and 10"x23.5"x16" front. The front wheel weights were reduce by 10 lbs each and the rears by 8 lbs each.
19. - Added SS mesh to the ram air scoop
20. - Changed the mounting method of the scoop to the roof. It now uses a "cam lock" design. I remde bicycle quick release hubs to work for this application. No tools needed.
21. - Added some cool graphics. Some vintage, some I had made just for the car.
22. - Remounted DS door.
23. - Added additional brake duct inlet. Need to connect later.
24. - Drip tray for the brake and clutch fluid.
Okay here is the FINISHED PRODUCT! Ready for the 25th Anny Show in Pontiac Michigan.
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After this whole ordeal, I was ready to to the the Fiero 25th Anniversary Reunion in Pontiac Michigan over the weekend of July 26th.
And here are the results.......
The Fiero 25th Anniversary Reunion (July 24 through 27th)
The Track Day:
CC Rider makes a tight turn at Waterford Hills. That thing is sticking like glue!
Fieroguru pulls the nose up on the start. That's what happens when you are running a 355 Ram Jet.
The famous "Great Orange Pumpkin". Keith runs that car HARD. Still going strong with over 190,000 miles of frequent trackdays, hill climbs, and autocrosses.
Gene is one of the greats of NASA. He has built a great car and participates as well as organizes track events nearly every week.
Thank you to all the folks who worked so hard to put on this event.
The SHOW:
Here is a PORTION of the show field. There were about 283 Fieros registered. (send me an email if I'm wrong).
There were Fiero Prototypes on display. 9 Total:
The 1990 GT
The GM Goodwrench 55 Car
The 2+2 Concept
The Pro-Street "Bumble Bee" concept
The First Prodution Car 000001
The Blue PPG Pace Car
The Convertable Concept
The Turbo "Porsche Eater"
The Indy Pace Car (Car #2 used at the track during the 1984 Indy 500)
The 1990:
The GM Goodwrench 55 Car:
(I had a chance to sit in it!)
The Pro-Street "Bumble Bee" concept
(They let me DRIVE this one!)
Morning pictures of the prototypes
SHOW Photos:
Jen getting interviewed for the DVD and book about the 25th. (I was interviewed too). No word yet on which cars made it to final publication.
This picture on the left is a picture of me with Hulki Aldikacti. "Hulki" as hs is know to the Fiero Community was the lead Engineer on the project. He is the one (with Parkinson) who sold the Fiero 2 seater concept to the GM brass back in the late 70's and headed the program launch team. On the right we see Hulki checking out my ride. "How much ground clearance does this thing have?!?!?" He liked the car. :) I was thrilled!
This is a picture of my car with one of the famous DGP Concept cars for the Stage II body. The body on the IMSAs were originally made by DGP so this is a significant car. Rick (the current owner) found the car 3 years ago and knew what it was. What a find! I thought it was really cool for Rick to suggest getting the cars together for a photo-shoot. This is one of my favorite pictures.
These photos are of a cool car at the show with a 12" stretch and a Northstar installed longitudinally. Heck of a setup!
This is Tracy's wild ride. The pictures speak for themselves.
This is Jarhead2M4's car. Notice the Japanese license plate. He flew in from Japan to make this show!
After the show I was very honored to be asked to park with the GM prototypes. Below are some pictures. The reason it was so special to me was because of the 12 cars there, mine was the only one that Pontiac did not build.
This is one of my favorite.... My picture taken with my hero John Callies. I could fill a page (but won't -- See page 3) about what a great guy he is. He was the Manager of Pontiac Motor Sports from 1978 to 1988. He is the Father of the race Fiero and drove the Indy pace car in the 1984 race. As you can see from the picture it is the two of us with my car and the Goodwrench car. I like to think of it as "my car and his car".
Last but not least, I won "Best of Show - Historian's Choice"
That pretty much sums up the perfect show for me.
September
I had planned on taking the car down the street for a "shake down" run to find out if more modifications were needed. As it turned out, on September 5th (Friday) they closed my road (at least 3 miles of it) for resurfacing. Bad for long-term construction, good for a quick run with no traffic! The following Saturday (6th) I slapped some tape in the wheel wells and went out on the closed course. This is where I found out if the months of modifications worked or if there were more to make. I seem to be obsessed with making the "perfect" car or at least my idea of one. I want to be able to get in this thing and not worry about problems. The test drive was not with out its issues. Below is a quick list. However there were some cool things to report. The car is fast. I know, it’s hard to believe. I set up a camcorder (as I always do) in the center of the rear fire wall (a picture from this camera can bee seen on the bottom of page 1) and recorded the entire drive. I took a rolling start 5 mph to 100 mph run keeping in mind that this beast has a new clutch. Nice and easy (but not too easy). When I went back and viewed the video, I didn’t think much of it, until I checked the stopwatch. From the video I could see that the shift light never cam on and the shifting was quick but not fast. The time was about 7.4 seconds. Not bad for 100 mph run. However I learned something after the pass…… The throttle adjustment knob was set at ¾ open carb! That means that with the petal on the floor I was only pulling ¾ of the butterfly valve on the carburetor. I would post the video, but even with the road being closed, it seems like a bad idea.
Okay. What still needs to be fixed?
- Overheating. It started to overheat when I was pushing, but not when I was driving at 2000 RPM. I only got up to 220 F but that was enough. It would have kept going (I believe) had I stayed out longer. This happened even with the fans on.
- DS Rear wheel hitting frame. It only hit under full acceleration. Problem has been corrected. It turned out that the "reverse" bump stop I put on the suspension was just touching the new rim under load. This never showed up on the lift even with the simulated movement of the wheel.
- Front Air Splitter hitting under full braking. I will raise the car about 1/2" and realign it to correct the issue.
- Fuel pressure gages did not match. Relocated the rear fuel pressure gage for a more accurate reading.
- Minor fuel leak at carb compression ring. I'll replace this. 5 minutes max.
October
I know progress is slow, but I had to take a break. Lots of other things came up that took attention away from the car. Anyway, I learned some things about my problems stated above.
- The overheating may be an ongoing issue but I did find something that may help. After I discovered it I felt pretty stupid. I removed the coolant tube at the top of the motor in order to check the thermostat and determine if it made sense to put in a cooler one. When I pulled the hose, not water came out! Apparently when I filled the system, there were still pockets of air. That could contribute to the overheating. Duhh. However, I still think I have a problem. I noticed on a test run (idling in the shop) that the car wants to run warm. The cooling system works fine, I just think I don’t have enough of it. I am thinking about some header wrap to help cool the engine bay and putting in some electric fans for help moving air under and through the engine bay. Also I thought about cutting open the side vents in the rear quarters and directing the air toward the hot spots. Another idea is that the radiator is not getting enough air at speed. Since the only open spot is the small opening in the nose, slow speeds may not direct enough air. I am considering nacaduct openings in the bottom closeout panel under the radiator to skim air off the laminar flow under the car. Simple to install and I could put a screen on the opening to block the rocks. I have also considered directing some of the brake cooling air over to the radiator close out wall. If I did all of that to the front of the car, it would nearly double the area of inlet air to the radiator. I should be able to do it for a small sum of money considering funds are tight these days. (whose aren’t?)
- I raised the car about ½" to a total ride height of about 3.75" It seems like an off road vehicle now! It should help considerably under braking and will improve loading in the trailer. I suppose I was getting carried away with the 3.25" height. Anyway, if I ever decide to go with stiffer springs, I may bring that height back down.
- I relocated the fuel pressure gage that was in the engine compartment. The reading seemed odd at best. The pressure kept dropping as the car was running but the gage on the dash said nothing was changing. I think that the gage may be faulty. That would explain a lot. I have a spare I can replace it with.
- I saw the correct compressing rings needed to fix the minor carb leak but I somehow misplaced them. That will get fixed as soon as I find them.
I received my long awaited book and DVD put together as a keep sake for the Pontiac Fiero 25th Anniversary Reunion. First I want to say what a FANTASTIC professional job was done by the group. Credit goes to many but some of the key people are mentioned below and deserve a lot of credit:
Tim Gray
Lynne Gray
Juli Schuitema
I cannot reproduce items from the DVD or the book but I am happy to say that I was included in both of them. My interview was used as well as pictures of my car in a couple of pages in the book. The DVD really captured the flavor and purpose of the event. People sharing stories of their cars, getting to know each other better, learning new modifications, and appreciating what others had done. I feel honored to be apart of the Fiero community. It truly is a great group.
November
This month I made several changes to the car to improve issues I found during the test drive.
First I did some testing to determine if there was truly a gage problem. I found that there was. I was going to just replace the gage but then decided to change the position of the fuel pressure gage as well to give a more accurate reading. This is a different location than the previous location mentioned above. I drilled and tapped in to the side of a "T" AN fitting. I think the installation looks pretty good (if I do say so myself) and it is certainly accurate now in this location.
I also added rollers to the front air splitter of the car. I know it sounds a little crazy but it should work pretty well. There are two banks of 7 rollers. I used poly end link bushings. They are durable, replaceable, and cheap. We will see how long they last.
Last but not least, I attended a Bike and Hot Rod show on 11/9/08. I would like to say that I won, but I didn't. There were over 40 cars there and I received a lot of great comments. I did however win "Best Engine" for the Hot Rod class. They announced that they choose the best engine not based on chrome, or looks but just the "baddest" motor at the show. Very cool. Hanging out with the biker crowd was different for me but they are a cool bunch of guys and gals. It seems that we as similar in the fact that we love to modify machines and make them unique to our individual tastes. I look forward to more "combination" shows like this.
December
While visiting my usual haunt online (Pennocks Fiero Forum) I found out that Pontiac Enthusiast Magazine had a 2 page story about the 25th Anny. Fiero Show. Here is a picture of the article. If you look closely, you can see me and my car at the bottom center of picture number 1 (top left hand side). I made it in to a magazine! I thought it was pretty cool. My buddy John Callies was mentioned 3 times and even appeared in one of the pictures (#4 on the left side). I sent him a copy of the magazine as I thought he would get a kick out of it.
Recently the Fiero community received sad news ..... Three of the Fieros in the GM Heritage are going to be sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction in January. We hope that the buyer will keep them in the Fiero Community but that may not happen. The cars to be sold (along with about 250 other GM Heritage collection cars) are the 55 Huffaker car (pictured above), the 2+2 Fiero Concept and the Fiero Convertable. It is believed that these cars will be sold with NO option to put them on the road. Okay, the 55 car is not street legal anyway, but still.
One last note...... Due to the recent financial downturn of our economy (hence lack of funds), I have decided that 2009 will be (once again) a fairly weak year for autocross and track day participation. I hope I am wrong but that is my guess at this point.
December
Not much going on this month. I did receive my spacer to replace the thermostat an improve cooling but I have not installed it yet. I have given some consideration to taking a stock hood, stripping all of the back side reinforcement and then cutting vents in so that the radiator has better air flow. That could help quite a bit.
I have also been debating on how to solve my rock/paint chipping problem. The paint around the wheel wells gets sandblasted every time the car is taken above 15 mph. I m thinking about making some removable semi-mud flaps. Protective tape is just not cutting it. When I removed the tape from the last run, it removed 70% of the clear coat with it. Not real visible but no fun none the less.
Also, I just purchased a battery isolator to allow my truck to charge the trailer while I am driving. That would keep me from worrying about not having the use of the winch after the car is out. That happend to me on 11/9 at the indoor show. The deep cycle battery was in the cold all day. Although it had a full charge the day before, the cold really takes a toll on a 4 year old battery. The battery isolator should solve all of these issues.
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...
ON TO 2009! --------------->
