I've own 4 Fieros in the past and still like them. Great to see a build like this to show what these cars can do!
I've own 4 Fieros in the past and still like them. Great to see a build like this to show what these cars can do!
I made some progress on my oil cooler install. Build thread started here.
Oh and I finally took some photos of the vinyl wrap.
I asked Metro Restyling to print me a black, red, and gray digital camo vinyl wrap. They sent me a few samples, and I picked one to order a 4 ft x 45 ft sheet of. Just enough to do a Fiero. 30+ hours of work later, I'm done with the wrap.
Since my clearcoat was in bad shape on most panels, I had to sand it down to the layer of paint that was adhering well, so that the vinyl wouldn't come off later due to substrate failure. This made my vinyl install require about the same prep work as a full paint job. That means hours and hours of block sanding. If your paint is in good shape, a vinyl wrap doesn't require much prep work -- just remove some trim, clean the panels, and go at it.
The wrap itself took 20+ hours of work. This is the third car I've done a wrap on. I wrapped my Subaru Outback as well as my friend's Evo X -- although that one is not quite done yet.
im gonna go ahead and say this is probably the greatest fiero of all time. great work man!
Thanks edizzle! That's quite the compliment! 
It's taken a lonngggg time to get to this point with the car where I can actually justify spending time on the looks, but it's finally all coming together now!
Still pushing along on the mechanical side of things too of course. My friend recommended some changes to the oil cooler bracket I designed, so I'm going to implement those and have new parts laser cut tomorrow. I was at least able to mock everything up with the sandwich adapter and fittings, and got my hose and fittings ordered so I can complete the install when I finish the brackets.
Here's the cooler as it is mounted with the prototype brackets:
Location in front of the rear subframe:
Close up of the brackets:
The problem with the current design is the strength of the lower flange. The new design will be much stronger.
Took some pics up on ACH after work. No leaks from the oil cooler!
Just a few more days until I head up to Buttonwillow Raceway for the weekend!
Track day update!
I ran another track weekend with NASA at Buttonwillow last weekend. This time we ran the #1CCW configuration. It's only the second weekend I've run this track CCW. Air temp was ~103F on both days, with the track surface way, way hotter. I installed my oil cooler but haven't ducted it yet so I don't think it's doing anything, especially with that hot air coming off the asphalt. Coolant temps were in the 220F to 230F range, maybe as high as 240F. Lots of lifter tap so I'm sure the oil was still 280*F+..
I hooked up my rear swaybar again in an attempt to limit body roll and get some more traction in the rear since I think it was limited by geometry and not weight transfer. Sure enough, the car is hardly looser but I've gained some front grip and the rear feels more planted too. However, the car now wig-wags on slide recovery (see: this part of my bloopers video). I know the 475# springs were already too much for the Koni reds, even at full stiff, but the rear swaybar makes it really obvious. I have a set of Bilstein struts waiting on the shelf for a revalve. I hope to get to those later this summer.
I pulled the carpet out for my interior color change and didn't put it back in before going to the track. I didn't expect to have any problems related to that, but it turns out the carpet is pretty important. The Fiero has a ridge that runs down the center of the footwell in the exact spot where my heel rests. With the carpet removed, it's just that semi-gloss chassis coating on the floor. It's super slippery. I literally could not drive the car on the track in the first session. I got some gaffer's tape from my friend and put a few layers down. Problem solved.
Pretty uneventful weekend overall; only a couple spins and no real offs. I was down on power later Saturday and most of Sunday. I thought it was my imagination until I heard a distinct misfire.. then I thought it was the heat. On the last session, I lost a significant amount of power. At the entrance to a turn where I would normally be going 100+ mph I was down to 85. The induction noise had changed too. I pulled into the pits and packed up to go home.. started the car to leave, drove 15 feet, and it stopped. We thought it was out of gas but after putting 4 gallons in it was doing nothing. The racers finished running so I tried to listen for the fuel pump. Nothing. The relay and fused checked out, but the pump doesn't run. The fuel rail was bone dry -- just gasoline vapor. Ugh. I could've made it to the parts store with a friend's car and replaced the pump, but not at 105*F at the end of a long day, so I used my AAA tow.
I put together a reel of bloopers and "heroics" for the weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unbIIwKe-4M If you watch my steering inputs that were necessary for correcting for the rear stepping out, do a quick mental calculation: the stock steering requires ~1.7 times more turning than my rack. Good luck with that.
There's also a short clip of me pulling flat out through a banked left-hander. Watch the oil pressure gauge. It's hard to tell but it looks like it jumps down ~4 or 5 psi once or twice. Might be sucking a bit of air :-/.
Also my AC is busted again.. totally my fault though. When I moved a heater hose to make room for the oil cooler lines I didn't realize that it was pushing the AC hose into the exhaust manifold. It eventually melted through and popped. I knew exactly what the sound was from when I heard it. Ugh. At least I didn't have to drive home in the heat since I got towed.
More pics!
Ok you didn't read this far to go home without some eye candy. Time for some pics! Thanks to Cali Photography for the nice shots.
Nice and neat oil cooler install..
But maybe some sort of screen over it to prevent damage from errant rocks?
And the red digi camo looks great!
Yep, that's part of the plan. I designed the flange extensions on the mounts for adding a duct and rock guard.
I highlighted the flanges here in red:
This is a CAD model of Rev B but you can see the same flanges on Rev A shown in the photos.
Very cool. Nice car. I had a 88 Formula that I autocrossed a lot with some track days as well. Stock.
One thing that stood out to me in the video was your steering inputs. The ones preceding the tank slappers. :-) Seems like you're putting too much input at corner entry and when you're on the gas. I don't think the steering rack is helping you either. The stock rack would mellow out those inputs. You should barely need to move the steering wheel and let the rear do the turning for you on corner entry.
Anyway, take those comments for what you paid for them. :-) Keep posting updates!
Your observation is correct. Even looking back at the video of my fast lap in the 13CW configuration, I am not smooth on initial turn-in. I'll try to keep that in mind as something to work on next time I'm out on track. Thanks!
This thread makes me want to get back in to Fieros. That is just an awesome car. Hang in there with the debugging. That's always the frustrating part, but it feels like you're pretty close.
My car was featured as the Internet Hotrod of the Month in the latest (August 2014) issue of GRM. Big thanks to the GRM crew for choosing my car to put in the magazine!!!
The fuel rail was bone dry -- just gasoline vapor. Ugh. I could've made it to the parts store but not at 105*F at the end of a long day, so I used my AAA tow.
Look at the bright side: if it were a boosted setup, your 'drive through it' approach would have ruined the motor! So at least THAT didnt happen.
Car looks awesome and i love this thread.
Last Saturday, I replaced the fuel pump and started the car for the first time since I pulled off the track in early June. The engine rumbled to life and settled into a low, rough idle -- it was only running on 2 or 3 cylinders. Oil smoke was spewing out of the tailpipes. Some smoke on startup is normal for a first start after a track session, because my inadequate breather system fills the intake with a mist of oil.
I suspected the dead cylinders were due to fouled spark plugs, since all the oil that ends up in the intake would have coated the cylinders that weren't firing due to fuel starvation during the final track session in June. I pulled the 3 spark plugs from the rear head (the front head spark plugs are much harder to access) and sure enough they were soaked in oil. After dropping a fresh triad of spark plugs into the rear bank, I started the motor again and was greeted with a much smoother idle, but it was still misfiring on 2 or 3 cylinders. After pulling the car out of the garage my friend noted that there was still some oil smoke coming from the exhaust... I'm hoping that it's just burning off slowly because the combustion chambers are coated in it and probably look just like the spark plugs did.
It's a little tricky to remove the front spark plugs since they're up against the firewall, so rather than fix it all right way, I drove the car -- with 3 or 4 cylinders working -- over to my new place to work on later. The smoke had stopped after driving a short distance.
I'll put some new plugs in this week if I have time. Hopefully I didn't melt any pistons when it was running lean. The motor isn't making any weird mechanical noises, the oil looks fine, and the 3 spark plug electrodes I pulled were in perfect shape. All good signs. Crossing my fingers that the pistons and cylinder walls are OK..
It's an in-tank (or filter) problem... the new pump "died" while I was driving the car around trying to further diagnose the issue. It no longer develops any pressure, even when I block the return. I pulled the pressure line and it barely dribbles out while priming. Probably a broken / split fuel hose or pulsator, or the outlet of the new pump came apart somehow.
Dang. Well hopefully you get it fixed soon. How hard is normal maintenance on that compared to a non-swapped fiero? Just curious
Almost everything is a lot easier with this motor.
Oil changes are the same. Spark plugs are easier, but I'm using Iridium plugs so that's not really a maintenance item.
Repairs are easier. The alternator takes about 10 minutes to replace. The water pump is about the same. Coils are right up top. I could replace the entire ignition system in 10 minutes. My shortened exhaust system takes about 5 minutes to remove, though it does require setting the rear on jackstands. Almost everything else can be done from the top.
It turns out the reason the fuel system stopped working was because the in-tank fuel hose was broken... I replaced it with some SAE 30R10 submersible fuel line.
The engine still wasn't running right and I suspected an exhaust restriction, so I removed the exhaust system and ran the car around the block. Loud is quite an understatement... this engine sounds like 3 Harleys with open pipes. At idle. Yikes! Anyway, it felt like it picked up a bit of power but obviously running on less than 6 cylinders.
My spark tester came in the mail so I checked the spark on every coil -- I had no problem getting spark across a 30 mm gap... now WTF?
Just to be sure it wasn't spark, I swapped in a spare DIS control module. BAM! 6 cylinders! There must have been a weak coil driver and the spark was blowing out under high load.
However... the car was still down on power. I removed the exhaust again and cut off the cat to find this:
Yeeeep. That's not going to flow well.
Anyway, it's running fine now except a power steering fluid leak. I think the reservoir is cracked, so I ordered a new one.
Lol! Glad to hear its running great again. That's crazy that its so much easier to work on with that engine swapped in. Should have come with something like that in the first place. Oh well
Last Friday, Matt Farah of The Smoking Tire and /DRIVE channel spent the day track-testing my Fiero at a Speed District event at Buttonwillow Raceway.
It was awesome seeing my car covered in cameras, and nice to hear that the car was fun to drive from someone who has driven everything from Lamborghini Aventadors to the Hennessey Venom GT.
I'm not going to post any spoilers, but the video is going to be AWESOME. Even if you don't have a subscription to /DRIVE+ ($4 a month) there will be a shorter (5 minute) video on /DRIVE channel, which is free. The one on /DRIVE+ will probably be ~10 to 15 min. I'll post the link in this thread once it's available. It should be up on /DRIVE in a week or two.
For once I get to come home from a track day and not have to edit any videos myself!
A few pics of my car covered in cameras:
You can also find a few pictures on The Smoking Tire's instagram page as well as on Facebook.
Awesome car! My first "dream" car that I remember was a gold Fiero 
That 3.4 is an awesome motor, I wish GM had stuck with it instead of the 3800, I had a 91 Lumina Z34 that surprised quite a few people with how quick it was.
The full length version for Drive+ subscribers is up!! There's a 14-day trial subscription if you want to do that instead of buying the month:
Here's the film about my car: "How to Turn a Fiero Into a Track Car"
The free, shorter version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVBLU1fhqnY
Congrats on the video! I just watched the short,free one.
series8217 wrote:
GREAT LOOKING ENGINE! And engine bay for that matter.
Awesome! I knew nothing about this engine before watching the promo video. Do you happen to know what the engine weighs fully dressed with the transmission? Also, what trans are you using? LSD?
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