Colinb17's Little Red Rocket Build: 1988 Fiero

Does the cartridge come out the bottom? Newer vehicles you pull the cap off and pull the cartridge up which isn't so bad.

Although on my old ninja 250 it was out the bottom as well

 

it comes out the bottom unfortunately. you pull the drain Frisbee off, dump 3.5 quarts everywhere, then you pull the filter out of the gaping hole you just opened and dump another half quart that you didn't know about all over your self. And it takes a set of pliers to pull the filter out, so now you have a pair of pliers that are coated in oil and harder to pick up than a supermodel.

 

Sounds like you need a filter relocate if they make them.

 

that's the problem with an internal filter like this. essentially impossible to relocate.

 

The cap is threaded, no?

 

cap is threaded, but the filter itself pressed onto a tube at the top, and then seals with a giant o-ring at the bottom.

 

A quick search shows they do make a cartridge filter to spin on adapter, from there you could run a remote mount kit, but it sounds like there's no separate drain plug?

 

Engineer something! Engineer. Or do what he said.

Transform your oil routing.

 

correct, no separate drain plug, so while the filter would be taken care of, I'd still have to remove the adapter to drain. only way around that would be to weld a bung into the oil pan, or something along those lines.

the other issue however, is that this is a really low car, and the oil pan (and this giant plug) are only recessed about an inch higher than the bottom of the frame rails. I've scraped the frame rails on the ground going over big bumps at highway speeds (bridge to road transitions, etc). what I don't need is for an adapter to protrude beyond the frame, and get ripped out.

for now we'll just plan to keep the oil setup in mind when it comes to selecting the new engine for the swap

 

did some fiberglass repairing and reinforcing to the scoops last night, got them primed, and got them painted.

tonight i'll wet sand them, clear coat them, make the brackets to mount them, and hopefully bolt them on.

might be the last time either of the vehicle gets worked on for a little while all going to depend on how fast the house here sells and how fast we get into another one. Alexis wants to build a house, which puts us in an apartment for at least 6 months
bare gel coat on the left, primer on the right


primer on the right, paint on the left (no clear coat yet)

 

haven't posted in a while. been a crazy month. since painting the coops in the post above, My wife and I have packed up our home in Maryland and moved everything into a storage unit in Charleston, South Carolina. we have a contract on our house in Maryland, and will close on it in less than a month, officially ending out residency in Maryland. we got lucky with the timing here in Charleston and put a contract and deposit in on the exact house we wanted here, in the neighborhood that my wife fell in love with months ago.

The new job is fantastic. I cut my work week down from 85 hours a week to 40, and the free time and full weekends off if blowing my mind. can't wait to move into the new place an d have some real time to work in the garage!

If yall have me on facebook, most of these pictures are old news to you.

All loaded up for the drive from Maryland to South Carolina. I somehow managed to convince my dad to drive a uhaul all of the way down while I towed the Fiero. Wife followed us a couple hours back with the dogs and fragile stuff.

the day was full of fun. I took the Tacoma to pick up the uhaul and car hauler because I knew it'd be interesting getting the car onto the trailer.
turns out the Tacoma doesn't really fit on a car hauler either.



width is an issue


secured it with the winch just in case


when I got home and started to load the fiero, I ran across the issue I had foreseen. got creative, and had the car on there in no time


first of many fuel stops. Tacoma is thirsty......Uhall is VERY thirsty.


Stop for lunch took up an entire parking lot.


unloading had it's own issues. even with the fender folded down, the door was still too low to open. never realized how small the window was until now.


Stopped by the house we wanted to buy as soon as we got down here. my wife has had her eye on this place for months.


Fast forward a week, our house in Maryland went under contract, allowing us to put the new house here under contract. Mid june, the house will be complete, and ready to move into


my father summarizing the move experience.

 

U-Haul car haulers are the absolute worst. They weigh a ton, have craptastic brakes, and you can't open the door on most cars you put on them.

 

the tongue height is also incredibly low. I ran n 8'' drop hitch and let air out of the air bags on the truck to run it bro style, and still had the trailer sitting nose high. 6'' drop hitch and a completely level truck (with the air bags), has always been perfect for the numerous boat trailers I've towed.

 

Crappy trailers but they get the job done if you don't need one often enough. I already know I'm going to have the same issue when I tow mine down to a buddies shop.

I have an 8 inch drop that I usually use though.

 

my high clearance rear was what made the 8'' drop hitch not enough. with a lower bumper, 8'' drop would have been perfect

 

I still have the factory hitch as my "bumper" so that should be great then. Need to fix that issue though...

 

8" drop? Jesus. Makes me wonder how much I'm gonna need to get the trailer level now that I'm lifted, in the stock suspension a standard hitch was fine.

 

This is an 8 inch. But I'm lifted and 315s, plus the weight of the bikes.