Colinb17's Little Red Rocket Build: 1988 Fiero

Shhhh. Mums the word.

 

Cool build! Gonna have to go through all of it at some point here. My buddy has a pretty clean 88 Fiero that he swapped in a supercharged 3.8L out of a Grand Prix. It really moves when you get into the throttle, not to mention its awesome having the supercharger whine so close to you.

 

yeah, you really can't get much closer to your head with one of these. my L4 with the cat removed sounds like a monster in the cab. can't imagine was his must sound/feel like.

 

Front end aero shenanigans complete, minus the larger turnbuckles that need to be swapped in for the center two.

Noticeable difference at ~65mph and higher

In the last picture you can see the two steel braces I built last week, that support the bumper and splitter from the front crossmember.

 

Looks very nice. Subtle too. Has your wifey driven it yet?

Did the headlights wink at you?

 

no winks yet

she has ridden in it a lot, but has yet to drive it. the car is to the point (reliability a durability wise), that I feel comfortable teaching her stick with it. However, I've learned anything about her and vehicles/technical things in the last 15 years, it's that I ask if I can teach her something once. if she says no, I let here initiate on her own if she changes her mind.

looking forward to teaching my brother stick over the holidays though. before you ask, yes, I am disappointed that he doesn't know how to drive one. told him if he succeeds in learning, that i'll stop telling his girlfriends that he's gay. he hasn't hit me that hard in a while. good thing he's a girlyman who doesn't know how to drive stick

 

Well said then.

 

Got the new spark plugs, wires, and coolant temp sensor installed. plugs were in good shape and really didn't need replacing, but I don't know their history, and plugs for this think are line $2 a piece, so it was worth the $8 and 20 minutes for a new set. the connections on the old wires seemed to be in decent shape, but because of the routing, the shielding was getting chewed up in a couple of places. rerouted the new wires to avoid this.

all that I have left to install for now, is the new fuel filter. it's been either 16 degrees, or 60 and pouring rain, neither of which is ideal for crawling around under a car. Wednesday/Thursday are looking decent though, so I should have the new filter in before driving up to DC for the holidays.

 

finally had a warm non raining evening earlier in the week. go the fuel filter swapped out for the new one, and replaced the O-rings. old filter was dirty, but definitely not the stock one. couldn't have been more than 5-10 years old. no immediate differences were noticeable, but it's nice to know that at the very least, the fuel pump isn't working as hard.




also got the center splitter supports swapped out for the larger ones in a much stronger upper location.

discovered the most recent first world problem.....


uninstalled size comparison with the new, larger supports.



new vs old
bigger support at a much better angle.


Done.

 

That looks much better.

That filter looks awful.

 

thanks Mark.

the dark color of the filter is just because it was still saturated with gasoline. I let it sit out overnight, and it was a light tan once it dried. there was some crud built up at the bottom as you can see though. based on some of the photos I've seen on the fiero forums, this was not nearly as bad as some.

 

Oh ok. That's good. Means the previous owner was a bit more attentive to its PM needs.

 

As far as your jack problem....

https://youtu.be/-JKndoat9qU

 

When is track day?!?!??!?!?!

 

further away than I would like. trying to quit my job and move to Charleston, SC sometime in March. a lot of my time now is going to getting the house ready to sell, and locking in the right job, while the wife starts planning out the house we want to build there

 

Good enough reason for me.

 

for now I just have to settle for drifting the neighborhood roundabouts, and hugging the turns on the way to get groceries.

 

Congrats and good luck.

Houston would have my vote but Charleston & South Carolina are both damned pretty.

...So kinda like the rampant golf carts running around our neighborhood.

 

What's prompting the move Colin? And you will have a job in the bag before quitting the current one, right?

It's not a good time to just say fuck it and hope for the best. Believe me, I'd love too.