Colinb17's Little Red Rocket Build: 1988 Fiero

Now this is badass

 

I enjoy watching the build threads on the fiero forums of the guys doing the ferarri kits, but honestly, if you're going to do it right, and put in the drivetrain to make it handle like a ferarri, and not just look like one, it costs about the same as buying a 20-30 year old one. and even if you do it the right way......you still have a fiero in the end lol

Thank you, it should be a fun little daily driver in 1-2 months!

 

This is going to be awesome! keep us updated!

 

Busy as life tends to be, I've made a small amount of progress on the fiero.

installed the second seat (passenger). took a couple of pictures of the process to get an aftermarket seat bolted up without buying $200 a piece aftermarket mounting brackets.


first step is to take some scrap steel and weld a up a jig that can be welded to the factory seat mounts. I had some half inch all thread laying around that did the job.


then you cut off the mounting feet from the factory seats, making sure to note where the center line of the seat was, relative to the mounts. in this case, the upper (forward) mounts were equidistant from the center. the rear mounts are offset, son I had to go solely off of the forward mounts.



it would be a walk in the part if the sliders were the same width on the new seats as the old ones.....but they aren't. the solution is to take some 1/8'' flat bar, and weld it to the slider, giving you a weldable surface that Is the same width as the stock sliders.




no pictures of the final product unfortunately, but you get the idea.
had to be very careful that I didn't weld the moving and stationary portions of the slider together, so I had to keep my head right by the weld to see everything. end result was a toasty lens on the hood, but a slider that still moved.



starting to gather up some more toys (tools) for use on both vehicles. the first of many dimple dies has made its way into the garage. this is a 1'' die. got it with the hole in the center, so that it can be used with a press, or with a bolt, if it is in the middle of a larger sheet that doesn't fit in the press.




like a kid on Christmas morning, I had to play with the new toy. small piece of aluminum was the first thing I saw. worked well and was very clean.


Had some time to assemble the rear struts. plates on the upper end of the old assemblies were the only thing needed to transfer over.


These things are a death trap on Tacoma springs, but they are perfect for car springs with half the spring rate. they made for the easiest fiero related work I've done so far.


Final product vs stock. will yield roughly 1'' lower than stock.


back to the stereo...
after installing the new head unit, and kenwood speakers up front, I went to test it out, and was caught off guard. for having only two speakers in the front of the cabin, an '88 Pontiac fiero had the best acoustics I'd ever experienced. there was sound coming from all around me! then I found that there were some ninja speakers behind the headrest in the bottom of the b pillar.

Luckily, I had some Polk Audios laying around in the "random shit" box (I have a lot of those boxes)


with the much larger driver on these speakers, it was a tight fit, but after some cursing and kicking the dog in frustration a couple of times, they fit.


at almost 30 years old, some of the plastic trim components aren't doing so well, and like to break/disintegrate under any amount of force. speaker covers for these, fall into that category. so new covers it is. since they aren't visible unless the seat is folded forward, I didn't want to spend a lot of time and effort in it. had some material laying around from when I redid the Tacoma arm rests.




little bit of carbon wrap on an aluminum frame, and it's good enough for me......


next was the dash. the stock faceplate had a crack in one corner, which meant that it could only be held in place by 3/4 of the hardware. hand cut an aluminum replacement with the dremel.......did the job, but looked like shit.


so I took it off and prepped it for vinyl.


3M carbon fiber vinyl. very impressed with this stuff.


Wrapped


I still have some wiring to do behind the dash, so it's only resting in place right now. final install will have it recessed more, and the rubber surround pulled in tight to match its shape.

 

Your radio faceplate reminds me of the robot box head character from LMFAO.

 

Noooooooooooo!!! now that's all I can see

 

made what I think is the last decent sized purchase for the fiero until paint time comes around. exhaust is in pretty darn good shape for a 1988 anything, but it does show some age. I normally preach to people that cat-backs are a waste of money, but that's because on tacomas, everything is straight runs of pipe, and you have 4 feet to play with if you're just swapping out a muffler.

.....Fiero is a slightly different animal. except for about 6'', every bit of the fiero exhaust has a bend in it. sooooooooooooooo, catback it is. i really don't feel like spending the time to fabricate that intricate of an exhaust from scratch. though I will have to make up the pipe myself that will replace the cat itself.

I went with with the Ocelot system. they build it using a Shuttleworth muffler (I've never heard of Shuttleworth, but they get very high marks on the fiero forums). Ocelot used to make them with borla mufflers, but has switched to shuttleworth currently. best picture I found was with the older Borla design. should arrive on my front porch next week

the tip design is a little different on the new version as well.

 

That is an interesting layout.

 

Subbing, to remind myself to check out the pictures when I get home (can't see them here at work).

 

tight quarters when you fit an entire engine and a trunk in the back of a car this small.

 

What diameter is the exhaust tubing?

 

You should see the layout for the radiator hoses, you'll wanna shoot yourself when you go to bleed it

 

Ah, the old days.

I had an 84, and 2 85s. Did a build with V8 Archie where we dropped a 350 Chevy smallblock in the black 85....ended up putting close to 300 pounds on the front axle to keep the nose down.

Good times, I miss those cars. I think Archie makes no-cut kits to sell now, last I checked, that was a while ago

 

2.25"

 

That should flow well and keep the scavenging velocity high, on that little engine.

 

Archie is still around, and doing some great builds, but he's definitely slowed down from everything I've seen the last few months.

the whole 300 lbs added to the front end thing is what I'm avoiding. I mentioned it somewhere on the first page, but if I ever swap for an aftermarket motor, I'd do a turbo I4, or turbo/super V6. going for a handling car more than a straight line.

you have any photos of your Fieros?

 

My man!

 

Sadly, no, those have been lost to time, hard drive crashes and multiple cross-country moves. And a vengeful exwife that took all my shit.

 

I see, no bueno

any tips/tricks, since with a V8 swap, you've obviously been pretty deep into the guts of these things. I'm finding that they are actually pretty easy to work on, but like any vehicle, they have their challenges. spun one of the welded cradle nuts last weekend, which was a fun repair, being that it's boxed in from every side