Just got back from Minneapolis, had a great time (spent all my money and then some). Even got to see a couple fieros at the show! That was pretty awesome. There were 4-5.
Stopped by an O'Reilly and picked up a whole bunch of parts too. Fr/Rr Seville Calipers (11.25") brakes + pads, blazer master cyl, and some new rear hubs. I'm going to see about tearing my old hubs apart and having the flange re-made for 5x114.3. Seems do-able.
Thanks DC, I really love the firebird. I was surprised that I only saw one of them at the show all weekend (and it was a 73 auto)
--- Also had some bad news on my last night away. Cosworth (my dog) was rushed to the puppy ER. They seem to think he has lyme disease. They kept him over night and today, I picked him up this evening and he seemed pretty good. The doctor was amazed that Cosworth took two doses of Morphine and still didn't pass out for over an hour and a half. (She though he'd be out like a light within 10mins after one shot).
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[This message has been edited by Custom2M4 (edited 07-24-2011).]
If that hood is original to the Firebird it is a Formula 350 not an Esprit. I own a 72 455-HO Trans Am in Lucerne Blue which is the same color as your car.
Naw shes an 350 esprit. The hood is a fiberglass formula replica. I don't have the original hood, but I like this one the most anyway. Got any pictures of your T/A? I think I'm going to keep it blue, but go with a brighter metallic.
They do look really good in this color, especially with some nice wheels. I think I'll put a staggered 17+ combo on it. But I also want to tub it a little bit. I'm thinking of a 335/18 on a 10.5" wheel.
but this is what I've been working on.. I kinda like this color, so I figured I try it out
And I got my tail pipes all finished up a few weeks ago. Got a few more welds, and cleaning / refitting everything but the exhaust has come out pretty well in my opinion. I just can't wait to hear this beast all finished.
Looking good you just motivated me to get started on mine again, just popping out the rodney lowering balljoints and replacing with NOS delcos. The roads are getting so bad here that I have to jack it up. That and the police inspection truck is a magnet to a lowered fiero.
Looking good you just motivated me to get started on mine again, just popping out the rodney lowering balljoints and replacing with NOS delcos. The roads are getting so bad here that I have to jack it up. That and the police inspection truck is a magnet to a lowered fiero.
Keep at 'er!
Awesome! Are you running red faced wheels on your GT? Looks alot like yours I saw the other day. Looking forward to another proper fiero meet one of these days. I better get some more pictures up here soon I guess .
Heres what it looks like now. I just kind of mocked up the calipers to make sure everything cleared, in which it did. I don't think I'm going to paint them though.
I started to think more about the E-brake situation the fiero has, and the more I thought about it.. The more I hated the stock fiero ebrake location. So I picked these out of a friends parts bin.
I think I'm going to try and use this one here. It's from a 93 FD Rx7
The wife also for some reason let me purchase this last weekend.... Not exactly sure why, but I won't complain. It works great.
And finally, in case anyone is wondering... Ohh why is this thread moving soo slow... Well I'm kindof rediculous when it comes to details...
and ALL parts get hung and painted at one point or another with no shred of dirt. In case you don't know, those are my passenger rear suspension parts getting all cleaned up and ready for installation. So expect some pictures of that side all finished and together.
If you are refering to the hood or the dash I can see about posting some pictures . The widebody isn't ready to be shown off yet. I really want to get this car safetied before I install it.
I've totally finished off the rear end, new tie rods, everything is painted, my springs are way too damn small (8") but they are all together.
The front end is pulled apart ATM and I'm working on the brake swap and cleaning up the other parts. It kind of sucks that I have a super low profile jack and I have trouble getting it under either of my cars.
The front end is under the hammer at the moment. In case you were wondering.. it's the RCC front coilover kit and street dreams drop spindles. The front will also be using the 11.25 brake swap.
I also got the hood all primed last week.
Thats it for now. But since my audi and firebird are in storage and I only have the fiero at home.... Well I hope to have alot more progress on it soon. If I can have it totally ready for spring, I'll be stoked.
Thanks for checking out my thread, and let me know what you think!
[This message has been edited by Custom2M4 (edited 10-30-2011).]
everything i s looking good , i enjoy your threads .i have the drop spindles as well and i really like them .my front suspension is the held sport suspension .on mine when i put in the drop spindles it allowed me to use longer 10" springs .without the longer springs you will bottom out and break your shocks .with the 8" springs my car was barely driveable , i had to watch out for every little bump .i originally had the RCC setup on my car but i ditched it in favour of the held setup .but , the held setup as sent to me had the same lack of travel .there is another way to go if you still dont have room for the longer spring and that is to go to a 400 LB 8" spring . i dont know what your rate is but i think mine was 300LB X 8" and it was way too light .it would sag to the point of only 1" of travel left on the shock absorber , and that was with the spring at its highest level.QA-1 website used to have all the spring charts you need to make a proper decision but i was on their website today and it has been redesigned and they forgot to put those pages back in the tech section .i am sure if you call them they will send you the info by email . it is still in their printed catologue .why are you still using the stock upper arms?
everything i s looking good , i enjoy your threads .i have the drop spindles as well and i really like them .my front suspension is the held sport suspension .on mine when i put in the drop spindles it allowed me to use longer 10" springs .without the longer springs you will bottom out and break your shocks .with the 8" springs my car was barely driveable , i had to watch out for every little bump .i originally had the RCC setup on my car but i ditched it in favour of the held setup .but , the held setup as sent to me had the same lack of travel .there is another way to go if you still dont have room for the longer spring and that is to go to a 400 LB 8" spring . i dont know what your rate is but i think mine was 300LB X 8" and it was way too light .it would sag to the point of only 1" of travel left on the shock absorber , and that was with the spring at its highest level.QA-1 website used to have all the spring charts you need to make a proper decision but i was on their website today and it has been redesigned and they forgot to put those pages back in the tech section .i am sure if you call them they will send you the info by email . it is still in their printed catologue .why are you still using the stock upper arms?
I have 400 LBS springs in 8" on the front. 500's in the rear 8" but I'm going to go with a 10" in the rear because its nearly topped out. I still have 1.5" of play in the collar if I want to raise the front. My car won't drive much before the widebody, and at that point I'll have more room under the front fender. I also have about an inch of travel in the whole car under FULL load.
As for the Stock upper control arms, it is due to the fact that I didn't buy the kit. The car came with the front suspension done to this point. I'm just cleaning everthing up, doing the brakes at the moment, and getting it safetied. I'll worry later about the upper arm and rear bump steer.
Thanks Don! I recieved the 10" springs and hope to have them installed soon.
More updates,
I finalized everything with my machinist and he will be taking my hubs / rotors and working his magic to accept a 5x114.3 pattern. Hopefully this weekend I can get off the other front / machine the rotor off for him.
I'm hoping to have my engine removed from the car soon so I can have it rebuilt, or do the headgaskets / studs. I'm waiting back on a rebuild quote, I might just tackle the job myself.
I just purchased a set of Ken Hines 1/4 windows.
It's cold outside.
My friends 84' 383 SBC Fiero will be making a visit to my garage for the winter. (My audi / firebird are in storage, and I park my winter beater on the street)
I got some parts back from my machinist. All my rotors are now drilled to both bolt patterns 5x100 / 5x114.3. I also had my front hubs drilled out. There was a concern brought to my attention from several boardmembers about the strength of the new hub after being re-drilled to this pattern. So I had my machinist perform several tests with the studs in to see how strong they were.....
The new stud holes were drilled to within .00001 of the original holes, and routed exactly like the originals.
[This message has been edited by Custom2M4 (edited 12-23-2011).]
With the studs installed, it didn't actually take much to do this to it....
A nice hairline crack on the narrow sidewall. So obviously this is not recommended for the cast units to be done this way. Back off to my machinist with another request, this time a steel plate that will self center (overlap the true hub, and center on the bearing race) and mount to the backside of these front hubs. Then I will weld them together to give me an extremely strong end product.
The rears are almost finished, and I should be recieving everything back from him early january after he gets back from holidays.
My 1/4 windows (Kahines) have also arrived, so I'll be picking those up tonight. I was also considering painting all my ground effects black this week as well. I have all next week off to do lots of tinkering, even though I can't remove my engine for rebuild as I was originally planning as I don't have any front hubs!
Ohh well, back to the body work side for me it looks like. Off to get some fiberglass resins (Insert evil laugh.)
Originally posted by Custom2M4: A nice hairline crack on the narrow sidewall. So obviously this is not recommended for the cast units to be done this way. Back off to my machinist with another request, this time a steel plate that will self center (overlap the true hub, and center on the bearing race) and mount to the backside of these front hubs. Then I will weld them together to give me an extremely strong end product. QUOTE]
These people should be able to help you in your quest, as I am unable to provide assistance for you. But thanks for your input, and good luck on your road to recovery.
i like it the way it is in the second pic .does this mean you are going to do more body mods? as for drywall , my garage is lined with wood sheeting like yours .so much easier to hang stuff and build shelves on .
I actually have lots of body mods planned for this car. I just want to get it safetied first before I start bolting / glassing those on. I just want to paint some stuff and get a little more practice in, so I'm painting the lowers / roof / hood / trunk. I have a couple qrts of 'bright blue' and some jet black.
If the drywall comment had to do with the garage, yeah I agree 100% the OSB is a far better material to have in a workshop. It's not like I weld or torch things 2" from the walls. But I can mount what ever I want to it, and not worry about causing damage to it.
Originally posted by Stubby79: Those wheels, those tires, that color paint...I think I just pitched a tent! Nice car!
Thanks!
Update;
I managed to slip out of the house with enough time to spray the rockers, and skirts tonight. I got kahines windows installed the other day (Not super surprised they don't align up very well, but the door glass rubs them...)
I should be able to slip out tomorrow for some pics. I'm pretty interested on how the paint turned out, as I was painting them upstairs in my little back body shop room (tons of dust) so hopefully the panels aren't too bad, but they are the lowers anyway.
Windows; This is the Drivers one, fitment was decent, All around the edge looks good, but the window strikes the edge as seen in the last pic. I'm hoping that with new window guides / brushes the window will sag less and not make contact.
But the color match was poor, I'm guessing that due to the original paint being likely shot over a black vs a grey primer would have the effect of the match being just a shade brighter and not as purple. It's kind of hard to tell from pictures....
I like this 'hip' look ..
I hope to have enough time this week to carry on and paint the door / fender lowers, than all I have left is the bumpers. I'm curious to install the parts on a clean car to see how terrible it looks (It is consistant through out the entire lowers) but I'll have to get a new match if I plan on painting the hood blue. The roof I'm thinking of going black on , but I'm undecided on the hood, I think I'll look silly even with the black roof.... Too many options, I think I'll just wing it.
I keep getting bugged for more widebody pictures.. so here you go. But I won't be doing this until the car is on the road, it doesn't need much for that to happen but with the baby on the way money is a little tighter. I hope to get my hubs back right away so I can pull the cradle. I'll keep you guys updated.
Keeping in mind that the rears will be pushed out a little farther as on the RS they aren't much of a WIDE rear. I would like to see a 2" rear flare. Also the wheels are are just sitting there and well the most of the panels are taped on for the picture.
I know they are kinda just stuck on for visuals, but that kind of stuck on look, surprised me at how good it looked on a Dodge Challenger in the last scenes of the Movie Fast Five.
hmmm,...
[This message has been edited by exoticse (edited 01-09-2012).]
I purchased another northstar for this car, so I can tear this one out and rebuild it and have another one to toss in and beat on it for the meantime. It's just a 275hp 4.6L though.
Unfortunately the wife has brought it to my attention that I have overspent for the next little while as I just bought a new truck.. haha. So I don't think I'll be doing the rebuild this year, but I'm still going to get her safetied and out to the track.
.
