Building our Lemons/Chumpcar (Page 10/29)
DonP JAN 18, 03:07 PM
I was tasked with changing out the wheel studs. We had gone to our first race with the stock wheel studs still at all four corners. Even before the race weekend, we had noticed that it was a real pain mounting the wheels on the car. The stud was recessed into a well, making it awkward to start the lug nuts onto the stud. The wheels may have looked good for the street, but were a problem for this application.



We knew that we would be getting more wheels as we went on, and might even jump to 16" wheels. But we needed a solution now that would carry us through to our expected updates. The simplest and cheapest solution was to change out the wheel studs. So I turned to the search function here on PFF.

Okay, so here's the story. The stock wheel studs are M12x1.50 (pitch) and 41.5mm long according to Fieroguru at http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/122287.html. What, then, was available as a longer replacement? I found good information in these two threads.

http://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...100421-2-099208.html
http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/115406.html

Archie was good in pointing to the Dorman 610-323 as a direct replacement, but 54mm in length, gaining at least 5mm over stock. I was also hoping to find bull-nose studs, but that was proving to be nearly impossible and out of our price range. And the reality was that we aren't going to be pulling off NASCAR pit stop times.



I found references to both ARP studs and Summit racing studs. Ultimately we settled on the Summit Racing Bolts http://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-910101 The price was right at about $13 per wheel. And the length was really good. The Summit Racing bolts are 2.5" in length versus the Dorman 610-323 which are listed at 2.125" in length.. Compared to the stock studs, we were very happy with the additional reach.



We went with simple lug-nuts with a conical seat and open ends allowing the studs to pass through. I believe we used these. http://www.summitracing.com.../gor-40037/overview/ Our other hang-up was finding a thin walled 19mm socket able to hold up an impact wrench. Back to harbor freight.

This was our first time to remove the rear hubs. Unfortunately, we did not have the 30mm socket required for the rear hub axle nut. Back to Harbor Freight for an impact worthy socket. Thanks to theogre for his comments that the rear nuts are considered to be a consumable. Use it once and replace when removed. According to what we found here, the torque spec when reinstalling is 200 ft./lb.



I read a couple posts that the wheel studs can be replaced without removing the hubs, but since Rich has a hydraulic press we found it easiest to remove everything. While we were doing all this, I bought an extra set of studs and lug nuts to throw into the track supply box. You can see in the photo below that we still had the rear sway bar in place. The other side was hanging free.



Project done. Back to sweeping the floors.
DonP JAN 22, 12:47 PM
After the first race, we realized that the shocks and struts were totally shot. In addition it looked as though the springs could stand to be up-rated. On the back, the real solution seemed obvious. We would go with coil-overs. Our constraint would be that we would have to build our own. LeMons is somewhat okay with this type of upgrade, but there's no way they will go for some off-the-shelf trick racing setup. As if those exist for the Fiero.

We found some good DIY coil-over threads here on the forum. In particular, we looked at http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/046456.html That thread started in 2004 and, as I write this, the latest post was last year in 2012. It definitely has some staying power.


Rich and a couple fellow racers went to a racer oriented swap meet in Stockton CA. One of those deals where everyone tries to get rid of their extra sh...., uh, stuff in order to buy more stuff. Among all the artfully arranged stacks of stuff, he found a LARGE milk crate stuffed too overflowing with coil over components. The crate held 3 brand new coilover springs still in the box, 5 used coilover springs, 2 new threaded sleeves and adjuster nuts, 4 used threaded sleeves and adjuster nuts and a bunch of miscellaneous coilover parts. All for $90. He also found 2 additional springs from another exhibitor for another $15. Quite a haul of good stuff for $105. Hopefully some of it would work on this car.

Our base strut for the rear suspension was the Monroe sensa-tracs. Yes, we understand that the Koni or KYB struts have better cred in the racing world. But really, how far can you push the whole LeMons concept. The Monroes are supposed to be very similar to the stock struts and therefore shouldn't be pushing anything. The LeMons guys would have preferred that we found the best struts out of a wrecking yard and go for them. Konis would have set off so many red flags. Besides, the Monroe strut was a LOT cheaper. What can I say?

If you read the DIY coilover threads, you can see where some folks remove the extra shielding(?) and some do not. Check out the second photo in this thread. http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/084320.html We also found this instruction sheet on-line http://www.fieroaddiction.com/coil-over.html We elected to remove the shielding, partially in hopes of getting a squarer perch. I hit that job with a cut-off wheel. A couple of the threaded sleeves were just right for sliding over the outside of the struts. We did have to relieve the seam down the inside of the sleeves just a bit. But that really just took a few minutes with an air grinder and a paddle wheel sander. The sleeves rested securely on the perch created by the mounting brackets and we were happy with the results. Really, the whole thing was amazingly easy.

At the top of the spring, we kept it simple. We made a plate to fit over the top of the spring but inside the shock tower. I drilled some 1/4" holes to match the stock holes on the top of the tower. And we welded some 1/4" bolts to the underside of the plate. We found that an exhaust coupler (2 1/4" in diameter I believe) could be welded to the bottom of the upper plate, fit inside the spring and act as a retainer to keep it all centered. We didn't bother with insulators or pads or any of the niceties. Truly, we would never hear anything over the exhaust anyway.

We mounted everything up and found that, as mentioned in the DIY thread, we had an interference fit. 30 seconds with an air grinder applied to the upright and we were done.

We now had the ability to change the spring rates on the car from a variety of race suppliers. Given the fact that we had lifted the front inner tire in at least one turn on Infineon, we knew that we needed a bit more spring in the rear. But we still had to figure out what was going to be done up front. Our choice was to use some 300# springs from that $90 swap meet haul. Our only wish now was that it was all rusty and looking like it had been on the car forever. Tech. might be interesting. We also were half way towards making our suspension really adjustable. Coilovers (and weight jacks) are key components in making a car adjustable at the track. Now we had the ability to make changes at the back of the car.



We of course had new brake hoses for the car. But that shiny braided stuff was too attractive, So we used new rubber hoses. You can see yet another use for the tie-wraps. Holding up the disconnected rear sway bar. That anodizing is so out of place on a stealth install.




I have made a point of the fact that a coilover conversion might be a problem. But the Lemons guys have one of those loopholes that really helps everybody out. Yes, the car has a hypothetical $500 value. But once you have finished your race, you can petition of a "residual value" assignment to the car. The judges will look over your car, look at your race results, listen to your whining and declare that your car is worth $xxx. That gives you $500 less the $xxx residual value to spend on and repair your car. Judge Phil looked at the fact that we had finished solidly in the top 74% and might actually need to replace the clutch and hey, it's a Fiero.... Let me quote his reply

" OK, since it's a Fiero we'll say $100 residual. That means 400 bucks to squander on your car."

So, we did the math on the box of stuff Rich had purchased and figured we had $30 invested in the coil-over conversion. The Monroe struts cost $108 for the pair. So we could make a legitimate case that we were golden.
BV MotorSports JAN 22, 10:07 PM
I watched your vid.. man your laps times would be much better if you used the brakes instead of relying on engine braking so much! Oh and defend the inside!!!! I cant wait to get back out on a track. I hope to hit Road Atlanta with the 3800t 88 this summer.
DonP JAN 22, 10:50 PM

quote
Originally posted by BV MotorSports:

I watched your vid.. man your laps times would be much better if you used the brakes instead of relying on engine braking so much! Oh and defend the inside!!!! I cant wait to get back out on a track. I hope to hit Road Atlanta with the 3800t 88 this summer.



Cannot argue one bit with that assessment. I cannot do the heel and toe thing in this car to save my life so I stab the brakes jump on the clutch and use none of them well.

We did manage to get on track with a 3800SC in the car later in this story..................

Road Atlanta has to be one of the all time great tracks. Would love to try that track.
DonP JAN 23, 02:16 PM
Rich and I decided that attending a NASA run training day/race weekend at Infineon would be a good idea. ( http://www.nasaproracing.com/ ) Their High Performance Driving Experience (HPDE) is affordable and offers the option of having an instructor ride along with you. So not only would we get some needed track time, but some direction. And chances are that NASA will never have 164 cars on the track at the same time! That means a less stressful learning experience.

It also means we had to install a new seat for the passenger. Most rules allowing for passengers such as SCCA and NASA training say that the passenger/instructor must be provided the same safety considerations as the driver. So using a stock Fiero seat and belt was out of the equation.

We actually planned on adding a passenger seat from the start. This detail from a photo taken from before our first race shows one of those UB Machine threaded stand-offs that we welded to the cross bar . If you recall, they are used to bolt in the shoulder harnesses.



We decided that this was the perfect opportunity to upgrade the driver's seat. Give the passenger the now used seat and get a better seat for the driver. It's not that we were really unhappy with the seat that we had, but the design meant that our legs were unsupported and were meant to be straight out and extended. For extended in-car periods, we could do better.

We had started with the Kirkey 09800 seat which cost us $115 at Summit Racing. Then we added the 09801 seat cover at $75. Not too expensive for a seat designed for racing use. This is what the seat looked like without a car wrapped around it. Pretty straightforward design.



The seat we settled on to replace the first choice was the Kirkey 36700 which cost us $160 at Summit Racing. The seat cover/padding was the 36701 in black vinyl which was another $95.



The biggest differences are in the seat bottom and where the harness engages the seat. The original seat has a very flat bottom where you place your butt. The new seat has kind of a well where your butt sits and a rise to accommodate the bend in your legs. The padding on the new seat is actually formed to support the back of your thighs. All together, a much more comfortable place to be. Compare Kirkey's technical drawings of the two seats.





Mounting the seat would be similar, but different than our first seat. We basically tried to just shift the frame that we had made from the drivers' side to the passenger side. So both the original seat and frame were to be shifted. The good part was that we did not have to make the seat adjustable for different drivers. The seat was shoved as far back as possible (with the ECU mounted on the wall behind the seat, mustn't forget that) and bolted in place.


Okay, so much for the plans. The reality was that the new seat didn't fit. The original seat has an angle from the base transitioning to the sides. The new seat does not, it's a straight 90 degree bend. Check out the pictures of the bare seats. You can see the difference. That slight difference in construction is the difference between fitting and not in the Fiero cabin. Or at least it meant that we could not fit completely down between the rocker panel and the tunnel. If we raised it, head room went away. The only work around to that was to increase the amount the seat tipped back. And that destroyed the ability to make the seat adjustable. That could work for the passenger side since it is fixed, but not the drivers' side. Rich might have said a bad word.

So ultimately, the passenger gets the high(er) dollar and more comfortable seat, and we were left with the original seat. For the harness, we did scrimp a bit. Instead of spending the extra bucks to with the same cam-lock system, they get to deal with the older, traditional over-center latch. They got the $70 G-force harness http://www.summitracing.com...gfr-6000bk/overview/








This photo just points out a bit more detail. We built a small box to hold our in-car radio. It mounted on the passenger side of the tunnel, just in front of the seat shown here. Rather than relying on batteries as we did in our first race, we purchased a 12 volt power pack and had some leads available to provide constant power. We added another switch to be able to turn the radio on-off independently of the rest of the car. At this point we were using the stock, but re-wired fuse panel. This location was very close to the battery mounted in the front compartment.



FIEROPHREK JAN 23, 03:27 PM
GREAT PIC!

------------------

ARCHIES JUNK IS FASTER THAN SHAUNNA'S JUNK

12.3 is faster than a 13.2

DonP JAN 24, 06:16 PM
Working on the front suspension was more of a challenge than the rear. The rear coilovers were well documented here. The front was still a bit of a mystery. We couldn't put a complete aftermarket suspension in place. But it did need some attention.

Our goal was to add a coilover package to the front of the car. Combined with the rear coilovers, we would have at least some adjustment to play with. Here on the forum, we found two threads dealing with adding coilovers to an '88 suspension. http://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...120111-2-091747.html and http://www.fiero.nl/forum/F.../HTML/000029-15.html And to top it all off, Fieroguru started a new thread at the time we were starting to work on this. http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/120718.html

These were all killer threads and inspired us to try making it work. The biggest hurdle appeared to be the packaging of the original suspension. The solutions that were most likely to succeed required moving the lower shock pick-up below the lower control arm. And we didn't see any way to use a stock looking shock as a starting point. Rich has actually taken a shock selection and rebuild class offered by QA-1. But we couldn't find a way to replace the heim joint ends with the stock type fasteners. The solution was just not coming to us using stock upper and lower control arms, time was running out and we had to make a move.

We abandoned front coilover idea and started looking for replacement, higher rated lowering spring. The stock Fiero springs are rated 205 # in the front and 142# in the rear. We threw the front springs into a spring checker. He has a Deco coil spring rater from Speedway motors. http://www.speedwaymotors.c...-2000-Lbs,32135.html



Basically, how these works is that you load a spring onto the perch as shown. Jack it up against the upper plate. Compress the spring on inch from the point that the spring comes into contact with the upper bar. Note the pressure reading on the large gauge on front. Measuring very carefully, you compress the spring exactly one more inch. Note the new pressure reading. Subtract the new reading from the first, and you have the amount of additional pressure needed to compress the spring one inch. That figure is the rating for the spring. For example, say that you have a spring that reads a pressure rating of 357# at the initial one inch of compression. If you compress it exactly one more inch and get a reading of 607# on the gauge, your spring is rated at 250#. (607-357=250) Our springs (with tag #ARD) measured out below the 205 listed in the books. We measured them at 185#.

Where we are headed with all this work is that we had to select a new spring for the front of the Fiero. We had no base-line or experience to make even a ballpark choice. There were several threads with opinions that a "performance" spring for the Fiero should be 300, 450, 350 or 500#. What we decided to do was try to maintain the front/rear ration that the Pontiac engineers had chosen for the car. We had replaced the 142# springs in the back with some 300# springs. If we used the same ratio, we should replace the 205# front springs with springs rated at approximately 436# springs.

West Coast Fiero had 400# springs designed to lower the front 1 1/2 inches. So we ordered a set. Or tried to. They were on back order and expected shortly. We waited a couple weeks, but ran out of time and had to look for other options. We spent a lot of time on-line looking for alternatives, but the diameter seemed to be a stumbling block. Our only option was to cut the stock front spring to lower the car and pretty much ignore the spring rate. Ugh. But we had always heard that cutting springs make for massive changes in the spring rate. We settled on cutting 1 1/2 coils off the stock springs. This lowered the car close to where we wanted it. And our gain on the spring rate measured out at 43 lbs. We didn't expect to get anywhere near the 400# WCF springs, but had hoped for a bit more.

Of course that created a new problem. Our shocks were now essentially useless. I do not know how folks contributing to several threads here can say they have no shock problems when lowering their cars. I cannot recall the final compression measurement on the shock once reinstalled, but it wasn't nearly enough. I think we would have bottomed out the shock travel at the first turtle we hit. The new KYB shocks we ordered were no better.

We needed to extend our shock mounts. Going down through the lower control arm was no option. So, up it was.

Early shot from the underside.


















Didn't see that one coming, did you?

Using the plasma cutter, we were able to cut the top plate off of the stock tower, opening up the top of the shock tower. It was important to cut below the radius of the original top in order to create enough space for the shock to ride without fear of contact. We bent up a piece of steel into a "U" to follow the contour of the top of the shock tower. The "U" was measured to overlap the outside of the stock tower and extend upward. A plate was welded to the top, functionally replacing the original shock mounting plate. We were very careful to maintain the same angle and plane from the lower control arm mount to the upper mounting point as the original.

We observed the shock was free to function throughout the entire range of movement. And the suspension was at full droop before the shock was fully extended. Robert dropped the car, did a bit of relieving to the fender for tire clearance (read that as he took a sawz-all to them) and it looked as though we would be sailing.

*edit (After dropping the car down, we needed more fender-well clearance and Don was not happy about trimming the fender-well. Something about "it always looks like s***t when you do that. With the plastic fenders, we used a air driven sheet metal shear and trimmed them up. You can hardly tell they had been touched. - Rich ) end edit*

Our order with WCF stood, but we now had assurances that we wouldn't lose our track time. And we were reasonably confident they would work with our new shock mounts.

The wheel arch wasn't horribly bad after being reworked for tire clearance.
katatak JAN 24, 11:25 PM
DonP, added this to my favs and "subscribed so I can keep up with your progress.

Great write up so far - really admire the work you guys are doing. I love the detail about the cage build. I'm getting ready to build another Fiero - Roadster Style and I will be building a cage/roll bar/ semi tube chassis - my vision is to have a Fiero with a road race "feel". Plan to use it at track days on occaision but will also be a "road" warrior that I'll run from car show to car show in. Maybe even a long distance rally or "Gumball" run? I've been a drag racer all my life but I'm really intirgued with "time trial" motorsports. This will be my year of transition from the straight line stuff to the twisty stuff. This thread has inspired me and given me a ton of ideas for my build.

I just moved to Omaha and I am about 10 miles from this course:
http://www.motormagic.info/roadcourse.htm
I hope to get to a few track days here and I am very interested to see if there is any interest in a LeMons race here. I'd love to build a car for that - appears to be a great experience.

Thanks for sharing your build and experience.

Pat
DonP JAN 25, 03:23 PM
Thanks Pat. Appreciate the comments. I had already noticed your thread on the newest project.......... but what got the most attention was the fact you had been working on someone's Mach I. I'm watching to see how the space-frame is dealt with when removing the top.

Don
DonP JAN 25, 03:38 PM
Prior to our first race, we didn't have time to swap out any of the rubber bushings in our '88 Formula. We had installed some energy suspension sway bar links. But we hadn't been able to get beyond that. Looking at several threads it looked as though many people liked the Prothane brand of poly bushings. LateFormula and Rick Vanderpool here on the forum were helpful in pointing me to the proper kit available from Summit Racing. http://www.summitracing.com/parts/PTP-7-305-BL/ It's so great to be about a mile away from Summit Racing's Sparks, NV store. Luckily, Prothane makes the kit in black as well as red. The red looks flashy for the street, but black is a bit stealthier.

We were not unaware of the advantages of reducing suspension flex associated with bushings. For many years we routinely changed out steel on steel bushings for stock rubber bushings. But we were running really big slicks as opposed to the relatively stock tires we now had to run. As a matter of fact, just last weekend, Rich was installing new bushings onto his newest race car. They look similar to these.



In this case the whole thing is constructed in three pieces, counting the center bolt. The inner tube is free to rotate within the larger outer body and, as you can see, even has provisions for a grease zerk. Pretty much zero flex and zero provision for ride comfort. In our case, we were more than happy to go with the poly bushings.

I have seen mention of people considering using heim joints in their rear suspension arms. I suspect that these AFCO bushings, if one could be made to fit, might serve better to constrain movements along a single plane.

We had read all the horror stories about the problems encountered while swapping out the stock bushings. Most were true. But our biggest tool was the hydraulic press. In several cases, we could actually rip out the stock rubber bushings. Or push out enough that it we could deal with the remnants. In no case did we have to resort to burning out rubber bushings. Thank goodness.

If you took the time to look at the link to the suspension kit above, you saw that puny little packet of grease that is supplied. Here's a really good tip. Did you know that Summit racing has the special silicon grease available in quantity. It's packaged in an 8 oz. re-sealable container as well as a 14 oz. container that looks like the tube you use in a caulk gun. Compared to the cost of buying those small packets, it's a great value!



So here's the best tip. Forget you every saw this! Those small packets are plenty. If you buy the large tube, you are tempted to use waaaay too much. That silicon gets everywhere and is a BEAR to remove. I cleaned for two days with acetone, lacquer thinner, various solvents and anything else I could find. We had to abandon part of the garage as uninhabitable. And I still have 97% of a tube left. I was sent back to using a broom for the rest of the week.

I really feel however, that the bushing swap was a huge move in the right direction for us.