Building our Lemons/Chumpcar (Page 5/29)
carnut122 DEC 28, 04:54 PM
Great thread. I'll check back in periodically to see how things are coming along.
DonP DEC 28, 11:52 PM
Thank you. Hopefully there's some entertainment value and I'm not just spittin' in the wind.

It has been a blast to build and race.

Don
DonP DEC 29, 02:39 PM
A little more detail on the rear bumper. The rules require a tow hook on both the front and back bumper. If you look at the picture below, you can see a hook coming through where the license plate would normally be mounted.




What we did was mount a large angle iron piece to the Fiero's original bumper back plate. That angle iron also tied into the upper bar that was our actual bumper. We used a plasma cutter to cut a large hole for a tow hook to engage. It was then pretty simple to cut a slot in the plastic bumper cover for the new hook to pass through.




We did a similar setup in the front with the plate being welded to the bumper bars and being exposed inside the aero nose air intake.
DonP DEC 29, 03:11 PM
As with any track day car, cooling is a major concern. We followed a couple threads here concerning cooling issues. The Fiero system was totally new to us, but we searching on radiators yielded a few interesting threads.

California Kid had the first thread we found http://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...120111-1-080392.html
and an earlier thread http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/098899.html which had a fairly thorough write-up on installing one on page 2. Archie did a nice write-up and seemed happy enough that he will be using it in his v-8 swaps. So we ordered up a new radiator directly from Champion. http://www.championradiator...4781590#.UN9KQ3fE18E
Archie did a nice write-up on the install, so I won't repeat it here. But it does fit nicely if a bit snug.


Side by side with the stock V6 Radiator. We kept the stock radiator with our "take to the track as emergency repair parts" supplies.



[This message has been edited by DonP (edited 12-29-2012).]

DonP DEC 30, 12:07 PM
Piecing together many of the comments we have read here on the forum, it appears that cooling concerns go hand in hand with aero concerns. I read comments that the air rushing in through the radiator has nowhere to go. And looking at the area of the car, it appears the air flowing through the radiator is moving upward. It then hits the bulkhead and must change directions downwards under the car. The problem looks to be that the changing directions is hampered by more air flowing in through the radiator. I can guess that the airflow through the radiator fins is thus hampered by the build-up of pressure behind the radiator.



I read a couple comments here on the forum that there is enough pressure built up that by 90mph people were seeing the headlight covers lifting up. Our partial solution was to cut holes on each side of the front area into the wheel wells. Cannot say if this was a good move or not because of potential turbulence in the wheel wells, but we had hopes it would help with lift and cooling concerns.







Our second level attempt to relieve air pressure build-up and promote cooling was to cut a couple holes through the bulkhead behind the radiator as well as the plastic tub. We hoped to relieve some air pressure into the spare tire compartment, promoting more air flow. From the spare tire compartment, we planned on venting through reliefs in the hood. Towards that end, we purchased a set of dies that would allow us to create louvers in sheet metal using Rich's bead roller. Rich has a bead roller manufactured by Lowbuck Tools. http://www.lowbucktools.com/beadroller.html Typically you use a bead roller to put those fancy ridges you see in sheet metal pieces. This creates significantly stronger and stiffer pieces.




The louver dies are here http://www.lowbucktools.com/louver.html

So we cut out the three single layer portions of the hood, Made aluminum sheet metal pieces to fit, and rolled in some louvers. Cool! Or it would have been if it worked. They didn't cut cleanly and just didn't work. In large part because of the size of the sheet metal we were using.

I'm jumping ahead here, but we attempted to create the louvered pieces the day before we had to leave for our first race. We were left with only enough time to put flat pieces back in and drill several holes .


kwagner DEC 30, 04:55 PM
I'm lovin all the pics and process you guys went through. Looking forward to more
DonP DEC 30, 09:34 PM

quote
Originally posted by kwagner:

I'm lovin all the pics and process you guys went through. Looking forward to more



Thank you. As I have been trying to tell the story, I see how much wasn't documented. But I'm enjoying the memories.

Don
DonP DEC 31, 12:55 PM
We also had some work to do at the back of the car. It was obvious that we would be modifying the exhaust. And it appeared that the trunk stopped the air flow through the engine bay. We hoped that removing the trunk would help keep things cool. So Robert cut out the trunk





I do not show it, but we placed a piece of aluminum over the opening left by removing the trunk. The sheet metal had a couple bead rolls put in it for strength and was riveted in place.

Most of the small screws used in building the car were replaced with rivets. For example, the small screws holding the engine bay heat shield on were replaced with rivets. Where possible, the small bolts holding body panels such as the front valence were attached with pop rivets. The reason being that pop rivets are far less likely to fail and fall out than screws. They can be drilled out but are less likely to fail.

The next thing we did in the back was to add a brace to the stock dog-bone. We had observed quite a bit of movement using the regular dog-bone. So we welded in a small piece of tubing to brace the bulkhead near the dog-bone.

If you look at the following photo, you can see that we drilled a couple holes through the bulkhead into the trunk. This was followed up by drilling holes through the rearmost trunk bulkhead and the body panels. It's our hope that this will promote even more airflow through the engine compartment and aid in cooling Might work.
DonP DEC 31, 10:04 PM
One of the more difficult things was making a seat mount. We had already settled on a specific Kirkey seat early on in the build. At $165 it wasn't the most expensive seat, but should serve us well. The problem came in designing how it would be mounted. In Rich's IMCA, it's easy to make the decision on how to mount the seat. It has to fit him and him alone. In this case, our tallest driver is 6'$'', I'm 6'2" and Robert is like 5'9" or 10" (sorry Robert, I'm just guessing.)

Remember Rich's headroom?



Robert's Headroom. Check out how high the seat back comes on each of them.


But more to the point, check out the leg room between the two.





Obviously we needed to make the seat mount adjustable. Kirkey does make an adjustable seat mount, but using that mount would make Rich's head too high. We had to make our own. I failed to get a clear picture of the seat bracket on its' own. But I think you can see what we did in the following pictures. Basically, we have a couple 1/2" holes going through the side of the seat. These mate up with holes in the side of the bracket. When we have to move the seat for a shorter driver, we remove the bolts and select a pair of holes positioned for him. Yup, it's a pain but quickly done with air tools. We aren't talking Grand Am speed driver changes here. It also dictates the order for the drivers in order to minimize the number of changes in a given day. All bolts were grade 8 as required.





We used flanged nuts that could be welded to the outside of the mount. That kept the nuts locked in place instead of having to hold the nuts while moving the seat.



I point out the detail of where the safety harness is attached. For the submarine strap, we have a brace attached directly to the seat. So the strap moves with the seat when we adjust the mounting position. A submarine strap is essential in any racing application. When Rich hit a concrete wall two years ago inhis IMCA, he couldn't walk straight for two days, but he didn't slide under the lap belt and do far damage to himself. It's hard to credit the guys running without a sub strap.



The next problem would not really be a problem in most other cars. he rules require a brace between the back of the seat and the cross bar of the cage. You can pick up an item similar to the image below. But with the bulkhead being literally an inch away from the cross bar, you can see the problem making an adjustable brace. we followed the same concept but made the pieces to fit the tight confines. An earlier picture with the main hoop out of the car showed 1/2 of the piece we made up.



We purchased a cam-lock style safety harness from Summit Racing. The cam lock is definitely the preferred mechanism because it's so much easier to use than the older over-center latch style. We looked at several and chose the G-Force harness http://www.summitracing.com...gfr-7100bk/overview/
DonP JAN 01, 12:45 PM
You know they catch fire. I know that's a bit of a joke with some truth behind it. Reading several posts here on the forum, we see that the Fiero oiling system has received most of the blame for engine fires. Pontiac sent out a notice or something telling owners to add more oil than was originally specified. And we even saw some discussion the hard cornering can result in the oil pump pick-up tube being exposed sucking air instead of oil. Bad news.

Unfortunately, engine modifications are definitely covered in the $500 car value limitations for LeMons racing. Safety stuff like cages, safety harnesses, wheels and tires and the like are pretty much open. But "racing parts" are definitely limited. That means that we cannot convert our Fiero to a dry sump oiling system to fix the problem. That and the fact that we couldn't afford to do so even if it was allowed. And we could not follow the "chariot of Fire" builder's lead and use an accusump. It's just too expensive and looks too much like a go fast racing accessory.

http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/085472.html and http://www.accusump.com/

We have access to an accusump from a car we ran in the '90s, but there's no way to cheat and hide one of those things! We thought about getting an aftermarket oil pan with a deeper sump. But racing parts for the Fiero are a bit hard to find. And again, the budget thing kicks in. What we can do is make our own oil pan. That's in keeping with the spirit of the LeMons series. Home-built jury-rigged solutions are encouraged.

We started with the oil pan off the engine. Measurements indicated that we might be marginally safe with adding two inches of depth to the pan.



Our custom precision spacer, a paint can lid.









We picked up an oil pan baffle kit with a hinged gate for a couple bucks. I think it was from either Summit Racing or Speedway motors. Our intent was to not only have a deeper sump, but attempt to control the movement of oil to keep the pick-up covered.



Our engine work consisted of changing the water pump, replacing belts and hoses, valve cover gaskets and oil pump. We elected to go with a Melling high volume pump. Rich spent a day looking at different pick-up tubes to fit not only the pump but the re-configured pan. We carefully averted our eyes as far as the condition of the rest of the engine.





A couple weeks prior to our first race, Pick-n-Pull had a 1/2 price weekend sale. We picked up a 2.8 and 5-speed for just over $200. since we had doubts about our original engine (remember no oil on the dipstick when we purchased it?) we decided it was smarter to use the new engine. Besides, Pick-n-Pull gave us a 90 day warranty, meaning that we would be running our first race on a warrantied engine. We could exchange the engine if it blew up!

Did you know that the '86 engine uses a different oil pan than the '88?
Rich made another pan.