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"Be not led astray, bretheren beloved..." -James 1:16.


Thanks, Danyel, for the graphic.

added to my favorites. I'm very interested to see how this swap pans out. Keep me in the loop.
Dave

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1987 GT (my toy-see above), 1987 GT 3800s/c, 1986 SE with a VW VR6, certified master technician/shop owner
www.njautobahn.com
www.hausofguru.com

Now, where is this giant Fiero-inhaling turbo going to sit in there? You might be surprised at how many options are wholly deleted by going up just a couple inches in diameter.

At this point I wasn't sure of the final turbo setup design, and played with a few options including a rear-exit 3400 exhaust manifold setup, hooking the turbo up to an adapter near the trunk wall. Lets see...

TGP manifold (tiny)...



3400 manifold (not as tiny but sucks anyway)...




Will it fit here maybe? No cutting of the trunk for sure! I gotta have a place for all those useful road-side tools required of Fiero ownership, now don't I? Why yes, yes I do. Trunk stays.






Oh wait, we can't have the compressor outlet pointing 3" from the ground right? Rotate it up? Nogo as well, clearance issues and extra heat up there. Besides, this is where I want my uber-cool selectable sport/race exhaust setup to go! Looks like that's out.



Nearer the tranny? No room for an intake pipe. Flip that? no room for the exhaust downpipe. Closer to the Alternator location? Same problems, but over there. Yep, this "rear mount" turbo thing just isn't going to work for me. How about up front where the stock cat goes? No way, this turbo won't fit anywhere near there. Other possibles? Shot down, shot down, shot down.
Well, looks like it's going to have to go where I wanted it to in the first place (Will had a lot to do with the other ideas, heh), right where all the cool boys put it! Above the tranny, coming right out of a custom Y-pipe.
But wait, what's this?...



...That's a throttlebody in the way. No good. I could kink an inlet pipe to make an L while tweaking the turbo location just barely (hah!) or I could... no... Upgrade to a 3400 top end (or 2000+ 3100, same thing) that moves the throttlebody toward the front of the car several inches? Oh the hurt. How could I ever live with myself, upgrading to 40% better flow like that. More power on less boost? Of all the horrible things! Oh darn, I guess there's no other choice!

So that settled it, a planned future upgrade ended up being necessary. Off to the junkyard I went and off I pulled 3400 heads and lower intake (and accessories) from a 2001 Olds Alero, and a 3100 upper intake and throttlebody from a 2002 Malibu. At the time I hadn't known that the only difference in the top ends (aside from the "3100" or "3400" lettering) was that the 3100's all got smaller throttlebodies. 52mm vs. 56mm for the 3400 IIRC. Whoops, oh well, it will be easy to snag a 3400 one later (or a better one, with modifications), and the smaller one might be easier to get a base tune with since it's slightly closer to the 3.1 TB size, I'm using the TGP 3.1 turbo code ($8F) in a '730. Once it's going decent I won't stay with the smaller TB, though.

Pics of that will come later, as it's important to maintain the chronology and I didn't get pics at first.

So now that I had a better top end, there was no way I was going to use the tiny, restrictive TGP exhaust manifolds, even with a custom Y-pipe. Aside from flowing poorly, to match the D-port 3400 heads they'd have to be ported to almost nothing. Custom tubular manifolds it is! I don't really need to post the pic from the last post again I think, but that's what I decided on for a good compromise in flow, simplicity, cost, weight, and space savings. They'll do just fine.

More later, still not here yet...

[This message has been edited by ALLTRBO (edited 11-27-2009).]

Thanks Jacob, will do. I try to keep the wording to a minimum for all the impatient types, I really do, but I just can't do it!

Sure thing Dave, you will definitely be kept in the loop. As I said, more to come later.

[This message has been edited by ALLTRBO (edited 11-21-2009).]

[This message has been edited by ALLTRBO (edited 11-22-2009).]

So now I have 12" brakes, and 15" wheels that they won't fit under. I have to upgrade. Darn.
Lots of research led me to wheels I really like, and while a tad bit on the heavy side, they look beautiful and can be had for a good price used in good shape if you look around hard enough.
Note: I give partial credit to justa6 here for having these rims on his beautiful GT first, and while I didn't completely get the idea from him, seeing them on his car sold me on them.
Meet the Volkswagen Monte Carlo or Santa Monica (depending on who you ask) wheels that were available on 02-04 Golfs, Jettas, and Beetles. My memory may be slightly off on the years, but close.

Here are the first three I bought from a guy in Hawaii for cheap, and shipping wasn't bad believe it or not. He removed the tire before shipping...



I then found a single wheel from someone else later, for a good price also.
They're 5x100 and 17x7 with a 38mm offset. Not a great offset for the front of an '88, but they'll do. I like the idea of the good '88 scrub-radius stock but I don't think this hurts steering effort all that much. I have an idea to make them look less like they're sticking out up there (though they aren't bad looking anyway).

More research led me to try Yokahama S-drive's for the tires. 235/45 for the rear and 205/50 for the front. I can hardly wait to try shoving them out of their traction zone.

[This message has been edited by ALLTRBO (edited 11-22-2009).]

[This message has been edited by ALLTRBO (edited 11-22-2009).]

Big project directional shift ahead...

...At least WRT the way it's going to be completed. There comes some time in every man's life when he just has to give in, and all that jazz.

I've always been the DIY/built-not-bought type, mostly because half of the fun is completing a project myself but partially because I can't trust anyone to do anything right (at least it's very rare), but this time was different. My chronic health problems have been slowly getting worse and worse (severe sleeping troubles and severe IBS-C are the two main problems, among lesser problems, neither the doctors nor I have figured out what's going on for sure, and yes I've tried almost everything). I hate to keep bringing that up, and I'm not looking for sympathy, it's just that these problems infiltrate every second of my life. I have to follow a strict schedule or I spiral out of control, and even when I do follow a strict schedule I still am about 1/2 the person I should be.

Often I'm in so much pain or so out of whack mentally from a violent night's "sleep" and/or from being 'backed-up' that I can't go to work or do anything around the house, and have to now make up my time at work because I'm constantly at a no-leave balance, or just have to work longer hours because I'm very slow on certain days and can't rightfully count them as a full 8-hours, and every day I spend at least 1/2 hour in the bathroom at work on top the ~2.5 hours I have to spend in the bathroom at home every single morning and the ~1 hour every evening (If I don't, I can't go at all even though I take two laxatives every day, and then I'll spiral out of control). On top of that I have various doctors appointments to go to often on Saturdays, Mass on Sundays, and drive to work about 6 days/wk to get just 40 hours in.

One of my problems makes the other worse, and the other makes the one worse. I like typing more than talking as I can gather my sometimes very muddled thoughts more collectively and coherently in written words because I can go back over them several times before I hit 'submit'. Work is priority 1 (After Mass but that's only 1 hr/wk) because, while my wife works and makes reasonable money also, we still couldn't afford to pay the bills if we didn't both work.
Again, I'm not looking for sympathy and I hope that wasn't TMI, I'm just trying to express how much this affects me, and how it ties in to this project that I so very much want, and need, to drive (not just the beater truck or motorcycle)

So, this summer came the turning point. Will had been helping me on some of this throughout the months it took me to get to that point in the story and he was leaving soon for the desert for a year with his new Naval Reserve unit (God speed!), and I was about to switch companies.
I work for NASA as a contractor Electronics Technician, and how it works there is that we pretty much move from company to company as the projects change and new contract are awarded, or as the contracts and end are re-awarded to someone else. Most of the actual design and labor is completed in this way, civil servants are increasingly more managerial or administrative only.
At this time the last project I was working on had been finished, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), and I was offered a job with a new company to work on two new satellite projects simultaneously (GPM and MMS) which I accepted. This was great, and not so great. It provided a very healthy pay raise and job security for a few more years, but at the same time meant that I had to work even harder to get the job done, I had to move to the work lifestyle posted above. This meant that there was no way I was going to be able to complete this thing in any reasonable amount of time, and I also had (and still have) other cars to get fixed and driving, or gotten rid of.

Coincidentally, there was a certain german car guru who also likes Fieros that opened up a portion of his repair shop recent to this to build some bad-arse Fieros. This particular guru also happened to be in New Jersey, which is on the same side of the country as I am, and isn't that far away. On top of that, this crazy fella with a crazy birdy-flipping wife ( ) that I had met a couple times before, just happens to be an OCD perfectionist like I am.
So as some of you already know, after several PM's back and forth it was decided that the bmwguru himself, Dave (along with his team of Fiero nuts), was going to be completing my project for me (almost completely completing, I'll get to that later) at the Haus of Guru. You may or may not have any idea how humbling that was for me, but it is what it is, and Dave will do (and is doing) a great job.

I'm still not to the point where we are now, but getting close. More later...

[This message has been edited by ALLTRBO (edited 11-22-2009).]