Ok. Camera is here and I can finally post my update.

First thing I did was tear into the interior. I'm sure you guys remember what it looked like under the carpet. Filthy. I spend some time with a roll of paper towels and a can of brake clean. Brake clean is the stuff. Leaves no residue and comes in a spray can. Once I got everything clean I pulled out the trusty old (25years at least) steel wire brush and went at the loose paint and couple small spots of surface rust. Back to the brake clean to get rid of the dust I just created and then on to....... you guesed it. My trusty can of Zinc primer. I followed this up with some semi gloss black paint. I was very pleased with the results. I think you will be too.



With both sides clean, primered, painted and ready to go I got out the...

I measured it up. hehe

Its a pretty good fit without any cutting at all.

Before I got too far into it I we decided it was time to move the car. Sprint car racing is over for the year so there is apace once again in the shop. Yay, no more working outside. This is the first time it has been moved, or even on it own wheels since the beginning of the install. I had to grab a pic of course. Those wheels HAVE to go!


With the sprint car out of the way and the fiero finally, officially, in the shop I jumped into the Dynomat project. And let me tell you it IS a project. It took the rest of the day and part of the next morning to complete it. Every nook and cranny covered, rolled, and patched to cover everything I could.






For future reference removing this bolt can allow enough room to get the solid line out of the way to lay this stuff under it.


Now I started on gettin the carpet and padding back in. Boy was that fun.




I also put in the new shifter. Re attached all of the wiring and got the seats put back in. The interior is now almost ready for the engine wiring to begin. Just need to put in the gauge cluster and add a (5 wires) harness for the rally gauges. There are more interior pieces that need to go back in but that will have to wait til the engine is running.


Except for the couple small cigarette burns in the passenger side and the usual damage in the driver side the seats are not in horrible of shape considering their age. They will need recovering eventually along with speaker replacement.


The rest of the time we were planing out the swap. We also put the battery tray in as shown above. I pulled the plastic tray competely and cut the hole at the work bench instead of in the car.

We noticed we didn't have any shift cable brackets so we couldn't do the exhaust mock-up (did I already say that?). Sorry, mind slips me sometimes. The next morning we found a set of shift cable brackets on the 85 parts car so we are all set for that. Throttle cable is ready to go also. We are set for the exhaust next weekend. The engine will get its final allignment also at that time. I will also install the gauges. For those interested in how to do this in an 85 I will provide pics and a good write up for those also.

Its becoming a reality......... finally. More to come at time allows. Later

[This message has been edited by Fieroseverywhere (edited 10-17-2007).]

quote Originally posted by Fieroseverywhere: Dad pressure washed the engine bay and seatbelts to make them look good again. Marla took care of the mats for us. The passenger side mat looks to be bleached so I'll be on the lookout for a new one eventually. Her car is coming up next.

It only shows a floormat, but does this picture qualify for the "Girls With Fieros" thread?

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[This message has been edited by Fieroseverywhere (edited 10-30-2007).]

Got a small update.

I have decided on a couple things. First instead of running an oil cooler I have decided to run an automatic radiator and use the built in tranny cooler as an oil cooler. I have spoken to a few people about this and everyone seems to think it is a good idea and can't find a reason why it wont work. It should increase the oil capasity a good amount also which will be nice. If you got any info that could help let me know. I picked up a few thing from my parts guy earlier today to help with this. I got..

- auto radiator and cooling fan. He will pull the cooler lines from another car later for me along with 86 2.5 fuel lines which I will use to make the 4.9 fuel lines
- jack and lug wrench (car did not come with them)
- 86+ washer fluid tank (larger capasity then 84-85?)
- 86+ third brake light and connector to wire it
- one set of the ball bolts that hold the shift cables
- some assorted coolant hoses and misc small parts

Best of all it only cost 20 dollars for everything.


I now have everything I need to mount the shift cables and start work on the exhaust. I am still on schedule for next weekend for this. I will also be dissasembling the 85 parts car (2.5 isuzu coupe). I need to rob quite a few parts so we are just going to drag it out with the loader and tear it apart. I will be robbing the under car coolant lines, shift cable brackets, and clutch lines amongst other items that I can't think of at the moment.

When I pulled the motor I also grabbed the stock 93 deville strut tower brace which I have dedided to use with this install. It is basically a 1" square stock bar (steel) that is almost exactly the perfect size to fit between the fiero strut towers. The nice thing about this brace is the way it mounts to the caddy. It has two brackets on either end that bolt to the strut tower. These brackets also bolt to the bar itself. I am going to make new brakets for the ends. These new brackets will also have provisions for holding the engine grates as well as a cover for the old strut hole that is no longer used. I think it will make it look right, maybe factory, while making the extra holes in the strut towers from the 88 cradle swap look better. I will post some pics when I get near the parts. I am using a 4 point mounting system and will only use a dogbone is I absolutely have to later if the engine is not held well enough with this set-up.

More to come.

EDIT: One more thing. I'm playing around with some custom shift nobs also. Got some alluminum stock and a lathe so I might be able to come up with something. Got a special one in the works right now but I cont give away the secret yet.

[This message has been edited by Fieroseverywhere (edited 10-22-2007).]

I was going to wait til I was able to get some more work done but...

Here are those shots of the completed strut towers. EDIT: nevermind, they didn't turn out

Shift cable bracket installed


The rest of my time was taken up with getting the motor alligned on the cradle and dismanteling the parts car to get the parts I need to complete the rest of the install. One good thing though, I finall got the belt on it. Gates part # K6063 63" 6 groove belt.




I had to rob most of the lines out of the parts car since most of the ones in the this car were trashed. It was very frusterating. It's ok though, I know all of the lines are good now and should NOT cause me a problem later. Always better to start fresh anyway.

Parts robbed include...

Under car coolant lines - (both were crushed on top side where we couldn't see them. )
Clutch lines - again bent, almost broken
84-86 2.5 fuel lines - I think they will work better with this install
Lower rubber strip for rear window
Plugs for trunk holes
HVAC controls - originals were painted to change dash color same as gauges and courtesy lights.
several other misc. parts that elude me at the moment

Now that this is done I can actually get back to work on it build again. I will be heading over to a buddies house tomorrow to pull a few other parts that I need. I will be grabbing the automatic radiator to tranny lines to go with my auto radiator to be used as an oil cooler. With any luck I will not have to replace the brake lines as they are the only ones left. Time will tell on that.

On wednesday I will be going to the wrecking yard to pull some other parts off of a caddy. Once this stuff is installed this weekend I should be able to do the exhaust. Its holding up everything. Later

EDIT: Parts ordered...

1 - 91-92 Cadillac Allante starter (reman.), partsamerica.com $97 shipped
10 pk - 200k multi turn trimmer pot for tach modification (9 extras, $3 shipped )

[This message has been edited by Fieroseverywhere (edited 11-05-2007).]

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