PFF - Pennock's Fiero Forum, PDA Edition

A history of Skitimes car (Page 4/72)

skitime

FEB 06, 08:08 PM

I ended the first installment of the history of my car at the end of the first show season. I ended up doing fairly well at the shows as my first show season progressed and the car evolved. After the last show and the PA Fiero gathering in the fall I started in earnest to finish a fender modification that I had started earlier that summer. While I was at a junkyard that summer, looking for hardware to build my removable rear window, I noticed a 80s Trans Am with non-functional front fender vents behind the front wheel. The vents are made of urethane that was mounted in a recessed steel fender. After looking at them I thought to myself “hmmm I think I have a home for these”.

I got a scrap fender and tried it out to check if the contours would fit. It was almost perfect.

Since the piece is also urethane I used urethane panel repair epoxy to bond the two pieces.

My intention was to make the fenders functional. I was going to vent the air pressure behind the radiator to these vents with ducts and cutting through the fender wall beside the headlights. But as fate would have it another project came up that changed those plans so I have not made the vents functional yet. I really don’t like that since I sort of dislike non-functional vents. I may still make them functional. Here is a close-up after being painted.

skitime

FEB 06, 08:09 PM

I found a ZR-2 hood for sale in the Pennock’s Mall. I thought that I might be a great way to vent the pressure behind the radiator. After I received it I was very disappointed in the quality of the piece. I do not have a picture of the scoop when I first got it but it looks like this Ebay pic.

I had bought it second hand so I do not know who originally made it. I set it on the hood of an 86 GT I had bought to see how it changed the appearance of the car. I left it on there for a few weeks and every time I looked out the window at it there was something I did not like about it. Now I want to be careful here not to offend anyone so this is my personal opinion about the scoop and I am not trying to put down any one else’s car. I finally realized why I did not like it was because it did not work with the original bodylines of the Fiero. If you look closely at a Fiero hood there are three lines, which are all, carried down onto the nose. The scoop covered the two strong lines running past the headlight covers. Even worse it created a change of the raised centerline coming from the nose into a wide dip. Now these scoop lines look great if you use the whole ZR2 body kit but in my opinion not with just adding the scoop to a Fiero. Here is a ZR2 Fiero example and it does look good since there are no body lines coming off the hood.

skitime

FEB 06, 08:10 PM

So I was going to sell the scoop but decided I could at least see if I could modify it to work with the Fiero. I told Vonnie I was going to cut a $100 bill in half with a circular saw. I took the scoop in the garage and cut the center 4 inches out of the scoop. Now my scoop was laying there in three pieces. Wish I had pictures of that. I used my front porch as a huge sanding block to get the two large halves straight enough to bond them back together. I used the 4-inch center strip to reinforce the bond of the two halves by bonding it underneath. This created a scoop without the center dip and made the scoop narrower so I would not loose the sharp lines found on the hood. I got an extra hood from Foxgapfiero and proceeded to bond the hood and scoop together.

Let me discuss the opening in the hood and hope not to offend anyone. I see lots of Fiero hoods with the vent being the half moon shape on the underside. Here is the only pic of have of the underside.

I know why they use this but if you go out and look at your Fiero nearly all this shape is over the radiator and not behind the radiator. Obviously you want the opening to be in the air stream coming out of the radiator. I attemted to maximize the opening and work with the air flow which is actually upward out of the radiator. I followed the curve of the trunk wall as close as possible and create a shape that would assist extracting air. I also wanted to retain the body lines on the top of the hood so I did not bond the scoop to the top surface but recessed the bonding surface the retain the close by body lines.

Here is the hood prior to bonding.

I spent an unbelievable amount of time doing the bodywork to get the hood looking correctly. I prefer to do my sanding and contouring by hand so it took a long time.

The underside of the scoop was ugly sprayed fiberglass. I hate to see scoops that are added on that look great until you see the underside. Often you will see rough fiberglass or the hacked up openings where a hole was cut and not blended into the scoop at all. I spent weeks working only on the bottom to blend all surfaces to make it look like it was not added on.

[This message has been edited by skitime (edited 02-08-2003).]

skitime

FEB 06, 08:10 PM

So in the end I ended up with what I felt was an extraction hood scoop that worked with the bodylines. Here is my car after another trip to the paint shop.

Well let me stop here again while I work on the next section. THE ENGINE SWAP

jscott1

FEB 06, 08:24 PM

Smoooooth GT

FEB 06, 09:54 PM

Absolutely Fantastic.... You know how I feel about your Fiero...

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In memory of the family's, friend's and especially the 12 children of the Crew Member's of The Space Shuttle Columbia. February 1, 2003