Start of Page 12 of the build thread. August 4th 2019

Another update already? Why yes!

This one is about one of the other fun things I ordered... my interior.

As we all (should) know, Amida has cooked up some Amazing stuff for our cars interior and exterior. When I decided to pull the trigger on the rebuild, I decided I was getting said interior. Long ago, in a galaxy far away, I really loved his F355 interior. Ultimately I went with the G1 Interior mainly because of the double-din space, where I can put my Pumpkin headunit.

Amida was great to work with. He sent me a really well laid out "order sheet", and was great about asking follow up questions and sending me pictures and examples. He was super patient. He was also kind enough to send me out a nice little leather sample set, with notes on the back of each one. Sadly... I somehow lost said sample set. Amida didn't chew me out about it. I did offer to pay him for the replacement of it (offer still stands!)

It shouldn't surprise anyone, but I checked pretty much all the boxes. I got the leather upgrades, because screw vinyl. He did put an extra pad on the arm rests to reduce wear on the leather.

He's been great about sending me pictures with updates as the work progressed.

What I ordered:

Dash kit
Solstice dash vents
G6 glove box
Shifter boot
Dash upholstery

Door panel kit
Door upholstery
Optional insert diamond stitching
Leather upgrade, black
Armrest upholstery

And it all looks STUNNING.





He sent me a bunch more, close ups and different angles. If anyone wants me to post the rest, I can.

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 03-24-2023).]

Just a few little updates for now. Mostly stuff that has arrived or will be shipped. Unrelated note for folks that don't know, Synchrony bank bought Paypal earlier this year, and I've had some really bizarre issues with them lately, and LOTS of finger pointing between parties. Personally I think it's more a technical issue someplace, but anyhow... just an FYI for folks.

So first up, Amida has sent me pics of the pillars that are all done in their gorgeous new leather wrap! He was also kind enough to repair the clips that broke off, the best that he could. At least the ones I had to send to him. So we'll have to make sure that when we get to putting this part in... it has no reason to ever come back out. Unless I ever get my hands on pristine pillars, then I'll send those to Amida to wrap, and I will carefully store them, coated in leather preserving goodness and wrapped in plastic until they are needed. lol






So Mike has been super busy getting the geometry right for the rear suspension. Before he was traveling, he was putting in a lot of weekday hours pinning this down. A vexing item was that the Vette rear suspension mounting points aren't level, they are angled, the front of the mount is lower than the back of the mount. So the end of the lower control arm is "clocked" to be level with this canted setup. This meant he had to find a way to closely replicate that in the space we have, without having to worry about binding up the ball joint, and still being able to build secure mounting points.

He is finally happy with the outcome, and after slapping on (one of the old tie rods that will be replaced), was even happier, there was only one point where the wheel 'twitched' along the path of travel from his first tie rod placement, and he wants to get rid of that, effectively eliminating bump steer.




Rewinding to July, we had a little Fiero get together out here (I have pics, but have not posted them on the invite thread we had here), only three Fieros, my Town Car, a Typhoon, and Mikes Grand National. The point of the story is, Mike was talking about the project, and mentioned he wanted to get fatter tires under the car. The wheels that came with all the suspensions stuff we bought are 17x8.5 and 18x9.5. So where do you go from there? Z06, of course.

I spent... way too much time... reading on the Vette forums, finding wheel weights, seeing what fit (yes I know, other applications, might not apply here, etc etc), and seeing what style I liked. I *ALMOST* bought some C7 Z06s that were for sale in a Vette forum super cheap... and wondered why they weren't gone... then googled and saw there was talk of Vette owners doing a class action because those wheels were failing all over the place.

So as I narrowed down my list, I found a set I liked the look of, and are super light. 2001 Z06 wheels. The guy had them for a number of years sitting in his basement, he had put HREs on his Vette. The price I got for these was awesome. There were single wheels, in much worse condition, selling for more than the relative price per wheel I paid. Anyhow, here they are! Mike said he wants to get them to fit... if we can't, I know I can resell them and make a profit. 17x9.5 and 18x10.5s





If we can get them to fit and clear, I'll be wrapping them in Continental ExtremeContact Sport tires. Found multiple articles where this tire placed first or second in tire shootouts, and others that seemed to like them alot. On the Vette boards a lot of the guys seem to be using NItto, so that's another one I will check into.

Oh! So going back to a much older conversation Mike and I had... he said "How loud do you want this to be?" to which I said "I want it to be as quiet as possibly without it seriously impacting performance." "So like my Grand National?" "Exactly." which sounds nice, but isn't obnoxious until you jam on it. Basically the history here is, when I first got my last Fiero with the V8... there was no exhaust system. At all. Effectively straight pipes. So it was horribly loud and headaches ensued with even short drives at low speeds.

When I had the new engine put in, and later the EFI stuff done, upgrades were done to add beefier exhaust components (that's why the last one lost the 'suitcase wedge' in the trunk). It was better, but a few hours at high way speeds was still headache inducing, and there wasn't even any resonance, so no drone, just noise.

Anyhow! Mike said okay, and told me he'd send me a list of stuff to start buying... and part of my new exhaust system has shown up. He swears it'll make the engine noise a little quieter, but this is the strangest muffler I've ever seen!



It's a Precision Industries 76/75 ceramic ball bearing T4 .81 A/R anti-surge cover something something... something, Turbocharger...

( edited to fix a typo on suitcase, and to fix the wheel sizes, which I incorrectly marked as 18/19, when they are 17/18. Thanks for the catch, Will!)

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 06-04-2024).]

quote Originally posted by Trinten: 18x9.5 and 19x10.5s If we can get them to fit and clear, I'll be wrapping them in Continental ExtremeContact Sport tires. Found multiple articles where this tire placed first or second in tire shootouts, and others that seemed to like them alot. On the Vette boards a lot of the guys seem to be using NItto, so that's another one I will check into.

I'm guessing since those are chromed that they're repros rather than originals... the original sizes are 17x9.5 and 18x10.5.
Just hoping to save you some pain when you're ready to order tires.

I would go with a bigger front-to-rear stagger than the 'Vette had...

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 08-29-2019).]

Hey guys,

I know I haven't done some updates in a while. As you might recall, Mike had a pretty busy month mostly out of state last month. And this month we had the fun hurricane (I was fine, in-state enough where we just had some rain on Friday). A great friend drove 6 hours from his off-site job to hang out and help me build the first waves of shelves in the garage. These shelves are heavy duty. Pressure treated wood, 3/4 inch OSB plywood, and intermediate pressure treated wood, so all of the weight sits on the 2x4, not on the screws (we went through 4 lbs of steel screws. Everything was cross secured). I can park my car on these things! Now to finish organizing my garage! Since then I've painted the decks (top and bottom) with a good oil based primer to protect them from moisture, leaky chems, whatever. In a year I'll paint the uprights. (Thanks again Chug!)



Now onto car stuff!




So I mentioned Mike is happy with all the positioning of the suspension on the driver side. He's going to do some careful work and framing so he can duplicate it exactly on the passenger side. The new tie rod ends and hubs are sitting for final assembly (after powdercoating).



Now with that done, Mike slapped the wheel on, so we can see what the 9.5" wheels will look like on the back.



At some point I'll go out there with a front and rear of the Z06 wheels, and a few rolls of bubble wrap to "build up" the wheel and mimic the dimensions of the tire to get an idea of fitment. That's entirely my idea. I haven't asked Mike on that one yet. Figured it'd be easier than finding some "good used" wheels to wrap on a couple of them for testing, then if it does work (or doesn't!) deal with the wrapper again.

Mike has gotten the radiator to a place where he's happy. The new build car didn't have a condenser in it, thankfully I had a new one sitting in a box over there (I've had it for a few years, because of course I did).

Now as some might know (I didn't! Mike educated me), the condensor mounts by screwing into these rubber mount things. Which were just wrecked. So Mike made a small cut so he could put in a J-hook. I think I asked about vibration. I don't remember what Mike said, so not going to put words in his mouth. But he's building my car with the same care and eye to dependability that he's put into his prize Grand National, so I'm comfortable with whatever he said.



The Afco radiator came with mounts designed to go into a completely different car. Mike felt bad about slicing into a pristine unit, but with the mounting brackets it had, it was about a half-inch too wide. Mike had a better idea for mounting it anyway, so off they went!

Brand new.



Mounts and a shot underneath







I also asked Mike if he can build a skid plate with support bars going to the frame, to protect the radiator from dips, speed bumps, etc and help with ducting, he said yes. He wanted to put more weight up front anyway... so this helps!


I also sent off five (in total) GT steering wheels to be restored and re-wrapped with leather. One of them was done up in stock Indy colors for Mike's Indy build he's prepping for. Another is for a friend of a friend in the community. The remaining two spares... I don't know what I'll do with them. Probably coat one in a good leather protector and put it in a bag and keep it in the house where it's temp controlled. Maybe years down the road, when these are hens-teeth rare, I'll be tempted to sell one.

Here's a pic of one of mine.




My TIAL wastegate also showed up. It's a 60mm. Mike wanted me to get a 50, but they don't make a 50, it was 44 or 60. Since my turbo has an anti-surge cover, the 60 should be okay. At worst, I'll sell this one and get their V44.




Now for the low of the recent efforts. I bought the replacement carpet for the car from ACC. Keep in mind the interior has been out of this car for a long time, and I made the mistake of assuming the carpet that Mike pulled out hadn't been tampered with by the previous-previous owner. In hindsight, I realized they would have during their misguided subwoofer escapades. Anyhow, I used the old carpet to try to template the new carpet. I'll chalk it up to exhaustion that I didn't stop to question why the new carpet was so much longer... *sigh*. Anyhow, Mike says we can fix it, and no one will notice.

SNAFU aside, I was also disappointed that the new carpet was not better molded to fit the dips and risers of the floorplan. After the carpet was put in, when you would push in certain places, the carpet would shift and not lay nicely. Granted, this is mostly by the firewall, so it's not likely to be found by accident.

Anyhow, onto some of the pics of my first attempt at carpet replacement... I'm debating on if I want to buy another set and try again. I will wait and see if we can fix it, and I'll contact ACC to see if I can buy some panels of the carpet for repair if needed.








I have three major big boxes there with my awesome new interior stuff from Amida!! We did not open the boxes yet. I also need to contact the Fiero Store, my new headliner has not shown up yet.

We also tried taking the manual pedal assembly out... and discovered that a major wiring harness blocks it from coming free. So if anyone knows a trick to getting it out so we can put in the automatic pedal assembly... without doing a bunch of wiring, please let me know!

Last update for right now. Some years ago, IMSA GT was making some cool carbon fiber custom badges. So I put in my order. Black and red carbon fiber and pearl paint, with my original Fiero's name, and the (much niftier) Pegasus profile. Life happens, so it's taken some time for it to get done. I'm very happy with the outcome!

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 06-04-2024).]

quote Originally posted by Trinten: So I mentioned Mike is happy with all the positioning of the suspension on the driver side. He's going to do some careful work and framing so he can duplicate it exactly on the passenger side. The new tie rod ends and hubs are sitting for final assembly (after powdercoating). We also tried taking the manual pedal assembly out... and discovered that a major wiring harness blocks it from coming free. So if anyone knows a trick to getting it out so we can put in the automatic pedal assembly... without doing a bunch of wiring, please let me know!

Oh, that's the orientation of the parking brake on Covettes.

I've done two auto to stick swaps and had that problem. There's a gusset you can cut with (I think) tin snips, then bend it aside. Once done that allows you to move the harness (just barely) out of the way of the pedal box.

[This message has been edited by Will (edited 09-17-2019).]