It was in the 70s yesterday, so we went for a drive to test the coolant system again. Coolant temps creeped up to 220 from our drive, and we were on roads that stayed at 55mph. Not great. Transmission coolant temp stayed good, never got above 190 to my recollection.


So I'm reaching out to a few radiator companies, telling them what I have and what I need. The AFCO is a two row cross-flow with 1" tubes. We'll see what I can get figured out. Hopefully before the GM Show in Carlisle this year. Otherwise I'll need to see about putting it on a trailer, or not going.


We also hit an issue again with the fuel pump, as the temps came up and fuel temperature came up, the pump was real unhappy and we lost fuel pressure. We could hear the gas boiling in the tank. Apparently that isn't super difficult, 93 octane boils at 100f. But given that my tank was a little more than half-full, we brought about 7+ gallons of gas up to that 100+ temperature mark. This also explains why before when we had this issue, adding fuel was alleviating the problem. The added fuel brought down the temp of the fuel in the tank.


I do have more thermal shielding to put around the headers near the fuel pump, and shielding to put around the pump as well. Next weekend we'll figure out how to mount the temp probe I have near the fuel pump and see how hot the ambient temperature is. Mike suggested we consider a fuel cooler, but where to package it is going to be an issue.


We also looked at how to mount the Mini Cooper seats in the Fiero. Sadly, that's a non-starter. The track system on these seats is a little wild, mainly from how it integrates to the rest of the seat (with a manual lever to lift/lower the seat height). The different in bolt-to-bolt track width is about 2". We couldn't see a way to reasonably modify the seat or swap the tracks from the FIero onto the Mini Cooper seat, not even with cooking up an adapter.










Besides, I put one in the car for a test fit, even with the seat height at it's lowest, the headrest needs to stay in the "sunroof pocket", and once I sat in it, my head was touching the sunroof glass. It also looks like once the interior door trim was on, the door likely wouldn't have closed without squishing something.





We also tried to get the stock Fiero temp gauge wired up. It uses a two-wire sensor, with one wire going to the gauge, the other going to the overheat light (I got it through Rockauto, Manufacturer is WVE, part number 1T1186). The weird half-sliced PICO connector took forever to show up. We found the instrument cluster wiring diagram to see which wires it was at the cluster, then tested them back to the engine compartment to make sure we had the right ones. We wired them up and ... nothing. Thinking we had it backwards, we tried that way, nothing. So we tried the ground-out test (grounding out the sensor wire that runs to the gauge is supposed to make it bury the needle), that didn't happen.


This cluster is pretty beat up and came out of the donor car, so we hope it's just a bad gauge. I'll bring my other cluster from home next week and we'll do some tests before we swap it in.

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 03-09-2025).]

Unfortunately, I hadn't heard back from any other radiator companies other than the ongoing discussion with Champion and Entropy. Ron Davies asked for my number to call me, but hadn't yet.

This past weekend we hit the junkyard again to get the radiator fan and shroud out of the Fiero that was there. I got that because we still aren't sure if we saved my old Fiero shroud/fan setup. Mike hasn't had time to go up in his garage attic to see if it's up there. He's busy trying to get his buddy's Grand National together for an upcoming event.

I also looked at the Silverado's there to see about pulling one of their fans and the PWM parts - however I was misinformed on the PWM controller for it. So it all stayed there. I have read how to wire up a PWM fan without the controller, using a standard relay so it's full on/off. So that' a potential fallback plan.

I checked with FAST if their system can control a SSR for pwm fans... it can't. So any PWM fan setup I go with, I either need to get a controller for it, or just run it at full throttle all the time.

The other reason I was looking at Silverado fans and PWM stuff, a firend of a friend was doing the Silverado fan swap and needs the PWM components, too. Anyhow.

Mike and I talked about the fuel cooler, a company called Setrab makes a compact one that has really good reviews, and one of their fittings (to convert it from m22 to AN) comes with 1/8" NPT port to put in a temperature probe. If it works good in the fuel cooling capacity, we will probably get another one and re-do the transmission fluid lines, install one of those coolers up front, taking the unit out of the air stream to the radiator, try to reduce the obstruction and potential heatsoak.

So Mike and I talked about how to package it, and he said "well, you want to put on scoops anyway, and a custom widebody kit." and I confirmed this. So he asks me if I can remove the lower rear quarter panel off. A quick search of the Pennock's forum, 6 or so rivents, and some annoying clips (rocker panel), I got it off!








So he gets out his measuring tape and goes "your side panel needs to come out 4.5" inches to clear the wheel, and the bottom slope of the bumper needs to come out 6.5" inches. That gives us a lot of room."

Mike has an idea to frankenstein a part together, and he's like "It's not going to look pretty." and I said "have you SEEN the rest of this car? It looks terrible. I don't care about that right now. Functional is the goal. The shop that does all the body work has to make stuff that looks good later."

I don't know when he's going to have time to do this, but we'll see. I'm going to hold off on buying anything until he is ready to move on it. That means if something doesn't work, I can return it, instead of having a growing pile of parts I'm trying to resell.

Though I did tell him we should hook up the BMW pump in the back given how weak the flow with the CSR pump has gotten. He agreed. So I'm glad that didn't sell.

So when I'm out there next time I will probably work on pulling off the current radiator shroud and fan and rigging up the Fiero one. We'll see how that impacts things.

Additionally, talking to the guy at Entropy, he told me about one other customer that got the same radiator I am looking to buy, and he was still having cooling issues in stop-and-go traffic, so that guy bought the 18" Delta PAG fan in there and his engine stayed cool. So I asked him how much his radiator was without his fans. 1600. That PAG fan with the controller is 499, so jut a little more than with his fans. I really appreciate how transparent this guy has been with me. On their page, the Delta PAG 18" fan is rated at 4100 CFM, 26amps @ 13v, soft start PWM fan.

I've also read about guys who have mounted their A/C condensers in other locations, mounting fans on those when the A/C came on. Also to get this out of the radiator airstream. Not sure where we can possibly do that, but something to consider.

With all of these additional fans we're looking to put in (some of them high drain), I might have to reach out to PowerMaster (the company that made my current alternator) or other companies and find someone who can make one with a little more juice. The one I have is 140 amps. Mike says it should be plenty, but I'm sitting her adding up amps from pumps and fans (the power steering pump is a beast)... and I'm nervous. lol

I guess something else I'll need to figure out is how to measure the total active consumption of power on the car. There's gotta be a way to do that, right? Something off of the battery or alternator?

[This message has been edited by Trinten (edited 03-27-2025).]