ecotec swap (Page 89/98)
wftb AUG 07, 11:45 PM
Thanks for the post , lots of good stuff there. I have been following your build thread for a while and it looks good.
longjonsilver AUG 24, 08:47 AM

quote
Originally posted by wftb:
I decided early on that I did not want the weight of a 3800. I wanted a handling car and you need a lighter motor to do that. If you follow the Fiero LeMons/Chump car threads and watch the videos you will see all of the v6 powered cars spinning out from time to time. My car does not do that, it is completely neutral. As I hit the limit, all four tires will slide but the rear will not slide out nor does the front plow. You just end up taking a wider arc that can be easily corrected by dropping the throttle or a tap on the brakes.



i have followed this thread for a few years now. It seems like few on this forum have much if any concern about weight. It is so refreshing to hear someone discuss the effects of weight. Of course you can offset weight with more HP in acceleration, but HP does not affect handling - weight does. There is no substitute for less weight in the rear of the Fiero. i have moved my battery to the front, taken out the AC compressor and the resonator/balance weight on the cradle. The more i remove weight from the rear and the more i add to the front, the better she handles. i have gone so far as to weight the gen 2 headlight motors and compare them with the gen 1. The gen 2 motors are 40gm heavier with stock gears, and with the Rodney Dickman brass gears, they are 200gm heavier.

In addition, i really like the way you have set up your engine for great HP and tork. Perhaps if the gages thing is resolved, i will do an Ecotec swap rather than a 3800SC, but for now, my duke runs good, so why change it?

jon
wftb AUG 24, 09:13 PM
Thanks for the post I like your comments. I think the thing that will make swaps like the ecotec popular will be affordable standalone engine management systems. But for somebody like me that does not care about stock gauges it is not hard to make the stock cavalier/sunfire/cobalt etc Ecm/bcm work in a Fiero or any other car for that matter. There is a thread on the locostusa forum about an ecotec powered Volvo P1800. http://locostusa.com/forums...pic.php?f=36&t=16309 If you are going to mod a Fiero, you need to think of it more like a rolling chassis and less like a complete car. Put in whatever you want and make it all yours. To me the only other alternative is to do a restoration to factory stock. My car was too far gone to do that to(rust etc) but I have had a lot of fun doing mods. It is my hobby car and I will never stop changing things.

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 08-24-2018).]

longjonsilver AUG 25, 11:46 AM

quote
Originally posted by wftb:

Thanks for the post I like your comments. I think the thing that will make swaps like the ecotec popular will be affordable standalone engine management systems. But for somebody like me that does not care about stock gauges it is not hard to make the stock cavalier/sunfire/cobalt etc Ecm/bcm work in a Fiero or any other car for that matter. There is a thread on the locostusa forum about an ecotec powered Volvo P1800. http://locostusa.com/forums...pic.php?f=36&t=16309 If you are going to mod a Fiero, you need to think of it more like a rolling chassis and less like a complete car. Put in whatever you want and make it all yours. To me the only other alternative is to do a restoration to factory stock.




i have no rust on my car. i decided a long time ago that stock was not the way i wanted to go, but i don't look forward to massive amounts of work either. Handling is very important to me, and almost all my mods have had to do with handling - poly everywhere, rebuilt steering column, steering rack. In that light i do my own alignments with string, ruler, bungies, and levels. i put in the max camber on the rear, and toe of 8mm in the 42" of the levels on the rear. i just got thru checking and adjusting my rear alignment. A few days of driving to let it set and then i will do the front. i will let the early adopters iron out the details on the ecotec swap and then i will follow along.
jon

ps thanks for the link, lots of good reading there

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I'm the original owner of a white ' 84 2M4 purchased Dec 10, 1983 from Pontiac. Always garaged, no rust, 4-wheel drifts are fun! 3800 SC swap to come!

Frenchrafe AUG 27, 04:57 AM
Interesting thread this one👍
I agree about the weight of a 3800, especially when you have the turbo hanging off the rear like mine!
My car is 500kg at the front and 800kg at the rear!
This makes cornering at the track a little bit touchy, but I'm used to it (and I run very sticky tyres!), most of the time😵😨
A lighter engine is better for handling and overall car response.
Regards, Rafe
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'87 Fiero GT. 3800 turbo. Sticky tyres. Driven hard!

[This message has been edited by Frenchrafe (edited 08-27-2018).]

longjonsilver AUG 30, 07:03 AM

quote
Originally posted by Frenchrafe:
I agree about the weight of a 3800, especially when you have the turbo hanging off the rear like mine!
My car is 500kg at the front and 800kg at the rear!



Well, lets see 1300 Kg is 2860 lbs. i guess that is about right. Seems that the fastback is heavier than the notchie. But a 38% front 62% rear weight distribution is crazy rear heavy. i understand that the factory weight distribution (which year model???) is 44% front 56% rear. i figure roughly that moving the battery to the front moves 2% from rear to front so with that simple mod maybe a 46% 54% balance can be achieved. (OK maybe that is an exaggeration.)

When i did my conversion from the bumperpad facias to the GT aero facias, i did not use the steel in the sides for the rocker panels or the aero moldings above it. i left the supports out of the rocker panels because the GT rocker panel is only 1 cm wider - why put some steel in there for just that difference. The rocker without steel in it is nice and solid. Likewise with the aero panels above the rocker, i glued them in. Glue has to be lighter than steel. The steel for the rockers and door moldings weighs 4.6 lbs, and that doesn't include the steel in front or behind the door. Every little bit helps.

i notice that the car seems to handle better when the sun roof is stored in the front - which is where it is most of the time as i like the open feeling. Which brings up another topic, i have never heard many complaints about the handling of the stock vehicle at speed. When my 84 was stock, it was plainly dangerous to drive at speed, 110km/h as the steering wheel would take maybe 30degrees each way to make the car respond to stay in the freeway lane. So i put weight in the front - tire chains to start, then moved the battery, then took out the AC compressor from the rear. This made the steering wheel response better, maybe 20 degrees. The vent for the front really made the car handle better at speed, but without the other mods, i wonder. Now the car has about a 10 degree response to keep the car in the lane on the freeway. Now i feel completely safe at 120 km/h. But i wonder if a splitter would make the car handle even better at speed?

Does anybody know the true weight of the ecotec motor with and without trans?

jon

------------------
Astronomy says we will find a coded signal from outer space. Then we'll KNOW that life exists there, for coded signals aren't by chance.

Biology says there are coded genetic signals in every cell, but we KNOW that no intelligence created life.

I'm the original owner of a white ' 84 2M4 purchased Dec 10, 1983 from Pontiac. Always garaged, no rust, 4-wheel drifts are fun!

wftb AUG 30, 02:31 PM
This is one of many threads dealing with engine weights. I don't know how accurate they are. http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/089287.html As weighed at the 30th show, my car was 2790lbs with a full tank of gas. That is 44% front 56% rear .It is now 44lbs lighter , mostly removed from the back. But I have no access to wheel scales so I do not know the distribution as it sits now.
Frenchrafe AUG 30, 03:25 PM

quote
Originally posted by longjonsilver:

Well, lets see 1300 Kg is 2860 lbs. i guess that is about right. Seems that the fastback is heavier than the notchie. But a 38% front 62% rear weight distribution is crazy rear heavy.




In fact my car is heavier at the front - my mistake!
This is the copy of my "Contrôle technique" (MOT for the British, don't know what you call it in the USA? Inspection?)


So the car weighs 1389kg with about 42% front and 58% rear.

I will be thinking about battery up front etc to try and even it out. And yes, they don't handle super great at high speeds - that's the reason we call it "white knuckle driving"!
I set mine up to be higher by 3 or 4cm at the rear so the nose is down more. Seems to help a bit.

Rafe

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'87 Fiero GT. 3800 turbo. Sticky tyres. Driven hard!

longjonsilver AUG 30, 09:41 PM
So let me get this straight, the Iron Duke weighs 350 lbs, the 60 degree V6 (L44) weighs 362 lbs, the base Ecotec weighs 307 lbs, the supercharged Ecotec weighs 330 lbs and the turbocharged Ecotec weighs 360 lbs.

The stock Fiero auto is 125 lbs and the manual transaxles are 74 lbs for the 4-spd and 78 lbs for the 5-spd. The F23 weighs 112 lbs and the F40 weighs 124 lbs

So my stock duke with the 4 speed tranny weighs 428 lbs (without flywheel and clutch)

If i put in an Ecotec N/A with the F23 my car will LOSE 11 lbs- the combo will weigh 419 lbs (without flywheel and clutch)

If i put a turbo Ecotec in with the F40 my car will gain 56 lbs - the combo will weigh 484 lbs (without flywheel and clutch)

If i put in a 3800 S/C and keep my 4 speed tranny it will weigh 448 + 74 = 522 lbs (without flywheel and clutch) for a gain of 94 lbs.

THIS makes my decision a lot easier, remembering that ALL of this weight will be in the rear. Can the intercooler (does it have one) be placed in the front?

i weighed my catalytic converter that i removed several years ago and it weighed 14 lbs. i plan on hollowing it out and if i need to add a cat, i will have one ready ;-)

jon

------------------
Astronomy says we will find a coded signal from outer space. Then we'll KNOW that life exists there, for coded signals aren't by chance.

Biology says there are coded genetic signals in every cell, but we KNOW that no intelligence created life.

I'm the original owner of a white ' 84 2M4 purchased Dec 10, 1983 from Pontiac. Always garaged, no rust, 4-wheel drifts are fun!

wftb AUG 30, 11:32 PM
The accuracy of the link I posted is up for debate. If you do a search you will find 15 threads with varying weights. I have my doubts that a stock 2.2 ecotec weighs 307 lbs. Some of the v6's are listed at close to the same weight. I do not have a scale to weigh engines with but moving the ecotec around my garage on an engine stand is a piece of cake compared to a 2.8 v6. I have always figured I was saving a 100 lbs by going to a 2.2 ecotec instead of my old 2.8. Here is a thread with weights of cars collected at the 30th and 35th shows. mine is the 86 gt eco powered car, weighed at the 30th. The fellow that weighed the cars had individual scales for each wheel so that is how I calculated my front rear bias. But the link does not give that info. As you will see some of the weights are surprising but I have to assume they are accurate. http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/141663.html

[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 08-30-2018).]