Is it possible to do a welded diff on a fiero i'm guessing that thier is a differential of sorts inside the trany but is it possible to weld it to give constant posi traction on the car? I know this may be a silly question but I run with a group of "drifters" with 240's almost all of them have welded rear diffs

People here use the Phantom grip limited slip conversion. http://www.phantomgrip.com/ You can also get it from Jegs.
http://www.jegs.com/webapp/...10001_10002_85820_-1 You can use the 906 or the 910 models.

hmm, id like to see one of those installed, i cant quite imagine how they work.


O.P. DONT WELD YOUR DIFFERENTIAL!

Recently, we had a pretty lengthy thread regarding the effects of a Phantom Grip limited-slip diff on one member's transmission. It wasn't pretty.

If you want a limited-slip differential, save up some scratch and get a locker-style unit. It'll save you some trouble in the long run.

quote Originally posted by Blacktree: Recently, we had a pretty lengthy thread regarding the effects of a Phantom Grip limited-slip diff on one member's transmission. It wasn't pretty. If you want a limited-slip differential, save up some scratch and get a locker-style unit. It'll save you some trouble in the long run.

I searched for "locker" and "differential. I all of the links in the 3 threads that came up were for clutch style differentials. Do you know a company that makes locker-style units for our cars?

Gr8Grip?

I don't think a Fiero would be a very good drift car... The mid engine puts more weight on the rear wheels. That makes it harder to break loose and when you do, there is more weight swinging around so it's harder to control... Plus if you drove the car as a daily driver, the locked diff would probably kill the CV joints pretty fast.

welded diff = owned axles most likely. Might be valid for a straight line setup.

quote Originally posted by Doug85GT: I searched for "locker" and "differential. I all of the links in the 3 threads that came up were for clutch style differentials. Do you know a company that makes locker-style units for our cars?

There are some suggestions in this thread.

quote Originally posted by Poncho Jim: I don't think a Fiero would be a very good drift car... The mid engine puts more weight on the rear wheels. That makes it harder to break loose and when you do, there is more weight swinging around so it's harder to control... Plus if you drove the car as a daily driver, the locked diff would probably kill the CV joints pretty fast.

my buddy's told me i couldn't drift a front wheel drive till I did, they told me I couldn't drift this car so I will. its all about feeling the car and knowing how its going to handle. I'm not going to say i'll be the drift king or anything but them saying I can't only drives me to do it. besides when I am able to drift it it will deffinatly turn some heads.

I wouldn't buy a car with 157k miles on it as my daily driver. I drive too far to rely on a 20 year old car

If you do get a phantom grip or gr8grip "clutch" style limited slip you need to get special trans fluid from any GM dealership it is called "Friction modified syncromesh" if you put regular syncromesh in it you will eat your spider gears like in the thread stated above. but the friction modified syncromesh was actually installed in GM vehicles that came with a similar clutch style limited slip from the factory.

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1986 Silver 5 speed Fiero 3.4 DOHC
Bored .30, Fully balanced and blueprinted
13.93@101mph as it is on the street. FOR SALE - MAKE OFFER!
... ... !
355cid 400hp/tq N/A SBC, 4 bolt main
Nitrous Oxide: 1st stage - 125shot direct port. 2nd stage - 75shot plate.
87 GT, Cryo Treated 5-speed Getrag, Gr8grip LSD, Spec Stage 3 clutch.

Here is a source for a real limited slip diff for the getrag...also the THM125 and at one point they were considering one for the 4spd

http://www.engineered.net/eplsd.htm

daveg

yes, you can have some fun with the Fiero rear end too - give it some nasty toe & welded diff - and you are gauranteed a rear end that wont grip. of course, you wont have much luck driving in a straight line - but - that is exactly what you are trying to avoid anyways.

tho - I would suggest you find some power to put back there

Not to jack a thread, but I watched an episode or Redline on Speed channel last night, and there was a guy that was drifting a '96 911 GT2. He was doing this because everyone that that a super car with mid rear mounting, or rear mounting, would not make a good drift car, lets just say he proved them all wrong.

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'88 Coupe (extensive mods underway)
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/086359.html

quote Originally posted by Pyrthian: yes, you can have some fun with the Fiero rear end too - give it some nasty toe & welded diff - and you are gauranteed a rear end that wont grip. of course, you wont have much luck driving in a straight line - but - that is exactly what you are trying to avoid anyways. tho - I would suggest you find some power to put back there

Yeah I wont wess with the toe as I will want to cruse around with it a bit and maybe drag on occasion But i'm working on fixing her up and gathering parts for a V8 swap so it will have some HP to the wheels once i try and drift it.

I emailed about the GR8GRIP LSD. It is $280 + $65 for installation. Another $9 for shipping. That is a good deal. I'll give Bud a call to find out if the installation is on car installation or does he mean installing the gr8grip into the differential unit.

I looking into the different types of LSDs. I don't think that anyone will find an aftermarket lock-style LSD for our cars. Those require either an electronic or mechanical locking mechanism to lock the gears in place and drive both wheels. I don't see that happening with a simple incert. The whole mechanism would have to be redesigned. The gr8grip is a clutch LSD and so is every other one that I've looked up.

the cost for bud to do everything is for the diff assemly only... you have to take the case apart and send him the differntial. not a big deal though, for instruction go to rodney dickmans website and there is a pdf link onthe bottom of the getrag transaxle page.

I would highly recomend spending the extra 65$ to have bud do it himself. he is very professional and works within micron specifications... I first tryed to just email him the stats and figured out that I was way underequiped for the measuring devices.

you can get an actual locking differential assembly for a fiero getrag but it costs 600$ alone (may have gone up now)... and it is highly recomended that you spend an extra $300 to upgrade the diff to the stronger 1992-94 FWD diff. I forgot who does this but I can get more info on this if you guys would like. (I thought that was engineered performance in the link above, but now they are showing it is a clutch style limited slip rather then a locker) I decided against this one because the gr8grip seemed to be sufficient for what I was going to use it for and I didn't have that much cash laying around at the time, lol.

------------------
1986 Silver 5 speed Fiero 3.4 DOHC
Bored .30, Fully balanced and blueprinted
13.93@101mph as it is on the street. FOR SALE - MAKE OFFER!
... ... !
355cid 400hp/tq N/A SBC, 4 bolt main
Nitrous Oxide: 1st stage - 125shot direct port. 2nd stage - 75shot plate.
87 GT, Cryo Treated 5-speed Getrag, Gr8grip LSD, Spec Stage 3 clutch.

You can make a car oversteer easily by putting a big antiroll bar on the back with solid bushings and completely removing the one from the front. This will insure that the inside rear wheel will hardly be in contact with the ground during hard cornering. With a locked or locking differential, all of your power goes to outside wheel further driving the oversteer. Without the locked or locking differential you'd just spin the inside wheel and make a lot of smoke. Without the rollbar modification, the car will try to understeer due to the locked differential.
The original Stingray racing car had a locked differential and reportedly it would hardly corner unless you broke the rear in loose, instead just plowing ahead.

quote Originally posted by Tiny: Is it possible to do a welded diff on a fiero i'm guessing that thier is a differential of sorts inside the trany but is it possible to weld it to give constant posi traction on the car? I know this may be a silly question but I run with a group of "drifters" with 240's almost all of them have welded rear diffs

Yes it is possible. My Getrag is "Lincoln locked" and has survived for a few hours of endurance racing so far. For a street car, I would not even think about it. Slow tight turns are almost violent as the wheels hop, bounce and fight to travel the same distance through two differant arcs. Maintaining full traction on high speed turns is really good, as well as having even compression braking when coming off the throttle.

For those of you who think that $600 for a LSD is expensive, I check the price for one on my other platform, 3000GT. The price is....

$1,545.00

http://supercar-engineering...th=4&products_id=238

Keep in mind that my AWD 3S has three differentials.

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85 Fiero GT with 1.6 rocker arms, aluminum flywheel, Sprint Headers, Thermotech Black Satin Exhaust coating, WCF clutch, SS brake lines, Rear anti-sway bar, KYB shocks, K&N air filter, removed water seperator.
Removed: complete A/C system, Cruise control, coil/alternator fan
92 Dodge Stealth RT TT with too many mods to list

while we are here.....make some mental gears turn.....

would adding a steering box in the rear make it better for drifting?

^ not really worth the time and money. rather just adjust the toe and go.

quote Originally posted by Pyrthian: while we are here.....make some mental gears turn..... would adding a steering box in the rear make it better for drifting?

Not realy it would make an interesting way to fake drifting. drifting is getting the car to break loose by exerting more lateral force on the skid pad. essentialy getting your rear wheels spining in an different direction then the car is traveling while maintaining controle over the car.


though now that I think about it adding a rear steering box would be an interesting idea get the sensatrack from a GMC truck make lane changes and parallel parking a breez and deffinatly turn some heads the first time you drove sideways into a praking spot.

[This message has been edited by Tiny (edited 10-19-2007).]

On my 1987 GT it would drift arounds corners great with the stock suspension and 2.8 l with the auto. Tire wear was terrible. Took it to the alignment shop and the rear was toed in. Car really handled great though. If you don't drive too many miles, just toe it in.... No cost except for tires. If you don't like it, easy to change back.

quote Originally posted by HTXtremes: Not to jack a thread, but I watched an episode or Redline on Speed channel last night, and there was a guy that was drifting a '96 911 GT2. He was doing this because everyone that that a super car with mid rear mounting, or rear mounting, would not make a good drift car, lets just say he proved them all wrong.

i saw that one too, but that was soooo heavily modified it wasn't even funny. plus they relied on special ultra hard compound tires.

How about using a F-35 tranny instead of the stock getrag? Some of these come with a LSD already in them. Designed by the factory for longevity.
Might be less money in the long run all things considered.

Drifting a Fiero is hard, not impossible but hard from what I've been told. Look up various "Top Gear" clips where they drift mid-engined cars. They can do it, but not for long. Another problem is essentially turning the Fiero into a trailer queen, as the setup would be waay to tail happy to drive safely to whereever you're planning to drift. (Please, please say closed course..)

Something like a newer Pontiac GTO / Holden Monaro would be a much easier drift car.. The running joke is that they should have had windshield wipers on the side windows, as one is looking through those most of the time anyways..

-M