hello! I mostly lurk but this website got me into Fieros and has helped me countless times so I felt I should post something. I have been working on my build for about 3 years and its finally getting close. I have almost no money so I did everything myself so please be light on any criticism. I'm going to do this in chronological order because I can't think of anything better.

ECU/WIDEBAND
I bought these as kits and assembled them. You can also buy megasquirt completed for a bit more $$$. The Megasquirt I got from DIYAUTOTUNE and the wideband is a JAW kit. I have tested them both a decent amount and they seem to work well. For those that don't know, Megasquirt is a standalone ecu with free schematics and open source firmware and it's very flexible. The catch is you have to know what you're doing . JAW is a wideband kit that seems to be very accurate, is cheap, and can do datalogging/narrowband o2 simulating etc.... This was done years ago back when I wasn't so broke, but they were pretty cheap. 70 for the wideband with gauge + 50 for sensor and ~250 for the Megasquirt. This is the way to go if you don't want to mess with the stock ECU and want flexibility to do anything...and have no money. If my car runs you guys should hound me to write a DIY on how to megasquirt the 3800 and what options to install during assembly and stuff. If I would have had a guide it could be many times easier. I had to learn more than I would ever want to about how to wire the thing. anyways....pictures



PERIOD OF SADNESS
for a few years I sat and did nothing which I really regret. I did have a flywheel machined so I could use the original transmission and I bought a motor and let it sit in the backyard. the flywheel was from a V6 camaro and the motor a 97 Grand Pric GTP.





ME VS RUST
this year I finally got working. First I pulled the stock motor that had a spun rod bearing, then I found a decent amount of rust. I decided to rust-proof the back the of the car and learned much about removing rust that I shall share.

• You need an angle grinder with a metal grinding wheel on it. Nothing else will work if you don't want to spend (literally) a hundred hours to do half of it like I did. Get a smaller one so you can one-hand it and reach tight places. Air powered is nice but they use A LOT of air. I would guess about a 7 hp compressor at least for the constant use you would need. Better off going to harbor freight. I have 2 of their grinders and not a problem yet even after they sucked in gallons of rust clouds. 20 bux will buy you one.
  
• You also NEED good dust masks and chemical goggles (the kind closed all around). I made the mistake of using regular safety glasses one of the days and had to have many pieces of metal removed from my eyes.
  
• You need a mig welder. tig would be better but who has money for that. Get some free sheet metal from a local welding place recycle bin. Harbor freight sells 120 amp migs for 250 bux, I have used mine a lot and no problems.
  
• do not fall for POR15, Rust Bullet and other marketing garbage. I don't care what you think so don't post rebuttals. ALL URETHANE IS MOISTURE CURE. THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT THESE PRODUCTS. PAINTING OVER RUST IS ALWAYS A HORRIBLE IDEA. The better solution is car paint, more exactly chassis paint. Buy something catalyst cured (2K) they are much stronger and more resistant to everything and dry faster. Paint over clean metal or in-tact paint and use bare metal primer. True 2k epoxy primer (not spray can stuff) crosslinks and in doing so seals the surface and sticks better than everything else. Epoxy is also heat resistant and resists pretty much any chemical. It IS vulnerable to UV damage which is why you want to coat it with some 2K urethane chassis paint. Urethane is used as a top coat because it is more flexible and much more UV resistant and the stuff marketed as "chassis paint" is also heat resistant. Before doing any of this make sure to sand the whole area down with 220 or rougher paper. Make sure to watch the coating time windows, follow directions and the paint will never peel. Car paint is used on cars because it has to last 20+ years of UV, abrasion, temperature swings, impacts, chemicals....its the only thing I would use on a car you care about.
  

THINGS NOT TO DO!!!

• hand-sand paper. it is uselessly slow and useless
  
• "rust remover" liquids. they leave acid behind and don't work worth anything on rust thicker than you can scrape off with a fingernail. navel jelly works but only if the rust is very thin. navel jelly is slow but does work if you really don't want to mess something up with a grinder. good for small machine parts that's about it. The liquids have too little phosphoric acid they don't work at all.
  
• use some gimmick rust product...see above. You will have worse durability and pay a lot more. Might not turn out bad but still a lose-lose
  
• paint over rust. Worst idea ever for so many reasons. Rust is porous,weak,brittle...and you will not see holes in frames until you've grinded through all the rust...trust me.
  
• decide not to wear gloves. I dropped the grinder once and it went about 1/4 inch into concrete in 1/10 a second. think of it as a knife so sharp that touching it will instantly cut you, because it will.
  

PICTURES!!!!
START!








PATCHES





DONE GRINDING









PAINTING








CRADLE
much of the same from previous section except rust was harder to reach mostly. more pics. got engine from outside...




FABBING MOUNTS
What you don't hear about engine swaps are the little details. If you use a stock fiero trans several strange things happen. The 3800SC main engine mount location seems to match the stock fiero mount until you drop the engine onto the frame and realize its the same but half a foot to the left and 3 inches back. I cut up the stock fiero and 3800 mounts and welded them together. I gave up on mounting the 3800 mount to both sides of the engine like it originally was but it still has 3 big bolts holding it so i'm not concerned. I don't have pictures because my phone broke but it was pretty easy. Just hold engine level on crane, cut the 2 mounts in half, and weld them together in the middle. Once that mount is done, you suddenly realize the stock 3800 dogbones ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ENGINE. Thats when things get hairy. I had to fabricate a semi intricate mount that starts about 3/4 way down on the motor (from where PS pump used to be) and will connect to the dogbone from a big metal bar. There are several ways around my path but they mostly involve moving the 3800 alternator and cutting the heater core hose mounting thingy to fit a custom bracket on. All I needed to know were all these ways were $$$$ and all I had was some metal I got for free. Not using a dogbone seemed like a very bad idea because the fiero main motor mount I had to use has like -5 lateral support. I fabbed the mount using luck and eyeballing everything and it somehow worked. I used the 2 bolts from the PS pump and 3 other random threaded holes I found that were close by. I don't know if the mount I made will even fit in the engine bay but i'm gambling on it because it was free.. Later I realized to properly fit a belt with the alternator I had, I would need an idler there where the pump used to be. more on that in later section.








EXHAUST
next up was a new exhaust. the old one is useless, the new engine has headers that don't even come out on the same side. There are actually 2 attempts I made, I will show pics of both just know that one failed miserably. The first(failed) attempt was to try to use the original muffler with new inlets. This failed because I didn't realize I had about 2mm between the header exit and the trunk. It also looked like poo. The second attempt looks like it will fit but i'm not for sure yet of course. The flange is home made out of a welded together piece of 1" by 1/4" thick bar. Make sure to use 45 degree joints if your welder is not 50000 amps. I made the hole in the flange with an angle grinder. It was like watching those guys make ice sculptures with a chain saw. Please do not attempt to fabricate flanges, buy them for $5 off ebay. The piping I needed I got from a Midas's trash, and the thing that looks like a cool style muffler with a center entry pipe is a resonator I also got from their trash. I cut the middle open so each pipe gets half a muffler and I have almost true dual . By this stage of the project (this year) I am completely broke and can't really pay for anything, if you haven't noticed.










PULLEYS
so I thought this part would be easy but it turned out to be expensive and annoying. I had to buy belts of course, but problems came quickly as soon as that happened. I got the belts, stock supercharger belt and a belt from a 97 ford explorer 4.0 OHV (was interchangable with gatorback belt number someone gave me last week when I asked about belts). I realized the junkyard I got my motor from yoinked one of my superchargers idlers and the hard to find idler bolt that I had to buy at a dealership. Then the super belt went on okay. The serpintine belt was not to be. I quickly figured out that there was no way the belt would work without an idler where the PS pump used to because the alternator I got from the junkyard was a newer year than the motor (style changed ~98) and mounted lower, running into the tensioner. What I did then was a desperate action and I am ashamed but if it works you will be the only ones to ever know. I bought an extra idler, walked around the parts store jamming anything circular into it, and found a deep socket that fit perfectly through the middle. I bought the socket and 2 very large nuts. Then I went home and welded a stud (well, a cut off bolt) into the middle of the socket, welded one of the nuts just in back of the idler and put a big washer between the other big nut and the stud. So it looked like this: deep part of socket->WELDED NUT->pulley->NUT->BIG WASHER->welded stud with nut on it. The concept looked sound. Then I hung the new idler on the belt and held the tensioner down(with a wrench) with one hand, and welded it to a good place on the custom dogbone bracket I made with the other hand. I let everything go and all seems good. We will see....







WIRING AND MISC
this is what im finishing up right now. No pics because nothing is interesting looking. Just a complete rats nest. Trying to join C203 fiero ICM harness, C500 fiero engine harness, stock 3800 engine harness, and megasquirt harness together. A complete nightmare but almost done. Maybe ill write a book on it later. Some tips though at least.... The stock 3800 supercharger has a boost bypass solenoid THAT PASSES BOOST WHEN OFF. if you are doing a custom ECM you need to remove it completely or connect it to an IGN+ wire (whats the point) or you will never build boost. From reading the factory service manual this solenoid only functions under stupid conditions anyways like when the car is in reverse or "high boost conditions" or limp home mode. The factory boost bypass valve will function fine without it to allow air to bypass supercharger during vacuum. Completely unrelated wiring tips: heat shrink crimps are awesome, spiral wrap is so good its necessary, and large gauge wire should be soldered together or soldered and crimped NOT JUST CRIMPED. This is especially true of the alternator + wire, which is usually the only unfused wire on the car. If this wire shorts out, everything burns down.
wish me luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm putting in the engine tomorrow, if all goes well it will fire up. Im banking on a lot of unknowns. Check it out...
do all the outputs on the ecu work?
is everything wired right?
will using a gas can as a fuel tank work?
is the stock ICM wired right? (this system (Buick 3CI) has only been done hypothetically)
is my junkyard motor even good?
is my custom flywheel machined properly?
will my custom mounts and exhaust even fit in the car?
I've wanted this for around 7 years. tomorrow will be the best or worst day of my life.

Thank you for sharing this! I'm sure you are going to win in the end, and on behalf of many of us, thanks for fighting this fight!

Great write-up, ingenuity at work! Best of luck tomorrow.

Dick

quote if you are doing a custom ECM you need to remove it completely or connect it to an IGN+ wire (whats the point) or you will never build boost. From reading the factory service manual this solenoid only functions under stupid conditions anyways like when the car is in reverse or "high boost conditions" or limp home mode

While correct about the solenoid's function, you can also COMPLETELY remove the boost bypass actuator as well. What you do is take the actuator off of the supercharger, then flip the BBV over 180* so that the lever is pointing towards the throttle body. Now what you do is you thread a longer screw into the BBV actuator mount hole and it will stick the BBV closed and from what Lloyde from Fast Fieros (www.fastfieros.com) says, it will actually seal better this way too.

Here's an article on it.

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[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-23-2009).]

Removing the bbv is a performance decreaser, not increaser... It is there from the factory for a reason.

Removing the BBV will have its disadvantages, but they will be minimal. Removal of the BBV is a very controversial subject and we'll leave the controversy to threads of the past . Removing its function will decrease fuel economy. It is primarily there for fuel economy reasons and to decrease noise.

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[This message has been edited by JamesCurtis (edited 08-23-2009).]

quote Originally posted by JamesCurtis: Removing the BBV will have its disadvantages....

...but no advantages! Just don't do it.

So you're crimping together most of your wiring harness?? You can run the BBV off purely vacuum since you'll have the MS rather than the GM pcm. Why are you using a gas can and not the factory fuel system? I've done some really hack stuff in the past, but some of this sounds unsafe....

So, hows it going? im really eager to see how this works out for you.

where are you getting the MegaSquirt support? any forum or site in particular?

quote I've wanted this for around 7 years. tomorrow will be the best or worst day of my life.

Due to lack of updates... I am going to guess the latter...