This 86 Fiero with a Murcielago body on it was purchased in New Jersey, The owner Dratts drove the car from there to North Idaho. He had to drive the car a 60 Mph on the highway due to over heating issues. The car had a 350 truck engine hooked to a Isuzu 5 speed transmission. Don watched my build of Dogcreek's LS4 and decided to have the same done to his ride.
The car was what I call a 20 footer (looked great from 20 feet). Being a "kit car" it was one of the 3 to 5 percent that make it to the road. However it was a slap together and sell it job.
Seems to be a problem with PIP today more later.
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II 88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)
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06:44 PM
PFF
System Bot
Fieroking Member
Posts: 2144 From: Coeur D Alene Idaho USA Registered: Jun 2002
Looks pretty good to me. What needs fixed can be done one thing at a time while you have fun driving it. Thats part of the fun of having a kitcar...you can actually drive and thrash on it. I know plenty of my customers with real exotics that are lucky to take them for a 20 mile drive 10 times a year...whats the point. I put 100K on my Ferrari kit in 7 years and loved the hell out of it. And that was when it was only one of 4-5 other cars I had that I drove too. I dont know what color that is, but looks close to the Corvette Atomic Orange I painted my Sebring. Its a low maintanence color...im picky about a dirty car and can get away with driving it a few weeks without washing, even if it rains. It dont show streaks, spots or dust like a lot of other colors.
On the overheating issue, check that lines are all routed correctly and ill guess radiator is prob layed back quite a bit from stock. My Diablo was that way. My 383 V8 Raptor didnt ever overheat and it had an auto and stock 4 cyl radiator. I used Archies belt drive water pump with no problems at all. I dont like electric water pumps and it may be part of your prob if it has one.
[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 12-30-2011).]
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07:05 PM
Fieroking Member
Posts: 2144 From: Coeur D Alene Idaho USA Registered: Jun 2002
The engine bay was a mess of wires and hoses, it took several visits by Soh before he would let me see the engine bay
from the rear of the car
As I started to disassemble the car I noticed that the engine was sitting 1 inch higher on the passenger side what I found out was they had used what looked like a Archie lit to install the 350 in the car and when they put the front mount on the engine they set it on top of the cradle and welded it in place
The weld job on the motor mount
The old engine removed
The car had stock suspension and brakes on it. With 3inch spacers on the front and 4 inch spacers on the rear.
Old rear suspension
This is the owner putting brake fluid in the clutch master cylinder.
This is the interior as it came to me.
The front bay with the radiator removed.
Enough of the old.
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II 88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)
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07:09 PM
rogergarrison Member
Posts: 49601 From: A Western Caribbean Island/ Columbus, Ohio Registered: Apr 99
Id cut out the center grill and put some mesh screen in it too. Cant imagine too much cool air gets in like it is and theres no ducting to direct it anywhere. I really cant believe they finished the car enough to drive it and didnt detail the engine bay before. Ive seen 30 year old farm trucks that were nicer.
It might just be the photo, but whats with the side window. It looks like it dont match up to windshield frame at all. Is the windshield glass or plex ? If its plexiglass, dont use the wipers on it, coat it good with Rain Ex instead. The wiper will wipe out the plastic one in no time at all. Ive had a lot of customs that I took off the wipers completely and just used Rain Ex. (it dont work with snow and ice though).
[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 12-30-2011).]
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07:21 PM
Fieroking Member
Posts: 2144 From: Coeur D Alene Idaho USA Registered: Jun 2002
Already looking much better. What ive seen a lot of lately at car shows is people using bedliner paint to do the rougher parts of the frame. Looks pretty good when its all done.
[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 12-30-2011).]
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07:27 PM
Fieroking Member
Posts: 2144 From: Coeur D Alene Idaho USA Registered: Jun 2002
Don started this project out as just a LS4 swap. However as we progressed things changed
We installed a Car Tuning Turbo kit for the Grand Prix GXP
The engine beauty covers are from LS3 Corvette that we will modify to say Pontiac LSx Turbo
From the passenger side
From the driver side
From the rear, all the wiring for the engine was fed through the rear firewall and mounted in the rear trunk. The linear actuator for the transmission shifter was also mounted in the trunk. All the shifting is done with 3 buttons on the center console and the tap shift buttons on the steering wheel.
To cool the engine i installed a radiator in the rear of the car and built duct work from the bat wings to the radiator.
The radiator
Installed. The fans are controlled by the ECM which turns on 1 fan and opens the bat wings and if more cooling is needed it turns on the second fan (so far only one fan has run).
The suspension was upgraded with Held tubular bump steer removal system in the back with a 4 inch stretch
The rear suspension
Installed
The front suspension is a Held Slalom unit which completely replaces the Fiero suspension. I also installed air bags on the front to lift the nose for speed bumps and curbs
The front suspension
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II 88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)
Wow. What an amazing bit of work you've done to it. More than impressed.
On this photograph from the original setup in the car....
.... what's going on with the left side of the trunk? It looks like a... battery terminal, with some loose wires. Was the battery back there? I don't see any safe place it could have been mounted, other than what appears to be a modified Fiero tray with a battery hold-down.
[This message has been edited by Fiero84Freak (edited 12-31-2011).]
I have posted a few pics of Dratt's car in the past. His rebody was not in the best condition when it arrived at Joe's. Dratts had a vision, and FieroKing went to work. I know that over the course of the build, and continueing today, they are constantly tweaking, improving on things. Justin (JP87) has done a lot to get the A pillars to the windshield looking right, and made the wheel wells, and a cool air bag delete steering wheel cover. FieroKing is really incredable at wiring, and makes for a nice looking engine bay. There are more pics, but here are a few to add...
I have ridden in Dratts' car, and just WHOA! Hit the gas, the V8 begins your journey, and then the damn thing spools up and, whooooooosh! You are sent off like an ICBM.
FieroKing is really great at swaps. He is meticulous, and detailed in his builds. The guy powder coats, and touches every inch of his builds. They are often class winners here in the Inland Northwest, and always welcome at events.
Tony
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11:49 AM
Tony Kania Member
Posts: 20794 From: The Inland Northwest Registered: Dec 2008
Wow. What an amazing bit of work you've done to it. More than impressed.
On this photograph from the original setup in the car....
.... what's going on with the left side of the trunk? It looks like a... battery terminal, with some loose wires. Was the battery back there? I don't see any safe place it could have been mounted, other than what appears to be a modified Fiero tray with a battery hold-down.
I believe the battery was back there. Joe had to do a lot (as you can see) to get this car going. It was a runner, but Dratts knew what he wanted, and Joe built it. I know that the battery is located very low in the front currently, just behind and below the steering rack. The only way to get it lower would have been to drag it on the ground.
Tony
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11:52 AM
rogergarrison Member
Posts: 49601 From: A Western Caribbean Island/ Columbus, Ohio Registered: Apr 99
As I said earlier I did install air bags in the front to lift the car.
This is how I mounted them
The in the engine bay shot of Don
Because of the turbo the exhaust is fairly short
After reworking the rear of the car I mounted the battery center line on the new front suspension cross member
And built a luggage compartment in the front of the car.
This has all been covered with black carpet
The interior center console with switches to select the transmission, open the front and rear trunks, nose lift, and windows (which is a future project)
Wiring, switches and the GXP steering column
The instrument cluster as I was building it. All the gauges are functional, I also installed a Aeroforce Interceptor gauge to show which gear the trans is in.
The interior
There are a lot of other things that I did to Don's car during the course of this build that I have not shown. If you have questions please contact me.
The only problem that we have had with this car is having the transmission hold together with this much power. We are currently waiting on a built transmission from Car Tuning that should solve are problems
This is one of 2 broken input shafts. After the first one failed I installed an Intense Racing 300M input shaft and a 7/8" chain. Don broke the second shaft after about 15 miles of driving ( we think it was a bad shaft)
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II 88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)
The instrument panel was built by me. Don purchase a overlay of the Murcie instrument panel. I made a plastic panel to fit and cut holes and mounted individual instruments in it. Then put the overlay on it.
This is the panel from the back.
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II 88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)
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06:27 PM
Fieroking Member
Posts: 2144 From: Coeur D Alene Idaho USA Registered: Jun 2002
So where are the actual physical instrument components from? Are they calibrated to the scales on the gauge faces? If so, how was the calibration done?
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07:05 PM
gtxbullet Member
Posts: 4164 From: Pewaukee, Wisconsin, USA Registered: Apr 2008
The tach 10K Rpm and speedo 240 Mph are VDO units.The other gauges are from Chevy Suburban if I remember correctly, the gauge movements have the same travel as the murciealgo. The top gauge is an Aero Force Interceptor programmable unit that displays OBD II data. We use it to show what gear the transmission is in and the boost level. Although it will show all the OBD II data that is available.
Joe Sokol
------------------ 85 SE Daily driver with a 3.4 DOHC OBD II 88 Formula/GT 4.9 Allante Intake (My Baby)
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09:54 PM
Jan 3rd, 2012
Fieroking Member
Posts: 2144 From: Coeur D Alene Idaho USA Registered: Jun 2002
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