I am looking at a Fiero that has had a quad 4 "HO" engine swap. Was this engine any good? I have heard mixed reviews both on this forum, as well as another auto forum. If it was bad please explain the reasons why. I'm hoping someone on here has owned and or driven one of this swapped Fieros.

dont know alot about these motors but i think they were a bit known for heads warping. im sure somebody will be able to give more/better info but thats what i recall. decent power for a small/light engine.

https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/123416.html

if I were to do a 4 cyl swap, it would be a Q4.

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quote Originally posted by ericjon262: Keep in mind, Fieros are known for catching on fire too...

i guess i was refering to that thread when i said i thought they were known for head problems. if i remember he when though 2-3 heads before he got a good one.

I'm going to do some more research before I buy anything. Thanks for posting the link, its very I formative.

quote Originally posted by kev63rod: i guess i was refering to that thread when i said i thought they were known for head problems. if i remember he when though 2-3 heads before he got a good one.

I worked as a tech for Buick in the 90's and we did see some head gasket issues with the Quad4 engine as well as a few cracked heads. IIRC, they cracked between the valve seats. Most head gasket problems were cracks that would show up as a coolant leak, usually in the rear. A few came in hydraulically locked with cylinders full of coolant. Personally, I never much cared for the engine, they were a pain to work on, they were noisy, and had too many maintenance/quality issues.

Quad 4 is one of gm's biggest disasters. I had the clyinder head warp twice. Many shops would not guarantee the repair. The cam support is sadly under strength. It carcked.
One of the main bearings burned and i had to sell the car for salvage. 92 achieva. I later learned they had failure at the proving grounds but did not fix the engine problems.

Dang there because that fiero near me is amazing looking, it just has the quad 4 engine... Was the HO version any better or any worse?

quote Originally posted by seajai: I worked as a tech for Buick in the 90's and we did see some head gasket issues with the Quad4 engine as well as a few cracked heads. IIRC, they cracked between the valve seats. Most head gasket problems were cracks that would show up as a coolant leak, usually in the rear. A few came in hydraulically locked with cylinders full of coolant. Personally, I never much cared for the engine, they were a pain to work on, they were noisy, and had too many maintenance/quality issues.

Seriously take the time and read through the entire thread that the link that was posted above takes you to. the poster really took the time to put together the engine with the least problematic parts, with the most performance oriented parts. If the engine was built with these parts from the factory, the problems that the engine saw in the general public would have been much fewer and far between.

However, what seajai said is fact. They did eat headgaskets, and the HO/LO (P/N XXXXX086) heads crack between the valve seats. Again, I must refer to the thread above, it does address what head you need to run for far less issues.

I theorize that people had headgasket issues because it had 10:1 compression, and the number of idiots who think 87 octane is fine on 10:1 is the reason the headgaskets blew.

I was the owner of the engine/swap in that thread, it used to be in my car. I don't really have any complaints about the engine. It was loud, brash, but it performed quite well, got great mileage and was a joy to drive.
This is that swap in my car.
http://www.streetfire.net/v...o1666-hp-6_17460.htm

quote Originally posted by Fierobsessed: Seriously take the time and read through the entire thread that the link that was posted above takes you to. the poster really took the time to put together the engine with the least problematic parts, with the most performance oriented parts. If the engine was built with these parts from the factory, the problems that the engine saw in the general public would have been much fewer and far between. However, what seajai said is fact. They did eat headgaskets, and the HO/LO (P/N XXXXX086) heads crack between the valve seats. Again, I must refer to the thread above, it does address what head you need to run for far less issues. I theorize that people had headgasket issues because it had 10:1 compression, and the number of idiots who think 87 octane is fine on 10:1 is the reason the headgaskets blew. I was the owner of the engine/swap in that thread, it used to be in my car. I don't really have any complaints about the engine. It was loud, brash, but it performed quite well, got great mileage and was a joy to drive. This is that swap in my car. http://www.streetfire.net/v...o1666-hp-6_17460.htm

166.6 HP @6800 RPM 144.5 TQ @5200 RPM

those are pretty decent numbers out of a N/a four banger!


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[This message has been edited by ericjon262 (edited 02-12-2013).]

I briefly had a 94 Beretta Z26 with the Quad 4 HO. It had 236,000 miles and still ran grreat, although I'm not sure if the engine was original.

I think most of the problems were in the early production years. Later production, and aftermarket rebuild parts, mostly took care of the issues with heads warping and gaskets blowing. the Quad 4 was a pretty highly engineered engine for its time. It's high revving character should be a lot of fun in a Fiero.

Also note that the most problematic engine of the Quad family, the Quad OHC (or single overhead cam version of the Quad 4) was a complete disaster from a durability standpoint. The DOHC versions were better.

There were several versions of the Quad 4, each progressively better than the last. If I recall, the original problem was in trying to put out too many CC's for a 4 banger without proper counterbalancing. Google search the Aerotech Quad 4 and get an eye opener. There was both a single and twin turbo version. One of them, driven by AJ Foyt, set the closed course lap record of over 257 MPH. 900 HP, so potential certainly is an option. A later version in decent shape wouldn't scare me off.

[This message has been edited by weaselbeak (edited 02-12-2013).]

If you decide not to buy it, please point me in the direction of the car. I have been giving sincere thought to a Quad 4 daily driver Fiero for a while now. I had an 88 Grand Am with and HO Quad, and I loved it! Had the head problems, but swapped it for the later casting and ran it for 80k miles with no more issues. The bottom end had 150k plus on it. I really wish I hadn't junked it for rust issues without sticking that Quad under my workbench.

If I get it, I'm sure I will make a thread. ianT720 is going to post some pics for me because my computer is useless.

quote Originally posted by Greggles: If you decide not to buy it, please point me in the direction of the car. I have been giving sincere thought to a Quad 4 daily driver Fiero for a while now. I had an 88 Grand Am with and HO Quad, and I loved it! Had the head problems, but swapped it for the later casting and ran it for 80k miles with no more issues. The bottom end had 150k plus on it. I really wish I hadn't junked it for rust issues without sticking that Quad under my workbench.

I had a 91 Grand am with the quad in it, I loved it, great performance for a 4 cyl, as strong as many V6s. I have heard people say head gaskets go on them, but I think the problem is kids redlining the rpms. Mine was fine, I only had it a few years but it had 140k on it.

I had two 1997 Grand Ams with the 2.4 TwinCam which was the newer version of the Quad-4. Only difference was .1 more displacement, and a balancing shaft that was used to smooth out the motor. I loved that motor... got about 30mpg on my ~3,000lb Grand Am sedans... I can imagine that something like that would run really nice in a Fiero.

Did you ever have any reliability issues?

quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: I had two 1997 Grand Ams with the 2.4 TwinCam which was the newer version of the Quad-4. Only difference was .1 more displacement, and a balancing shaft that was used to smooth out the motor. I loved that motor... got about 30mpg on my ~3,000lb Grand Am sedans... I can imagine that something like that would run really nice in a Fiero.

quote Originally posted by the_bandit: Did you ever have any reliability issues?

The motors were both awesome...

But both of them had waterpump failures. The waterpump is driven by the timing chain which resulted in about $700-800 worth in repairs. It wasn't something I felt comfortable doing in my driveway at the time since it was my daily driver, and required me to remove the timing chain. Aside from that... I really loved those motors. I'm not totally sure if the waterpump on yours is driven by the timing chain. The one good thing though, is that it'll basically never overheat since the waterpump (other than catestrophic failure) will always be running. For me, it just started to leak as a result of the gasket getting older.

I'm not sure if you necessarily want a full Quad-4 HO, or if you're interested in going with the 2.4 TwinCam LD9 motor... but the 2.4 TwinCam can be driven by the OBD1 components that also drive the Quad-4. I don't remember EXACTLY... but there's something by the people who love this more (at Quad4Forums.com) that have something they call the "Secret Cam Swap" hahah... for lack of a better word. Basically, it's something like where you take the exhaust cam from a 1992 Quad-4 and an intake cam from a 1995 Quad-4 and then put those on the 2.4 TwinCam, and you basically get slightly more power than the 2.3 Quad-4 HO, but with more torque and better fuel economy. But don't quote me on those years, because I might be off... I'd have to look it up again. I was considering it as a swap option for my car way back in the day.

Wow that's awesome! I'll look more into it... Thank you for all of the information!

quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: The motors were both awesome... But both of them had waterpump failures. The waterpump is driven by the timing chain which resulted in about $700-800 worth in repairs. It wasn't something I felt comfortable doing in my driveway at the time since it was my daily driver, and required me to remove the timing chain. Aside from that... I really loved those motors. I'm not totally sure if the waterpump on yours is driven by the timing chain. The one good thing though, is that it'll basically never overheat since the waterpump (other than catestrophic failure) will always be running. For me, it just started to leak as a result of the gasket getting older. I'm not sure if you necessarily want a full Quad-4 HO, or if you're interested in going with the 2.4 TwinCam LD9 motor... but the 2.4 TwinCam can be driven by the OBD1 components that also drive the Quad-4. I don't remember EXACTLY... but there's something by the people who love this more (at Quad4Forums.com) that have something they call the "Secret Cam Swap" hahah... for lack of a better word. Basically, it's something like where you take the exhaust cam from a 1992 Quad-4 and an intake cam from a 1995 Quad-4 and then put those on the 2.4 TwinCam, and you basically get slightly more power than the 2.3 Quad-4 HO, but with more torque and better fuel economy. But don't quote me on those years, because I might be off... I'd have to look it up again. I was considering it as a swap option for my car way back in the day.

quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: I had two 1997 Grand Ams with the 2.4 TwinCam which was the newer version of the Quad-4. Only difference was .1 more displacement, and a balancing shaft that was used to smooth out the motor. I loved that motor... got about 30mpg on my ~3,000lb Grand Am sedans... I can imagine that something like that would run really nice in a Fiero.

The 1996 Z24 Cavaliers had that in it. I had two of those, liked that engine too.
I raced my brother in his 3400 V6 powered 99 Grand Am and the Cavalier was faster off the line.

[This message has been edited by 2.5 (edited 02-14-2013).]

Ok just my 2 cents and i don't even know if its possible? But for me if i was doing a 4cyl swap my first choice would be putting a saturn twin cam 1.9l in there. From about 95 on up. Those engines were and are still bullitproof with the majority going 200,000 miles plus.

Just my thoughts... Now you can throw rocks

Saturn the fiero's grandson! and yep GM killed them too!

The fiero already has the quad 4 which is why I've been doing so much research on it... But I'd I end up getting it, and the motor blows, I'll look into it!

quote Originally posted by n3srj: Ok just my 2 cents and i don't even know if its possible? But for me if i was doing a 4cyl swap my first choice would be putting a saturn twin cam 1.9l in there. From about 95 on up. Those engines were and are still bullitproof with the majority going 200,000 miles plus. Just my thoughts... Now you can throw rocks Saturn the fiero's grandson! and yep GM killed them too!

"Ok just my 2 cents and i don't even know if its possible? But for me if i was doing a 4cyl swap my first choice would be putting a saturn twin cam 1.9l in there. From about 95 on up. Those engines were and are still bullitproof with the majority going 200,000 miles plus. "

I have a dead one sitting in Ft. Madison, Iowa with way under 200K on it, if anyone's interested. There is a small problem with a rod somewhat out of place.....

[This message has been edited by weaselbeak (edited 02-14-2013).]

The fiero already has the quad 4 which is why I've been doing so much research on it... But I'd I end up getting it, and the motor blows, I'll look into it!

quote Originally posted by n3srj: Ok just my 2 cents and i don't even know if its possible? But for me if i was doing a 4cyl swap my first choice would be putting a saturn twin cam 1.9l in there. From about 95 on up. Those engines were and are still bullitproof with the majority going 200,000 miles plus. Just my thoughts... Now you can throw rocks Saturn the fiero's grandson! and yep GM killed them too!