You guys are an active group! I'll try and answer a few here....
| | | quote | Originally posted by PURPLE REIGN:
Stiil a sharp car !
and 300 crank HP is rather easy to obtain, although a little hint - those WCF headers dont flow any better than stock manifolds. That has already been proven.
What I'm wondering is what 4 piston calipers from a Mazda fit on there & how. And what kind of " custom " or " tubular " suspension parts did you find for an 88 ???
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Calipers are from a Turbo RX-7. They're a fixed (non-sliding) 4 pot caliper. I CNC milled custom adaptation brackets, did a bit of milling on the calipers themselves, and welded 3AN fittings to the inlets to allow for stainless lines to be used. Rotors are off the rear of a Firebird (11.5"). I turned pilot rings on a lathe to center the rotors and re-drilled them to the correct bolt pattern. Bias portion of the prop valve was eliminated (keeping the safety shut-off plunger intact) and a Wilwood cockpit adjustable brake bias knob installed. A must for the road course! I machined the end off of the booster pushrod to and inserted a ball tipped screw to make its length adjustable, to eliminate lost pedal travel. Finally an upsized master cylinder was installed from an S-10 Blazer to get the hydraulic ratios back in the right ballpark. Install Hawk racing brake pads and enjoy fade-free stops at over 1g on good street tires! Go ahead and claim BS.... I have data.... tons of it
Suspension uses a WCF's shortened adjustable Koni road race struts... I believe they are actually shortened versions of front Grand Prix struts, front shocks are QA-1 adjustables, on Held Motorsports tubular arms. Significant importance was placed on pitch balance, particularly with the high ride frequencies associated with high rate springs, and the lowered chassis. Rear ride frequency is at about 2.15 Hz (For reference: Grandma's Cutlass Supreme would be around 1Hz, an average family sedan around 1.5, and sportier cars approaching 2 Hz) and the front lags the rear by about 10% to keep the chassis from porpoising over bumps (rear hits bumps after the front and needs to catch up). I also placed importance on keeping the roll center vertical height migration on par with wheel travels. Otherwise the lateral load transfer rates tend to increase exponentially with high g cornering, making the car unstable. This is controlled by the non-parallel alignment of the upper and lower control arms.
| | | quote | Originally posted by FieroBobo:
Hey there. Nice car, very nice car. The on-board data aquisition system sounds really interesting, (and a little over the top), compared to what most folks around this forum run.
I'm wondering if you have measured any lateral acceleration numbers that you could share with us. Most folks seem captivated by straight line acceleration, but I'm much more interested in the lateral acceleration that you generate as you go around a curve or a corner. I'd be interested in seeing how many Gs a well setup Fiero can generate on a road track.
P.S. If you say you've got 300 hp, I'm willing to believe you. I have no reason to doubt you honesty or truthfulness. 
Good luck with the sale.
~ Bob
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This car repeatedly peaks at approximately 1.2g lateral acceleration on good street tires and can maintain 1.1g. With the stock suspension and the same tires on the same track this car originally peaked at 0.95 and could maintain about 0.9g. That's about a 25% improvement in cornering capacity! For reference, I have taken data on a stock SVT Contour which pulled about 0.85g on a skid pad. Thanks for believing in me Bob! You're OK in my book
| | | quote | Originally posted by Matt Hawkins:
I know Dan is a stand up guy. I worked with him when he was at Ford. I would have no reservations buying this car.
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Thanks a ton for the nice words, Matt. Did you ever see this car first hand when I used to drive it to the proving grounds? I can't remember for sure. And to Purple Reign... Matt's ride is one of the many that would easily take mine to the cleaners.
Matt and I used to try to make each other sick spinning out cars at Ford's Proving Grounds.
| | | quote | Originally posted by JazzMan:
Dan, do you have more detailed specs and links on that data acquisition system?
JazzMan |
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Absolutely... check out:
www.race-technology.com This car uses a DL-1. It's really trick piece, and has a pretty sweet analysis package along with it.
| | | quote | Originally posted by PePe-LePu_For_2:
Very sweet GT!
Those of us that are contemplating electric conversions would dearly like to know how much HP is required to maintain 65 mph on a straight and flat highway. I don't suppose you have ever recorded that number?
Thanks,
Marty |
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No, but I did calculate and plot aerodynamic drag and tire rolling resistance to use as correction factors in my data acquisition. So lets see....
I come up with 162.5 lbs of aero drag at 65mph for a Fiero, and 29.4 lbs of tire rolling resistance for a total of 191.9 lbs.
Force (due to aero drag) = -1/2*(air density)*(velocity)^2*(frontal area)*(drag coefficient)
Force (due to rolling res) = (velocity)*(rolling resistance coefficient)*(weight)
Power = Force * Velocity
65mph = 5720 ft/min
So 191.9 lbs * (5720 ft/min) = 1097772 ft-lbs/min = 33.3 HP
Rolling resistance is a function of weight, so your battery packs will definitely up that number somewhat. Let's say 40 HP to be safe?
Hope that helps, Marty!
Thanks again to everyone else for all of the kind comments! I've learned a ton from talking to people with these similar interests and maybe some folks will pick up a few pointers (and a few "what not to do's") from my Fieroing experiences.
--Dan
