Hello PFF, Well as the subject states I am building / racing a 1985 Fiero GT / 2.8 Auto for endurance races at our local 2.17 mile road course. Let me first tell you that I am new to Fieros. Never been around them, road in one, or worked on one till now. I've been on the board for a few months reading as much as I could and learning more than my brain can retain. Well a little about what I am doing. The race we have is a 15 hr endurance race that was similar to the 24 hrs of Lemons races. We had to purchase a car and have it raceable for supposedly less than $500.00 (yeah right) excluding saftey items. Well a co-worker had this car avaialble. It had sit for 2 years b/c he said it wouldn't run. He thought the fuel pump was junk. I decided to buy it for $300.00 in June 2010 (our race was at the end of August). It wasn't in to bad of shape, was in a front end wreck that crumpled the left front bumper structure. But for what I was going to use it for it didn't matter as long as the suspension was hurt. The day before I went and picked it up the owner happend to check the distibutor and noticed the cap was cracked. Changed the cap and yep, started right up. Well we had already agreed on a price so he honored that price. So we went and picked it up and started pretty much gutting it trying to get it as light at possible. We put a roll cage in it and racing seat, did the grand am brake swap front and rear, master cylinder change, poly mounts and suspension bushings, added rear sway bar, aluminum cradle bushings, all new ball joints, new wheel studs, new fuel pump, shift kit in tranny, match ported exhaust manifolds, new 3 core aluminum radiator, on and on. We felt it was going to be a pretty good car for the race. We went and test drove it and everything worked great. Well then came the race and it ran great... not the fastest beings we were running against MR2's, Miata's, Cavaliers, Grand Prix's, etc, so of which obviously stretched the rules!!! LOL typical racers... Well after about 9 hrs running in the top half of the cars the engine blew a head gasket. Needless to say it ended our race. But dang it was fun while it lasted. Now we're amped up for next year. They have three 8 hr races scheduled and one 15 hr. Obvioulsy we want to be more competative. We've just completed the rear coilover conversion and waiting on the front to come. I've also researched all the swaps and have decided on the 3800sc swap. I found a car that had the swap completed (with some minor issues) w/ a 5 speed and just recently purcheased it. Just waiting for the car to get here. The plan right now is to fixed the issues with the swap then swap the motor into our car. This is where we are now. Im sure I'll have questions for you all to help me out with but just wanted to introduce myself. Any suggestions or comments are welcomed!!! I'd post pics if someone can tell me how to do that...

Thanks...

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WInning Isn't Everything, Wanting Too Is...

[This message has been edited by Fiero Racer 64 (edited 01-20-2011).]

Post pictures, please. There is an individual in the Washington/Oregon area doing this with a 4-spd 86 GT. Naturally I've forgotten who it is but it does look interesting. Good luck this year and keep us up on the news.

Oh yeah, let me be the first to welcome you to the madness.

[This message has been edited by J-Holland (edited 01-20-2011).]

Welcome to the Forum!

Sounds like you are doing the Chumpcar races?
http://chumpcar.com/index.php

Here's the link to the other PFF memeber:
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/083726.html

Welcome from a fellow Nebraskan! For pictures, go to the bottom of this page, and click on the blue "Pennock's Image Poster" button, then follow the directions. If you're interested in the Lemons races, there will be one in Glenwood, IA, just south of Omaha, in August. As others have posted, there is a guy here on the forum that's building a "Chumpcar" Fiero. There is also a former member here who races a Toyota Supra in the Lemons races. There's also a forum member here who lives in your general area....watch for Xerces_Blackthorne, he goes to school in Hastings. We are having a meeting of our local Fiero club on the 30th of January at Quaker Steak and Lube in Council Bluffs, IA, just off I-80 and I-29, if you're interested.

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86 GT 4 Speed
"Sucks to be me..."

quote Originally posted by BlackThunderGT: Welcome to the Forum! Sounds like you are doing the Chumpcar races? http://chumpcar.com/index.php Here's the link to the other PFF memeber: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/083726.html

Soon to be a third (me ). I've gotten enough local interest that I'm moving forward on it. Just have to retrieve the project car from my parent's place and bring it to my garage.

Actually, you can do it for $500. There are a number of tricks like buying a parts cart, taking what you want and then selling the rest. You keep track of what you paid for the donor and the amount you made by selling the parts and the difference is the cost of what ever you used. There used to be a magazine..."Grass Roots Racing". I don't know if it is still in print. They used to have an event every year and the year I found out about it, the limit was $2006. This was in 2006 and you would not believe some of the cars that were being raced. If memory serves, they had compete in a 1/4 mile event, a slalom and I think a road course. It was interesting.

[This message has been edited by J-Holland (edited 01-20-2011).]

Thanks everyone for your replies... Thats great there are others doing this!!! I'm in the process of trying to get pictures posted but had to email support because of "Issues"...LOL I'll get them on as soon as I am able.

Anyway I just found out that the track is going to let NASA run the endurance races this coming year. Not really sure how that affects us. Need to do some reading on their rules. Sounds like there will be classes now instead of everyone running in the same class. It also looks like you have to be a member of NASA and I would assume the $500 limit is out the window...Anyone familiar with them or their enduro's.

Here is the link to the website and rules...

http://www.racemph.com/

http://www.racemph.com/15Hours.htm


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WInning Isn't Everything, Wanting Too Is...

[This message has been edited by Fiero Racer 64 (edited 01-20-2011).]

Way cool! I love Fieros, and I love cheap-car racing, so I found the combination to be excellent. A couple people have mentioned my build thread, and I did see it was linked in a previous post.

Cooling system issues were our main problems, even though the car never overheated on it's own. We had random leaks, that would drain the coolant, and then it would run warm from that. As long as we kept the water in it, it actually ran a bit cooler than we would like. After all the hoses had been replaced, clamps tightened, and a good thermostat cap installed, the thing ran like a champ.

You said you were trying to get pictures up, so I'll be patient for that... I'd love to see what you guys put together.

quote Originally posted by litespd: Welcome from a fellow Nebraskan! For pictures, go to the bottom of this page, and click on the blue "Pennock's Image Poster" button, then follow the directions. If you're interested in the Lemons races, there will be one in Glenwood, IA, just south of Omaha, in August. As others have posted, there is a guy here on the forum that's building a "Chumpcar" Fiero. There is also a former member here who races a Toyota Supra in the Lemons races. There's also a forum member here who lives in your general area....watch for Xerces_Blackthorne, he goes to school in Hastings. We are having a meeting of our local Fiero club on the 30th of January at Quaker Steak and Lube in Council Bluffs, IA, just off I-80 and I-29, if you're interested.

awesome! i have a 86 with a 3100 swap in the process, im in se iowa right now! hope to have it done in about a week!

why are you swapping the 3800 from the newly purchased car and now just fixing the minor issues and using that one? just cursit it seems a little simpler

This should be lots of fun to watch! Welcome to the forum and the madness.

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Paul

My IMSA Build: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/789315
HHP Adjustable Sway Bars: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum4/HTML/036556.html

quote Originally posted by Sigler85GT: why are you swapping the 3800 from the newly purchased car and now just fixing the minor issues and using that one? just cursit it seems a little simpler

We haven't decided for sure we're going to do this but with all the time and effort put in to get the car we have race ready was pretty much 3 months of tons of hours. Our thinking is if we can drop the engine and swap them it would be less work. Obviously it'll still be a tremendous amount beings we're also changing from a Auto to manual. But the custom cage was alot of work and its welded in not bolted. When I get the pics up you'll be able to see the amount of work we did. We're hoping also to be able to put the 2.8 in the new car and resell it to get some cash back beings its a nicer car. But once we get the new car here we'll make that decision after looking over our options.

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WInning Isn't Everything, Wanting Too Is...

quote Originally posted by Fiero Racer 64: RRunner, I like your adjustable sway bars... May have to talk with you once we get this thing going...

I've got a set. Paul's a good guy with a top notch product.

As for getting pics working, look here:
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/078788.html
Or, upload them here (which I find to be easier):
http://www.myfiero.com/imagehost.php

quote Originally posted by Fiero Racer 64: Thanks everyone for your replies... Thats great there are others doing this!!! I'm in the process of trying to get pictures posted but had to email support because of "Issues"...LOL I'll get them on as soon as I am able. Anyway I just found out that the track is going to let NASA run the endurance races this coming year. Not really sure how that affects us. Need to do some reading on their rules. Sounds like there will be classes now instead of everyone running in the same class. It also looks like you have to be a member of NASA and I would assume the $500 limit is out the window...Anyone familiar with them or their enduro's. Here is the link to the website and rules... http://www.racemph.com/ http://www.racemph.com/15Hours.htm

NASA's rules are a little more on the competition/safety side than anything else. What I like about NASA is that every car regardless of the modifications falls in a class. Every mod has an amount of points and each car meets a certain amount of points before it moves up in class, this class is called Performance Touring. I'm building my Fiero for their time trial (TT) class and this year my goal is to attend at least two HPDE events. I'm currently in HPDE 2 but you have to be in HPDE 4 to compete in TT. By climbing the latter I'm building my car, testing it and developing it in the HPDE program and at the same time getting my seat time to be eligible to be in TT.

Good luck to you and congratulation on your street legal go kart.

OP, I'm in Kearney and I drive into Hastings every day for class at CCC during the week. If you need any help, feel free to PM me and I'll give ya my cell number.

-XB

Wow, I didn't even know that this existed in Hastings. Thanks for the info and I look forward to the build. If you're ever driving through North Platte make sure to let me know and I can show you my supercharged 3.8 swap . I might be entering that race in the next few years if I can get my spare 87 coupe built up.

Ok here we go... I think I've go this figured out... I hope anyway...LOL

Here is the car when I went and looked at it... It hadn't moved in 2 years...




Here we just picked it up and were headed to its new home!!!
Little did she know the make-over she was about to get!!!


More pics... (Plug your noses, it was one rank smelling interior!!!)
I was a little worried what the floor boards would look like when i pulled the carpet up..






Nose damage, nice patch job... just cover it with bra!!! :-)


OUCH!!! Little did we know at this time how bad it really was!!!!


Clearcoat peeling in alot of areas, but for what we were doing with it, its fine... It was a $300.00 car...


Here is a picture of the engine bay before we started... Nasty!!!!




How it ever ran with the distributor that rusty and wore out I'll never know...


Fiero's new light weight battery box...


Cracked exhaust manifold... (who needs all that power coming from that 2.8 anyway!!!)


Tear down begins with dad and a buddy!!! (the fun part!!!)...


Dad going crazy with the air-hammers, cutoff wheels, and sawzalls...LOL
(Watch out for flying sparks, steel, or whatever might be flying around!!!)


She's naked!!!! (Sorry for a few bad pics, taken with my camera phone)








We'll I think I'll stop there for tonight...

I'll start with build pics next chance I get!!! Enjoy, I know we did... :-)

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WInning Isn't Everything, Wanting Too Is...

I'm surprised the thread doesn't spontaneously ignite with those two words so close to each other in the title.

Ok, I'm back to post some more build pics... Dang work has been getting in the way...
Anyway here you go.. enjoy...

Here we dropped the fuel tank to put in the new bosch fuel pump... No major surprises here...



Obviously this car had been worked on by a shop that wasn't used to Fiero's...
Both tubes were kinked or flatted on both the front and the back. Luckily we were able to tack weld a nut to the crease and
use a torch to heat it up. We put a bolt in the nut and pulled it up once it was hot enough. Was a little nevous doing this, didn't want to blow a hole in it... Then used a ball peen hammer and finished getting it back to as close to round as we could get. Then ground off the nut and we were good to go...



Here we made some 1/4" plates to weld down to the floor for the rollcage to weld to. It also spreads out the surface area for the cage support. Even after cleaning and wiring brushing the floor, it was pain to weld to!!!







Like I had said in an earlier post, we put a shift kit in the stock tranny. Also was able to tighted up the bands with an adjustment.
It made a huge difference... Then ran Synthetic tranny fluid in it... No problems what so ever... Not as bad a job as we origionally though it would be.





Here is the 3 core aluminum radiator we put in it.. No major issues here. Did have to adjust the upper supprt a little to fit around the thicker tank...



We put on a rear sway bar that I got from Summit Racing... That was a pretty good chore!!



We moved the battery to the front spare tire compartment...





Now the Cage!! This was a full day chore.. then quit a few nights finishing it...
I come from a dirt track racing background a buddy of mine build dirt stockcars...
This came in very handy for bending up all the pipe. Then we welded it in. We used 1 1/2 DOM everywhere...















Once we looked closer at the front end damage we realized that to try and save anything was a wast of time. Plus we could get ride of a bunch of weight by removing all of it and making our own tubular bumper...





Bought a couple of Bride road racing seats off of ebay... Here we are mounting the driver seat...



We painted the roll cage and put our window net in and roll bar padding... This is the fun stuff.. You feel like you're getting somewhere...LOL





We did the Grand Am brake swap on all 4 corners plus the master cylinder.. Had good breaks but want to change the booster for next year also... But over all no complaints with the brakes...Sorry don't have more pics of this...



Here we did some finish aluminum tin work inside the car..





Here we pretty much have the interior finished up.. Mounted the fuse panel in our dash... easy to get to... (left bottom side of dash)





Beings we race at night I put in Hella 80/100 watt headlights plus 100 watt KC's... We ended up addin a third in the middle of those two... We could see just fine!!! We by far had the brightest headlights...LOL a few people didn't care for us following behind them.. :-)
Also put in a new windshield...



We got rid of the hinges front a rear and just used gold aluminum hood pins for the hood and trunk lids...



Now to the Engine... We did a ton to it...We didn't pull it out (didn't have time). Completly rebuilt the distibutor, fixed the exhaust manifolds, match ported them, wrapped them, new msd plug wires, plug wire boot protectors (in the dark you could see the spark jumping across, yes even with new wires, new msd coil (moved to trunk area), wired in a ford solenoid (in trunk area), new E4 plugs, new hoses, belts, bigger alternator, took off intake plenum and cleaned it out, all new senors, solid dog bone, poly mounts, basicly anything you could do to it without pulling it out... Ran great...









I got rid of the stock air induction parts under hte wheel well... as you can see we were playing in some grass whipping some donuts...LOL (kids will be kids...)



Then we just buffed and waxed it... and started lettering it... We were lucky enough to get quit a few businesses to sponsor us...(Always looking for more!!! wink wink) Then we drove it around town!!!! Lots of looks... LOL













New Tires for the Race!!!!



Had to put something dark on the dash... you couldn't see b/c it glared in the windshield... (Not good when you're racing)



Race Ready... LETS GO RACING!!!!







And the Team.... TEAM FIERO!!!



And Then The RACE...
Starting Grid...





Racing Action...











Coming in for our first pit stop and driver change... ( I was the first driver)






Also bought this 1985 Fiero GT 2.8/Auto from the same guy I bought the first one from.. $100.00 (Engine blown)



Just got some new wheels from Loyde...



Little clean-up...







Well thats it... On to next year... I'll try to keep it updated during our preporations for our next race...
Hopefully we'll have the 3800sc / 5 speed ready to kick some butt!!!

Hoped you enjoyed the pics...

Thanks
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WInning Isn't Everything, Wanting Too Is...

[This message has been edited by Fiero Racer 64 (edited 01-24-2011).]

I'm impressed. Be safe out there, man.

Those are great, thanks for sharing! How'd you do?

Way cool.

My first thought was "isn't it hard to get in and out with the upper door bar so tall?" Our car's is lower, and I still have a bad time getting in and out with my brain bucket on. I'm 6' and fat through.

After having spent the last year or so prepping and getting our car to our first race, I can appreciate the work that went into that. Looks like you had a lot of fun with it.

[This message has been edited by ManMadeChickens (edited 01-25-2011).]

quote Originally posted by kwagner: Those are great, thanks for sharing! How'd you do?

We started the race at 6:00pm (race ran till 9:00am). We ran most of the race in 5-7th place. With everyone making pit stops at different times its hard to tell exactly where you are. At 3:30 am we started to over heat without warning and found that a head gasket blew.. So our night was over... but dang was it fun while it lasted. In one of my pics you see our pit stall. We had our camper there and a utility trailer full of extra parts and tools. This was nice because all of our families came down and a bunch of friends and were able to sit with us for the race. If someone got tired they could rest for a while in the camper... plus we cooked out and just had a blast. Each driver drove for about 1 1/2 hrs each (dang small fuel tanks!!!) so we'd fill up and switch drivers. Driving hard for 1 1/2 hrs is pretty tiring, exspecially on the older guys (nothing against the older guys!!! :-) ) But if any of you ever have a chance to do something like this I would highly recommend it!!! Great time for everyone win or lose!!!

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WInning Isn't Everything, Wanting Too Is...

quote Originally posted by Fiero Racer 64: ... Getting in wasn't so much the issue, it was getting out... We found it easiest to climb out the sunroof...LOL

If you, or any driver, can't get out of that car in less than 15 seconds (preferably 10) with a helmet on, you have a BIG issue. Fire will overpower you in about that time.

My door bars are much lower and it can be a challenge if you have not practiced it many times.

Otherwise car looks pretty good.

I'm impressed!!!!

ChumpCar, where we race, requires a solid roof, so we don't have the choice of escaping out the top. We also kept the driver's side door beam, so we put the door bar a tad lower. If I can correctly remember off the top of my head, the centerline of the top door bar was something like 16" off the door sill for us. I'll have to pull out the sketched dimensions of our cage to remember correctly.

Check out Our Build Thread for a bunch of pics.

AWESOME!!!! Keep it up!!

Can you please post the curb weight for your Fiero? I am left wondering how much fat you were able to trim off. Thank you.

Our car ended up being 2505 with a cage and very minimal weight reduction. I've heard people get them as low as 2000 pounds. I'm interested to see what this one weighs.

No idea how I missed this, but damn that looks like a lot of fun!

Our car now weighs in at 2450 with 1/2 tank fuel and no driver. We did gut the bottom side of the hood and got rid of the headlight assemblies (for day racing). We're looking at getting much lighter wheels (if anyone has any or knows of what brand of wheel I should get please let me know. Looking for 16-17"/8" wide) which will help a bunch for unsprung weight and rotating weight. The grand am brakes calipers are also heavy, looking to change to something lighter there also. Im also changing to a 5 spd which should also save a bunch of weight. I'd love to get in the 2200 lbs range. We did race memorial weekend in a 6 hour enduro and finished 2nd (out of 8 cars in our class), to a MR2 unfortuantly. The 2.8 is just too wore out.. Tons of blow-by. Runs great though. I have a 3800sc ser III all done and waiting for tranny to get rebuilt with a torsen differential and gear change. Also wanting to get an aluminum flywheel to put with it. It may be a handful then...LOL

Good Luck to all the racers out there!!! Keep representing!!!!

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WInning Isn't Everything, Wanting Too Is...

quote Originally posted by ManMadeChickens: Our car ended up being 2505 with a cage and very minimal weight reduction. I've heard people get them as low as 2000 pounds. I'm interested to see what this one weighs.

The fastback part of yours is what is adding weight.

Fiero Racer 64, you will lose about 50lbs or more going to manual, it will so run much faster and not feel so sluggish.

We still have both complete doors with impact bars, and the "guts" for both the hood and deck lid, AND headlights, so 2505 vs. 2450 isn't too bad I guess.

[This message has been edited by ManMadeChickens (edited 07-08-2011).]