I love it. GM had all the parts in their bin but never made one of these OEM? Amazing.
In reply to wvumtnbkr:
They are- I've still not figured out exactly what the heck they did there. The springs are a LOT shorter than stock, and don't have the pigtail that normal ones do. At a guess, they took a heavier spring and heated it up to make it drop.
Getting the struts/springs in the back worked out is my biggest challenge. When they fabricated the hubs for the rear, I'm pretty certain they moved the lower strut attach point (they apparently cut the attach point off the original Fiero hubs and welded it to the box surrounding the new ones) up by a few inches, so with a stuck strut & springs the wheels are pushed down (relative to the frame) by a similar amount.
They handled this by using the chain to hold the lower A-arm up closer to the frame, but at the same time restricted the throw of the strut to only and inch or two. If I had more time, I'd be either replacing the hubs with Fiero ones and moving the tie-rods to correct the bump steer issue inherent to pre-88 Fiero rears, but I don't- so I'm still working out how to best handle it. Worst case, the rear end will just sit a lot higher than I'd like...
Something I just remembered (from clearing out my eBay watched items )- the car will also come with the rest of the full polyurethane suspension bushing set. I bought the whole set that includes the front and rear control arm bushings as well as the sway arm and ball joint covers, but am only using (and counting in my budget) the sway bar bushings. But since they belong with the car, they're included in the sale price and go along with it.
I'll be getting back tomorrow and buckling down on getting it ready for the Challenge, and will post more pictures (and potentially video) as I get it closer to finished.
I emailed you and am shopping this around to everyone I know. Very much looking forward to seeing this at the Challenge.
I'd thought about doing something like this someday. My plan was to cut a section of the frame out of the donor, enough to hold the motor and suspension, and graft it into the Fiero. Box flares would certainly be needed.
The car is almost finished now- which it obviously has to be in order to leave on time for the Challenge this weekend. I added a picture of the new coilover rear springs and the new engine cover pins (the cover latch was removed when the swap was done so it just relied on the weight of the cover up until now...).
I was also able to find a place that could make up some touch-up paint that's the closest one-stage acrylic match to the copper/orange metallic on the car, and what remains of that after touching up the paint myself will be included with the sale of the car.
All that really remains now is finishing cleaning up and putting some of the interior back in, cleaning the car up in general, and hoping that GRM is forgiving of my being a bit late in getting my registration in- I was so focused on getting the car itself ready that I didn't get the registration done until Saturday...
So, GRM is reasonably tolerant of tardiness, and I'm officially entered now.
Since I've been loading up the car for the trip down, I'm bringing along all of the parts and accessories that I picked up for the car but didn't end up using- these are all included in the sale of the car (since by and large, I don't have a use for them otherwise...)
-Haynes/Chilton manuals for both the Fiero and the El Dorado
-'High Performance Fieros' Book
-spare stock Fiero front sway bar
-Front sway bar from GM X-body (the pre-88 Fiero uses the front end of a X-body in the rear...)
-Spare driver's side mirror, intake cover, behind-the-window trim pieces (both sides), and engine cover vents (both sides)
-The whole interior- including both seats (older GT-style seats, with the speakers in the headrests)- will be included excluding the carpets. They were rather dirty, and are too bulky to bring down easily when not installed in the car.
That's all I can remember from yesterday. I'm definitely hoping someone will take this off my hands after the Challenge and come back with it next year and beat me with it.
So, the car didn't quite perform as well as I would have liked, especially on the drags since I couldn't get the shifting sorted out, but I sold it on the way back home to a fellow GRMer- so hopefully we'll see it back again after a lot more sorting out than I had time for with it!
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