1985 Fiero build

[ejs262]

Things are coming together a bit slower than I would prefer, but it's progress nontheless.

I welded the two up pipes, with the exception of the straight shot from the front up pipe to the merge, which I'm going to put a bellows in.



I fitted the wastegate, but in this position it was way too close to the space the intake plumbing would need.



I cut it back out, and did a couple of "pie cuts" to the weld els, to adjust the position of the gate a bit further away.



there's more clearance than the picture would lead you to believe, the silicone piece is actually the wrong size, it's a 4" piece, and the throttle really needs a 3.25", which will increase clearance in 2 planes. I may also fab up a small heat shield as well, not sure yet.





The I took a scrap piece of 3" exhaust pipe (not pictured) and held it up to the V Band on the turbo, and it clears the strut tower with a bit of room to spare.

[ejs262]

bleh. I decided that since the engine was in the car, I needed to get as much as possible accomplished as possible before I pulled it back out, so since the hotside is done, I figured I should start on whatever I can to keep up the progress.

I'm waiting on my metric rivnut kit to get here before I permanently mount the MS3, for now, it's held in place with some tape. I'm also working on cleaning up that wiring mess you can see all over the tunnel.



I went ahead and attached everything I could to the engine, the coils, flexfuel sensor, and a few other odds and ends that weren't already there.



I started assembling connectors and getting things together as well as laying out the general routing of the harness.the two wire spools on the left are Tefzel shielded wire for the crank position sensor, and the knock sensors. since I have enough of it, I'm going to go ahead and use it for the cam sensor as well. it was a little bit pricey, but it was also the only shielded wire i could find that carried a temperature rating. The instructions for the MS3 say to use shielded wire for the crank signal, and the 3500 used shielded wire on the knock sensors from the factory. I would have rather just used some TXL, but I'd also rather not have to tear it apart to redo it in the event that it isn't overkill.



I remade the injector sub harness with 2 power feeds. the harness terminates at an 8 position GT 150 connector, near the cam position sensor. I'm going to depin that connector and put more appropriately sized sleeving on it.



This is the DBW controller, I'm having a hard time finding where to put it. it's in a sealed, weather rated housing, so I can install it in the engine bay (same for the MS3 Pro)



I thought about here:



But that area is already going to be packed with wire as the harness is going to run right through there, I also thought about above the MS3, but then it starts taking real estate required for the bulkhead pass throughs...



Another option i am considering, is in the cabin where the cruise control module went. I think it's about the same size, but I'd rather keep it in closer proximity to the MS3 and TB.

This bastard gave me hell, nowhere in the service manual is there a 12 AWG red with white stripe wire... at least not that I could find. after a while of digging, I pulled fuses and used the multi meter to tone the line, turns out, it's for the tail lights, which the FSM says should just be a plain red wire... ERG...




I'm going to split the engine harness into two sections, one will specifically be everything that connects to the MS3, and the associated power supplies(how general for something I call specific...), the other section will be everything else, IE starter trigger wire, reverse lights, main power, ground, ect.

Here's how I left the car for the night:



I want to rewire my battery to the chassis, it's "mounted" in the front of the car now in the "under the spare" position. I'm trying to determine the best way to supply +12V to the chassis, and engine, without 15' of cable running underneath begging to be ripped off by road debris...

I was considering running power through the C100 bulkhead connector on the firewall, through pins G7 and/or H7, then connecting into the chassis once power is in the cab. I was also figuring on converting the headlights and cooling fan to run off of a relay powered straight off the battery, and using the stock wiring as a control circuit, thereby limiting current through the bulkhead, and improving system performance.

**break**

in other news, I ordered material for the downpipe, and wastegate dump. I also ordered a 3 bar map sensor, oil and fuel pressure transducers, a metric crap ton of wire, a bunch of plumbing stuff, and a few other odds and ends to get this thing put together with.

[Captain]

Looking Good,
From my School of Hard Knocks building the Wiring Harness for the Indy Racer Project....
Take your time, and expect SURPRISES from "Free Electrons" that don't follow the Rules of Logic......

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Neat project. Had an 85 2m6 manual for 10 years from new. Loved that car. Went to work for the EPA in 90, and had access to ways to get more power from the engine. Stock rating was 140 give or take. Can't tell for sure. Probably got 10 % more with minor mods that were legal, and that made it feel fast. I can only imagine what you will be getting and what it will feel like. As a hint, when you work on the suspension, lower the car by an inch or soand get the specs for a 60s era Dino Ferrari for the allignment, assuming the suspension is still close to stock. I had Konis all around, stiffer bushings to make the anti roll bar effectively stiffer, and slightly wider rear tires than stock, 225s instead of the 215s all around as original. you will like it...

[DanStokes]

Dave's Fiero was fun! It had a SuperTrap muffler, the only one I knew personally.

Dan

[ejs262]

this is probably the 10th time I've wired this car, I've touched almost every single wire in it in some way shape or form, there's some work I was proud of, and some that I'm not to fond of. here's a picture of what everything looked like with the MS3X setup.



I think I might fabricate my own new battery tray for a smaller battery like a DUI Dyna-batt, which offers double benefits of being both lighter(13.5#) and much smaller, about 1/2 the size of a regular battery. they can also be mounted in any position. the more I think about it, the more I want to mount the battery back closer to the engine, it would free up room for the intercooler tank and pump up front, and make the power distribution schematic much more like the stock diagram. the downsides, the length of wiring to supply power to the headlights, cooling fan, and intercooler pump would go up by about 10x. but the headlights and fan worked in this config fine factory, it's not a real issue, and I can still run an 8 AWG wire up front to provide a more direct source for those loads. if I do that, I need to do it now while the car is taken apart. the other advantage to moving the battery back, is the instructions for the MS3 recommend pulling power from the battery, as it provides a cleaner source than directly from the alternator, but doing that in the current config is difficult, at least compared to the battery in the stock location.

[DanStokes]

The F.A.S.T. computer in the Volvo also required direct wiring to the battery. I DID put a breaker as close to the battery as possible and that seems to work OK. I hate having an unprotected wire running thru the car.

Dan

[ejs262]

The F.A.S.T. computer in the Volvo also required direct wiring to the battery. I DID put a breaker as close to the battery as possible and that seems to work OK. I hate having an unprotected wire running thru the car.

Dan

I'll install a fuse panel locally at the battery for any feeds coming off of it. no sense in being excessively risky.


something like this:

https://www.bluesea.com/products/5046/ST_Blade_Compact_Fuse_Blocks_-_8_Circuits

[ejs262]

actually, I think I found something even better in Bluesea's catalog:

https://www.bluesea.com/products/7725/SafetyHub_100_Fuse_Block

[DanStokes]

actually, I think I found something even better in Bluesea's catalog:

https://www.bluesea.com/products/772...100_Fuse_Block

Groovy! I like that.

Dan

[ejs262]

Groovy! I like that.

Dan

I do too! They make a larger model as well:

https://www.bluesea.com/products/7748/SafetyHub_150_Fuse_Block

My plan is to mount it in the engine bay, at the battery, then use the megafuses to provide feeds to the chassis. Right now, I need 1 lead for the main power feed to the fuse block, 1 feed to the taillight fuse (they use a separate lead factory), and then I plan to run two leads to the front of the car, through the existing bulkhead connector which has two open positions capable of holding a 12 and 10 AWG wire, those two feeds will be used to provide power for the headlights, cooling fan, and intercooler pump. the existing wiring for the headlights and cooling fan will be used as a control circuit. I'll use the smaller fuses to provide power for the some smaller loads. I've decided that the battery is coming back into the engine compartment for sure, I'm not going to mess with cables running the length of the chassis, and the added headache that comes with re integrating into power distribution. sometime today I'm going to go ahead and draw up a schematic of what I am going to run so I can see on paper what exactly I need.

[ejs262]

phew... bunch of work today, and I'm pretty satisfied with the results so far.

The car has an accelerator pedal again. it's a decent fit, even with my size 12 4E steel toe boots in there, although I'm not sure I'd want to drive it wearing them. the bracket is stupid simple, I'll draw it up so people can copy it if they desire. the pedal itself is from a 2006 Grand Prix.







Next, I started on the shifter. Fieroguru ran the shift and select cables through a hole in the tank tunnel on his car, he did it for aesthetics, I'm doing it because it will make the cables have longer, more sweeping bends, and aid in keeping them away from EVERYTHING in the engine compartment. I started by making my hole. this allows me to now put material through as a stand in for the cables, so I can adequately determine the optimum angle for the cables to approach the shifter.



I then fished a piece of cable I had through the hole, and up to the shifters.





Now I can examine the angle the cable approaches from and decide the best angle of attack from there.

next step was to begin fabricating the base, I carefully measured and transcribed the bolt pattern from the shifter base, to some steel, then drilled the holes, and notched clearance for the bearings in the bottom of the shifter.



Next, I cut it into the general shape I needed with the plasma cutter, ensuring to leave a TON of excess so I can trim it back as necessary. I then went back and forth, trimming and test fitting the base to ensure everything fits up, until I ended up with a base that fit on the car, as soon as it bolted in place I stopped trimming, and will remove any excess after the entire shifter is done. what I ended up with can be seen here:



I also needed bushings for the fulcrum of the select movement, trying to avoid waiting for more parts, I decided to extract them from one of the other select fulcrums I had. I did this by notching the aluminum with a cut off wheel, then chiseling the aluminum away. it was really easy. I was surprised though, the bushings appear to be plastic, I figured they were bronze.







with both bushings extracted, I measure the OD, and drilled two holes(approx 7/16") in some scrap 1/4" steel to fit the bushings. then trimmed the steel to the desired shape. I still have a bit further to go shaping the parts, but they are fairly close as is.





here is an approximation of the assembly, the two straight lines on the base represent the desired approach angle of the cables. but not necessarily their final position. also, as you can see the base of the fulcrum will need to be trimmed to clear the bolts, I'm waiting to do that until I have the final position of the fulcrum set in stone though.









The next big step is going to be fabricating the spindle that the select arm rides on, I need this to set the height of the select fulcrum, to ensure the the arm has correct geometry. I'm hoping to get something cranked out fairly quick, so that I can determine the exact length I require for the shift and select cables, and get them on order. I plan to have the ends on the transmission side be adjustable so that length can be fine tuned from the ordered length.

[ejs262]

I got some more work done on the fulcrum for the select movement, the actual fulcrum is more or less done it just needs to be welded to the base, and it's super smooth. the arm moves in the bushings with ZERO resistance like as if it were factory.

the welds aren't that great, but they're really only there to keep the assembly parallel. I also gained quite a bit of confidence in the bushing performance in high temperature environments, I think these will work great. there is only the slightest bit of side to side play in the assembly, I think it should work great overall.

here are a few pictures, I took some of/with the old shifter as well for comparison:







I also made up the connector for the pedal position sensor, but I didn't take any pictures of that. I also decided I would route a bundle of 4 or 6 wires through the console with the pedal wires, so that later I can add either a clutch position sensor or clutch and/or brake anticipate switches.

[DanStokes]

I'd claim those welds - not bad at all.

Dan

[ejs262]

I'd claim those welds - not bad at all.

Dan

while they look good, there isn't much penetration, so from a structural standpoint, they're much weaker than the base material. that being said, they won't carry any real load.

************************************************** ***

I drew up the DBW pedal adapter bracket, and have it available should anyone need it, that being said I think I'm the only guy on here doing something like this with a Fiero... The drawing is located on my google drive, at the following link as a PDF, DWG, or DXF file and can be CNC cut pretty easily, or the faster, cheaper method (unless you have CNC stuff) it can be printed and used as a guide for drilling and cutting. the pedal is a 2006 Grand Prix Pedal

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ffdn0HBJW3Xpyhf2V1rNxb9pgMDkUnO6?usp=sharing