1985 Fiero build

[ejs262]

I'm still plugging away at this, I've been working on the tune, and making huge amounts of progress. I ordered a ton of suspension part that I probably shouldn't have, including a set of drop spindles. more to follow!

[SuperBuickGuy]

sweet

[ejs262]

Now for a small update...

I acquired another front suspension from a buddy's parts car a while back, today I took it apart in preparation for installing some goodies!


I found a couple of laughs along the way...





Nice cotter pin eh?

Here's a shot of the upper control arm



and the lower



The lower control arm mounting points aren't coaxial... GM did a dumb, surprise surprise...



Now, why would I buy parts I already have??? well, I also have these:



These are shells that allow for spherical bearings to be installed in the LCA's, here are the beaings



and the spacer that makes it all fit together nicely.



The bearing is retained by a internal snap ring.

There's two reasons I'm installing these, one, obviously, they offer superior precision as the arm rotates, as well as reduced torque to cause said change. not so obvious, I'm going to rotate the K member forward to improve antidive characteristics.

these "mis-alignment washers" allow for up to 3 degrees of angular mis alignment, I'll use them, and some spacers installed in the forward bolt holes of the K member, to roll the K member forward. This idea was developed by Will on the Fiero forums, I would be surprised if he doesn't also have an account here...





I also have some goodies for the rear suspension, pictured here are my new lateral links, on the 88 fiero, there are four lateral links with bushings, and two trailing links. the trailing links keep rubber or poly bushings for improved ride quality, but the lateral links get swapped for rod ends, like pictured here:



Problem is that a 5/8" rod end with a 1/2" hole has a ton of slop for a M12 bolt, that's what the tube is for, it fits nice and tight in the rod end, and snug around the M12 bolts.



This mod was developed by several fiero owners, and documented by Fieroguru on the Fiero forums, he has a published parts list here:

https://fieroguruperformance.com/?page_id=295

here is the K member, minus control arms.



it's mounted by 8 bolts, the four inboard bolts go directly into the Fiero spaceframe, the four outboard bolts go into brackets on the outside of the spaceframe





The front bolts will have the above described spacers installed



At this point, I need to make a decision, I have poly upper control arm bushings that I've had for almost a decade, that I could install in the stock UCA's until I make a set of adjustable UCA's, or I could knuckle down and make a set of adjustable UCA's. I really wish they were easier to just buy, but there's only one place I'm aware of that makes them, and they have a questionable reputation... I think for now, I'll install the poly bushing in the stock arms, and work on developing a proper set of UCA's.

I fired up the 3d printer and printed some of the intake runners posted earlier in the thread, the first print turned out like crap, the other two looked good, I probably won't progress much further with a custom intake, until I get closer to upgrading to a VVT engine, which doesn't have coolant passages in the intake manifold.

[ejs262]

started the spherical bearing install in the LCA's, I'm now pretty much up to the point of welding the shells in, which I plan to do tomorrow. here's how I removed the bushing shells

First step is to remove the rubber, I find "burning" the rubber out is the easiest and fastest way, you don't actually burn anything, take a torch(a heat gun may work, I used a torch) and heat the outside of the shell, do this in a fairly uniform manner, all the way around. as you heat it, the rubber inside will begin to sizzle a bit, at this point, get a dowel or other implement that you can hit with a hammer, put it on the rubber, and give it a few swift hits, the bushing will pop right out, and you can move on to the next one. I did all 8 of the front control arms in about 30 minutes. when the rubber pushes out, it will smoke a bit, and leave a little bit of gooey residue, nothing too crazy hard to deal with. unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that process.

Because I don't have a press (man I want one...) I needed an alternative way to remove the shells, step one, cut into the flanged end, all the way to the arm, but not into it. ideally, this cut will be tangent to the ID of the shell, if the cut is radial to the shell, it might make things slightly more difficult, or increase the possibility of damaging the shell bore.



step two, put your hacksaw blade inside the shell and attach it to the frame like normal.





next, start cutting the shell inline with the cut you made with the flange. the cut needs to be deep, but not all the way through, you don't want to cut the actual control arm.



next, get a large cold chisel, and a hammer. Position the chisel over the cut you made on the inside of the shell, and give it a good hit or two





doing it this was folds the shell in on itself, the relief cut on the inside is critical, if you don't do the relief cut, you'll likely egg the bore the shell fits into, or damage the control arm, same for cutting the flanged portion of the shell at a tangent ish angle to the ID, if the cut is radial, the ends of the cut butt together and prevent the shell from folding. at this point, a few soft taps and the shell falls out of the LCA.



the results:



all in all, I took about 30-45 minutes to do all four shells, I think this method is probably the fastest method, with the lowest possibility of distorting the arm if the shells don't want to press out. when I originally came up with the idea, I thought it would be considered the wrong way, but the further along I got, the more I liked the method. tomorrow, I'll finish cleaning them up, fire up the TIG, and get to work.

[ejs262]

I got drunk and decided welding them tonight was a better idea... was it?

Pretty straightforward process, they only go in one way.







Next, eight tacks per bearing. I did 12 and 6 on one side, then 3 and 9 on the other, then 9 and 3 on the first side, followed by 6 and 12 on the opposite.





once both sides were four corner tacked, I came back and welded them in quarters, and in the same manner as the tacks









They aren't my best welds, but they're also far from my worst, they should hold just fine. now tomorrow, all I have to do is install the bearings in the shells, and the control arms in the car. I'll clean them up a bit, as well as shoot a bit of paint on first though. I'm pretty excited about getting them in the car, I still need to work on the anti dive brackets, and getting the drop spindles ready for install, so it's hard to say when they'll be fully installed, but probably before the close of the month.

[ejs262]

The shells, welded into the control arms, allow for the installation of these, spherical bearings(center) between the two spacers (left and right)
















the bearing is a press fit into the shell, a machined tool was included to press the bearing in with, the bearing will sit inside the shell and be retained by a snap ring on the back side. note the bearing is not yet pressed in.

[SuperBuickGuy]

nice

[ejs262]

Thanks, I've been working my tail off lately, trying to get this put together, and a bunch of other stuff sorted out.

spacers and the first round of misalignment washers are done. one of the spacers has a nick in it above the shoulder, I'll file any burs off and call it a day. I was really dumb and ordered 10 sets of washers thinking I would have 2 extra sets, there's 8 bolts, and a set of washers goes on BOTH sides of the crossmember... so I actually ordered shy of what I needed... I have more on order, when they get here I'll have them bored as well, and then get the whole crossmember installed with new balljoints, tierods, rack bushings, and my fancy spherical bearing control arms!



They're shouldered to adequately locate the convex washer



once the other sets of misalignment washers get here, I'll have them bored, in the meantime, I'm going to fire up the plasma cutter and start working on the plates.

[ejs262]

I finished the spherical bearing install in the lower control arms, I pressed the bearing in with a "c" clamp, cleaned them up, and threw some paint on, I think I have a better method for pressing the bearing in that I'm discussing with the designer, the installation tool could be hollow, and a bolt passed through, and then pressed in via a large washer and nut on the other side of the shell.



I started cutting the plates for the anti dive spacers,

here you can see the difference in angle between the lower inboard frame mounts, and upper outboard mounts the bolt to the brackets. this isn't nearly as apparent without the plates in place. it doesn't make a difference in the thickness of the spacers, but it was an interesting note. I figured they were all parallel, I figured wrong!



I still have to drill the holes, and perform a significant amount of trimming on the lower plates to get fitment nailed down.



I would have made more progress, but I was distracted by the availability of a new headlight harness, and another 88 rear cradle available somewhat local pretty cheap, I went and picked them both up because I like having working lights, with a harness that can reach into the light housings, and the cradle so that I can mock up mounts for an LZ9 (3.9V6 w/ VVT)/F23 without disturbing the car's current condition. Next steps will involve finding a cheap LZ9 and F23's to put together.

[SuperBuickGuy]

suspensions are fun. Get the book "Chassis Engineering" by Herb Adams

[ejs262]

suspensions are fun. Get the book "Chassis Engineering" by Herb Adams

I'll have to check that one out, I've learned alot recently about suspension analysis, but there's always more learning to do!

The plates are trimmed and drilled, which took much longer than expected! I decided the smartest way to drill the holes was to tack the plates together and drill them all at once instead of individually, to minimize variance between the plates. Because of this, I ended up having to drill through a solid 1" block of steel 4 times, it took a ton of cutting fluid, and still dulled one bit pretty bad, and got another pretty well broken in... lol. Thankfully they weren't expensive bits, and my measurements were accurate.

Here is one of the lower plates, the bolts will actually come in from the bottom, and there will be misalignment washers on the underside of the of the crossmember between the bolt head and crossmember.



here is on of the upper plate sets, this is exactly how it will be installed on the car.



In other, less exciting news, the new lower ball joints are pressed in, and the only thing left to install the anti dive setup and drop spindles is the misalignment washers I forgot to order the first time around, once they're done, I'm going to jack the front of the car into the air and commence teardown. I haven't decided whether or not to rebuild the rack from the spare crossmember and install it in my car, or just keep rolling with what's in my car, which isn't that bad as is.

[ejs262]

I've had a mental idea for what I wanted to do for the exhaust for a while, unfortunately, I couldn't find suitable mufflers to fit, without making things more complicated than I wanted to. Browsing marketplace earlier, I saw an axle back setup for an EVO X and figured it would fit the bill, so I went and picked it up. it's an ETS V3 dual muffler. I have never heard of them before now, but I also don't have or know anyone with an EVO.

https://www.extremeturbosystems.com/collections/evo-x-exhaust/products/ets-08-16-mitsubishi-evo-x-v3-dual-muffler-exhaust-system

Here is the exhaust more or less as purchased:



The center inlet is what made it worth picking up, because my downpipe is more or less centered under the car.





obviously it won't work as is though, it's WAY too low, but I have a simple plan that should work fairly well, first step, I'm going to cut my downpipe at the back of the rear crossmember and install a V band. then I'll turn the downpipe up towards the decklid. one of the inlets to the mufflers has a cracked weld, so I'll cut both mufflers off, and which will allow me to rotate the y downward, to the downpipe. I'll also weld on some extensions to the muffler inlets to make them reach the stock bumper cutout locations. I should also be able to utilize the hangers on the mufflers on the outboard of the frame rails to hold the whole thing up.

Here's a shot of the crack, hopefully this doesn't become a reoccurring thing.



I should be in it for about $300 when it's all said and done. the guy I got it from said he removed it because it was "too quiet". not that I want whisper drive, but I also don't think a 3" open downpipe isn't the nicest thing to do to your neighbors on the way to work in the morning.

[DanStokes]

Looks like a good starting point. How about a strap from the pinch weld on the muffler to the pipe bridging the area with the crack? Seems like that would give excellent reinforcement so the weld isn't carrying the weight of the muffler.

Dan

[ejs262]

Looks like a good starting point. How about a strap from the pinch weld on the muffler to the pipe bridging the area with the crack? Seems like that would give excellent reinforcement so the weld isn't carrying the weight of the muffler.

Dan

I was planning on some kind of hanger in the center somewhere to do just that!

I decided I wasn't done for the day and went and install the rod end lateral link... er.. well, the driver's side. it was kinda a PITA to get them into the cradle. I'll do the other side tomorrow, or later tonight when I decide only doing half the job isn't ok...

[ejs262]

What a weekend... I got the front suspension removed, and a test fit of the anti dive spacers performed.



I discovered that the early early Fieros, (1984-early 85) have a different front crossmember. the later crossmember mounts up the same as the later one, and has significantly more bracing, including boxing portions of the main beam, and doubling up the sheet metal around the lower control arm mounts. I'm not sure it's necessary, or even worth calling an "upgrade" but I swapped it in anyways, I had it, and it was cleaner than the crossmember I pulled out of the car.




When attempting to install the spacers, I found that with the lower bolts holding the crossmember up, the upper bolts didn't line up at all... The upper mounts bolt to a bracket on the side of the car.I found that by swapping the brackets left and right, the alignment is almost spot on. I will need to grind some additional clearance into the bracket for a perfect fit, but this is much easier than making a new bracket






Every part I have removed from this car has been PACKED with dirt...here's the pile from just one of the upper mount brackets... must have been in a sandstorm or bombed down dirt roads in a past life...





Now for the disaster of the day... with the spacers installed, the LCA's, and the associate spherical bearings shells I welded in, no longer fit...





I was considering all sorts of things to fix that, including cutting the shells out and welding them back in, pie cutting the control arm, and all sorts of other nonsense. Will suggested slotting the bolt holes and sliding the crossmember forward... damnit if the simplest solution isn't the one that works!



Next step is to rip the whole thing back apart, to install the front springs. I still need to figure out whether I'm going to install new bushings in my steering rack, or just put it back in and install new tierods.