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First here with a Fiero and a TVR?

Hello fellow addicts!

I have been lurking for a while here -- great advice, great group. I always seem to find things here to help with my projects.

I have 2 unusual projects -- not the typical muscle cars...............I seem to fall towards that Colin Chapman go-fast/add-lightness way of thinking.

The first completed car is my 1986 Fiero. It's not your typical "son, those thar things catch on fahr!", faded paint, cracked body panel, one headlight popped up Fiero, nosiree bob. It took a few years, but the interior is all new/custom, custom front and rear suspension, 12" Corvette calipers/eradispeed rotors, new 5 speed trans with GM Performance Parts limited slip diff. And the stock V6 has been tossed in favor of a SBC with TPIS cam/intake/chip.

It has been finished for a couple of years, been spending the past couple of years troubleshooting things, getting from 90% reliable to 100% drive it anywhere reliable. Should dyno it in the next couple of months, hope to do a local autocross or two as well.

Here are some pics -- info on the TVR coming next..............

-jeff d

PS -- yes, that's a pic of the Fiero next to a Panoz Esperante. I got one to drive free for a weekend. Amazing car -- amazing that someone would want to pay over $100k for a convertible Mustang Cobra. Up close those look like a larger than normal miata

more pics of the Fiero

more views....and a pic of the shop where all the "dirty work" happens :D

...and here's the TVR

What's a TVR? It's a little handbuilt British sports car. From the factory they had a tube frame, fibreglass body, 1 pc tilt nose, TR-6 drivetrain, and bits and pieces of other british cars used to build up the car. In stock form they were praised for having great handling for the day, approx. 100 HP, 1800 pounds in stock trim..............mine will be, ahem, altered.

I found this car up in missouri, was supposed to be ready to go autocrossing........it was going to need a little more work to actually be ready to race. I left it in a corner of the shop while I worked on the Fiero. Once the Fiero was done I started tearing the car apart. It was then that I started to find out the car's sins. The cage that the previous owner put in was a little less than "tech ready." I cut out parts of it, a lot of parts of the cage weren't really welded to the frame -- but a lot of weld was put down to give the illusion of a weld joint :willy: The car also looked like it was wrecked and repaired, but not repaired well as the frame wasn't straight and true any more. Also, the full cage would not allow any sort of seats to be mounted. Also also, for some reason, a previous owner decided to hack out large parts of the body and replace fiberglass with aluminum plate.

So, I guess that I decided to "update" the car along the lines of a Pro Tourer, maybe a 3/4 scale pro-tourer!! The car is small, so 17" wheels look huge! I have a narrowed C4 rear suspension, custom crossmember to mount C4 front suspension, and an LT1/6 speed. I think the driveshaft might be just as long as one of the stock Vette halfshafts :rofl:

Here are some as-found and disassembly pics. I'll post up a few more of the new chassis I'm in the middle of. I expect to get the chassis to a rolling state by summer and then get started on the needed flares and body mods after that.

more later,

-jeff d

What kind of wheels are on the black TVR and that is a bad ass car very fast when built :thumbsup:

98ssnova:

The (white) TVR came to me with 15 x 8" centerlines and Formula car slicks. I have a set of 17 x 8" SLP ZR-1 style 5 spoke rims for the buildup. Tire sizes are 255/40 rear and 225/45 front. Not large by PT standards, but they look right on the car in in the wheelwells.

If by "black TVR" you mean the Panoz, those are factory wheels.......don't remember what size they were.....they look good on the car, though!

-jeff d

sorry that looked like an older TVR. Panoz are a quality vechile to:yes:

Hey Orphancars-
Nice ride(s) you have there. Fieros can be cool. There is a guy at our office here that has 13 Fieros in various stages. I am sure he would love to talk to you about yours.

Hello Bruce!

Yeah, I know of several folks out there that are collectors.........one guy near me must have 20 of them on his lot, all in varoius states of decay.

Interesting thing..........go to a place where there are a bunch of these cars around and you'll notice that they all have the same smell -- I think that is the smell of them returning to the earth!

Fieros...........neat design, decent engineering, questionable materials. :D

-jeff d

Welcome new guy !!

:lol:

Looks great. I'll bet that Fiero will haul sir ! I always wanted one of those because there are so many options you can do with the body and drivetrain. And there is a bunch of body panels available from Pontiac that are cool looking to - it's just amazing all the different possibilities available to you. Very nice.

Can't wait to see the TVR work. Best of luck - it will also look great !

Jim

Cool Fiero...I got an 84 with 24k on it sitting around waiting for a v8 or buick turbo V6 transplant.

TVR pics........

Jim,

Glad to "officially" be here :unibrow:

Rubes -- That '84 is a good candidate for a swap -- especially if it has the 4.10 rear in it (84 only)!!!

Here are a few more pics of the frame buildup. It probably wasn't the best plan, but I built a chassis table for this project, fixtured up the old frame, then built something comparable out of 2x3 and 2x4 steel tube. Once I found out that there would be a few, ahem, limitations to grafting on a new front suspension, had to remove the frame from the firewall forward and graft on more tube to support the custom C4 crossmember.

Note that the frame components to support the diff and the front suspension are placed/tacked as of today. Still measuring/fitting and making sure things are perfect before I weld everything into place.

Note -- the 3rd pic attached here is about all of the oldoriginal frame that I might use on the new frame -- that is the backbone section.

-jeff d

Some more pics of the frame and the body on the frame. One thing to note -- the pic that shows the tire in the wheelwell and a part of the underside of the body...................that portion of the fiberglass floorpan is about 3" away from the chassis table (aka "pavement")!!! Since it's so low and since I don't have a fondness for a little fiberglass protecting my arse from the ground, I'll be welding in a set of floorpans from a VW beetle and reworking the TVR body tub.

See Jim -- our cars share a little common heritage :D

-jeff d

Last group for now.

Last group of pics.....

Chevy Thunder,

Thanks for the pics!!

There is a kit out there to add the IMSA features to a stock Fiero, either the notchback like is shown in your pics or the GT. Always liked the widebody look on that car.............nice thing about the car is that you almost unbolt the stock body parts and bolt on the new ones......

-jeff d