E.O.D.

The only reason I'm asking here is I've done a search, and it seems several current members have driven the Fiero for HPDE or Autocross in the past.

I know the Z06 I have is a superior automobile. But I'm not going to be doing HPDE with it in the forseable future.

I have about a bajillion questions to ask about tracking the Fiero, but will only ask a few to initiate the dialogue. I mostly want an unguided description of pro's, con's, upgrades required, etc.

For a few questions to begin:

Lets assume I'll be driving a 1988 Formula.

What is the largest size tire I can put on the stock rim? Is R compound available for the stock rim?

How do you recommend tire setup?

Should the rotor size be changed, or just use different pads (as the '88 has vented brakes).

Thanks for any information or input.

And please, for those of you that have tracked, or competed against, the Fiero, share with me your views and opinions.

Thanks much.

waddisme

I used to have an '85GT, a very cool car. I bet you can go to Pennocks Fiero Forum and get all the answers you like. Good Luck!

E.O.D.

Thanks. I've been buried in that forum for the past 3-4 days already..lol.

LOTS of knowledge there, but only a small portion of it seems to be dedicated to HPDE or road courses.

keithcar72

the fiero is a lot of fun. I spent a couple of seasons auto-xing a 86 gt never did the hpde thou. I really enjoyed running it but in auto-x it just isn't competitive. the only class it has a shot in is the 4 cyl cars in h stock . It just doesn't have a good enough power to weight raito. The chassie is stiff but heavy and the iron duke 4-cyl and 2.8 v6 are pretty weak unless you want to spend a lot of money. I hate to sound like everyone else on this but where bang for the buck is concerned it is hard to beat a f-body or a c-4. You can pick up one that is rough cosmetically for not much more and have a lot more fun, and the parts are a lot cheaper and easier to come buy(i.e. e-bay and swap meets). You aren't saving any money on a cheap car if it cost's 3x as much to modify. been there done that but couldn't afford the-shirt. Hope it helps I really enjoyed mine but just wasn't competitive and in then thats what killed it for me. that said if you really want to run one the biggest improvments to mine were poly bushings all the way around, add a rear swaybar, replace the rubber brake lines and clutch line with new or stanless, add a master cyl from a full size blazer, and a good 4 wheel alignment.

briannutter

I had an 88 GT. I never modded mine much, but it had a lot of potential in terms of weight to tire ratio. The thing you may not like about it is the throttle on understeer..like most mid engine/rear engine cars I've driven. It would ALWAYS push when I was on the throttle. It's a bit hard to describe how it had to be driven: almost like the apex of the corner is WAY early..running up to it perpendicular, chop throttle to load the front tires and YANK the wheel to get it to enter. The sweepers weren't as bad. If they make a posi-differential for it..maybe more rear bar..some of that could be fixed.

Aardwolf

Some brand tires will be OK on different rim sizes. Go to the tirerack.com and select the tire you would like or compare several. Then check the specs tab for them, this will display the rim width that is recomended. You can put a tire that is to big for the rim on but it can be difficult and not work to its best. Check your rim width against that is recomended and find a tire to fit. If you don't know your rim width by selecting your car it may tell you.

Solofast

While cheap and probalby a decent amount of fun, the Fiero suffers from "shot wheelbase syndrome". That happens to a lot of cars that use a front engine/front drive drive train stuffed into the back of a mid engine car.

What you get is a drive train that is much more "aft loaded" than a proper north/south mid engine car. To get a reasonable weight distribution the designer shortens the wheelbase and puts as much as he can in the front. Net effect is a car that is pretty sensitive to the weight shift during braking and most noticlbly during acceleration. The first gen MR2's also had the issue. You would notice it more in autocross (where the power effect in second gear would lift the front tires enough to make the car push a lot) but if you put more power into a Fiero or MR2 it rears it's ugly head...

Not that you can't have fun with the car, but don't expect to behave like a Sports 2000 or Formula Ford just because it has an engine in the middle.

BrianCunningham

While in MI, I saw someone autocross a Fiero with an L98 swapped in. Quick car.

E.O.D.

Awesome. I appreciate the input, and even more is welcome.

While SCCA or even NASA would be fun, its highly unlikely my activities would develop that far. I'm mostly looking for something I can do HPDE with, and maybe an autocross or two on the side. All fun, no licensed competition.

I thought about the Fiero due to rwd, and a moderately cheap by-in. Maintenance also is a cost factor. I can buy 4 tires for the Fiero for the price of one tire for the vette.

I've got a bead on an 88 Formula thats had fresh poly all around and shocks, 93k miles with no rust through and no issues for just under 3k list.

I've been to a few HPDE, and ridden, but never driven. I'm not looking for the fastest obviously, yet something that will be lots of fun, but not twice the price. (I'm aware that money will be spent regardless though).

Basically a rwd beater that I won't cry all night long if I crack a panel.

The Fiero just seems like a perfect fit for those requirements.

Again, thanks for the input so far, and more is definitely welcome.

Alternate suggestions are also welcome.

Thanks in advance.

E.O.D.

Also, should I start to get decent enough with the Fiero to require items such as an accusump or tranny cooler, having the room to mount them in the front would be awesome.

Or is that not feasible? Or required even for the 2.8 6 cyl?

I figure that could help some with the weight balance issue.

UstaB-GS549

Just got home from Road America.

The first car I ran that track with was my Fiero. From memory:

1987 GT, 2.8 V6, 5 speed, no wing

I ran timetrials, HPDE and Solo II with the car from 1987 to 1998. Never had a valve cover off the engine. Engine go-fast parts were virtually non-existent, $$ with very little gain or just plain $$$$. Chevy had an aluminum race block for $4,700. I never did figure out who was using it. Most go fast parts were for the "Iron Duke". The engine lived on 10w40 whatever was on sale at Wally mart until it got to 80 or 90,000 miles. Then it got Mobile-1. I sold car when it had 125,000 miles.

The biggest bang for the buck were the Koni single adjustable shocks. They really helped the car's evil handling. When stock, the car pushed to the limit and then snapped to oversteer. You will learn never to lift at the limit unless you like driving backwards.

I got the ADDCO sway bars and some powder blue shorter springs. I can't remember who made the springs, but it dropped the car about 1 to 1.5". I filed the front upper ball joint holes out with a rat-tail file to make the camber adjustable to about 2 degrees negative. I ran 3/8" toe out at the front for a while until I figured out that I couldn't afford the tire wear. I settled on about 1/8" out and that gave reasonable front tire wear as this car was also my daily driver.

More later.

E.O.D.

Awesome! I'm looking forward to what ever else you can post about!

The car has poly all the way around and Koni's in the rear.

Just found out from the guy he used it in auto-X, but didn't do any HPDE/W2W.

UstaB-GS549

An accusump might be nice, but I never saw oil pressure drop off in the carousel at Road America which is probably the longest high G corner I can think of.

I cut about an inch or so out of the shift lever and re-welded it so that there was a bit of an angle leaning towards the steering wheel. I also threw away the steering damper. It was allegedly there to prevent steering kick-back, but it only gave the car an overly heavy feel. It's good exercise fighting it while turning. By the way, the small diameter, fat steering wheel was one of the best GM ever produced. Momo had something a little bit nicer, but not worth the money IMHO.

I ran BFG R-1 tires on track. At the time they had a contingency program with Midwestern Council that paid $60 for a win. With 5 events a year, it pretty much paid for all my tires for a few seasons while I was on top. I had my class record at Blackhawk & GingerMan for a few years. I ran 225/50-15 front and rear so I could rotate the tires. I used two sets of 15x7 new take-off rims off the rear of 88 GT's. 87's had 15x7 front and rear, but the 88's had 15x6 or 6.5 fronts with 15x7 rear. I stuffed 245's on the rear one time and it worked OK, but I thought that the ability to rotate was worth more. No rubbing issues with any of these combinations.

Brakes became an issue when Repco Metal Masters were discontinued. They were the equivalent to Z rated pads and the only decent pad available back then. Carbotech made a set of custom pads in Hawk Black which were nice, but Larry Narcus said one set was enough. No volume and a PITA steel clip on the backside resulted in this being a one time deal. I then turned the front hubs to remove the old solid rotor, and bolted on a 11 x 1.25" curved vane rotor that Coleman made to my spec's. I made a heavy aluminum plate adapter bracket and mounted 4-piston Wilwood Dynalite calipers. They were about $100 each and good race pads were $40-60 a set. I ditched the parking brake and put Pontiac Gran-Am front calipers on the rear. They have a little larger piston and bolt on with no modification. Rebuilts were plentiful at $20 each. The car needed more rear bias with the bigger fronts. Stock fronts were 9" x 1/2" solids.

The 88's are a little more of an orphan than the 87. They got a Lotus designed front suspension and unique 88 only calipers as well as vented (but still small) rotors. Everyone laughed at the Chevette front suspension on the pre 88 cars, but it worked once the alignment was adjustable. Stock early car alignment was fixed positive camber for massive understeer. That's why they went from push to oversteer so quickly at the limit. Do your homework on brake parts availability.

The Fiero clubs were mostly waxers and not much help other than dumb badges, convenience headers and other unproven "performance" mods etc. In the late 90's there were a lot of guys doing V8, 3.8L V6 and Northstar conversions, but I don't think anyone did anything other than a few drag strip passes with these cars. The Muncie-Getrag 5-speed is a fairly strong unit, but I'm not sure how long it would last when you double the 170 ft-lb input torque.

I slit the stitching on the seat seam at shoulder height and put shoulder harness pass thru's on the stock seats. I bolted the harness directly to the bulkhead behind with really large & heavy fender washers per SCCA guidelines.

If you want a good book on driving, don't get Bondurant's unless you have a lot of money for tires. Trail braking doesn't work well on a mid-engine car. At best you will flatspot the inside front tire if you are not good at brake modulation. I could trailbrake my car a tiny bit, but basically you wanted to be hard into the gas before the apex anyway. Jackie Stewart's book is excellent as he always did straight line braking and passed the trail-brakers at the end of the straight due to his higher exit velocity.

When I started competing the car was cool. It looked cool, so who cares if it handles like a pig on ice. Shortly thereafter it was cute. Chick's drove them and the MR-2's & Miatas were THE cars to win with. The Fiero was heavy, wide, hard to steer and nobody took them seriously. When I started winning a lot in Solo II and time trails, the Fiero was getting a good local reputation. All I had to do was drop the rear bar to run Solo II. Then some dentist from Indy mopped up at the SCCA Solo and Pro Solo nationals with his 88 Formula and everyone wanted a Fiero. Toward the end a lot of younger better drivers were showing up with Formulas and kicking my butt.

Two clutches. One that I really didn't need at 60,000 miles and another at 90,000 because the fingers broke. Not much else in the way of maintenance.

Have fun.