IMSA Racecar resoration:The rebirth of the Seyfert/Buist Fiero (Page 2/10) SuperchargedV6 JAN 03, 06:13 PM Excellent thread and happy to see it resurected. I was wondering,, Diversified Glass Products would haev been the oringal provider for the body so when did the moulds go out to the other race teams? They owned the rights thru Pontiac Motor Sports in the beginning. Thanks for all the pictures and I know allot of folks who would love the orignal Center Lines. Rick B R Runner JAN 03, 08:27 PM Dave.... It's great to see you post. You deserve a lot of credit for building this car. Also, you are quite welcome for the help. As you know, you helped me TREMENDOUSLY witht the rear quarters and other components. As for the CarDomain thread.... well... I hope it has not caused too much trouble. The car turned out great! I hope we can get them together some time for some fun. Cool story and lots of good history. Now... Let me get comfortable... Dave Deerson JAN 03, 11:01 PM DGP may have been involved in the initial development of the race bodies and supplied the street versions of the IMSA Fiero,but as far as I know,Huffaker had the moulds and was the firm one would go to to purchase body panels.Then later on, later 1987 to 1988,they widened the front and rear flares as IMSA allowed wider track widths and made their own moulds for them.These are the moulds that my fenders and rear quarter panels(Paul Hosler's as well) came from and they still have the DGP numbers cast into the lower edge.Huffaker later sold the moulds to Jack Ondrak and another gentleman in California. As far as the Centerline wheels,they only would fit the race car suspension as the race uprights used wheel hub/bearing units from the larger full size cars.The bolt pattern is larger than stock Fiero. doublec4 JAN 04, 03:23 AM Definitely an awesome build! More pictures of everything please! 85duke JAN 04, 04:12 AM I love pauls car and have read his entire cardomain build. I am watching. R Runner JAN 04, 08:17 AM As far as the history of the DGP bodies is concerned, when I talked to Huffaker back in 2001, he said that he knew nothing about the body panels I had because He (Huffaker) had nothing to do with them. Around here somewhere I have a phone number for the guy who ran DGP back in the day. I can think of two guys that could help answer this question: SuperchargedV6 and Red GT. They have lots of DGP information. In any case, Dave is right. Several of the mold locations are now known. I also think the Fiero Warehouse has some old molds (information as of 2003) that were in pretty bad shape for the '84 version of the car. These are NOT the same as the street molds. Paul CosVegFiero JAN 04, 10:56 AM Those shots from 1985 appear to be from the pit lane of the Detroit Formula One Grand Prix street course. I'll have to find my old pictures and see if I have any other shots. Dick SuperchargedV6 JAN 04, 12:10 PM Bob Birchmeir owned DGP and I talk with him quite frequently. He closed the main shop around 1989 and this was when he sold the mold or in 1988 possibly. I figure they bought the molds around that time frame but up until then DGP had sole rights to them thru Pontiac Motor Sports and was making them for all the racing teams from all I was told. I will have to bring this up with Bob maybe later today. I hate calling him just for questions on the car. Little known fact. Bob was called in by Ford to make the hood on the GT40. The problem was the body was made of aluminum on the original spec'd frame work and they wanted a fiberglass hood. The hood had to be thicker then the aluminum and Ford gave up. With Glass spec it was setting way above the rest of the car and they didn't think of this until after it was almost complete and to much money was spent. Bob said it was the worst F*&^ing project he ever had but he got it done. DGP built many Indy car bodies also and I have the pictures of these. Rick B Dave Deerson JAN 04, 01:32 PM Onward in the build................ Being that I wanted to shift the Porsche trans with a rod/linkage instead of cable(rod linkage is more accurate and someday hope to be able to upgrade to a Hewland DGB which has to shift with that style),I wanted to give first priority to its routing/mounting.Then the exhaust and the rest would be built around that. Building the headers is something I really enjoy(to some it's torture),it took about 2 weeks of spare time(this whole project really took off just as I had bought a house,moved and got over a serious injury to my right arm,and was planning a wedding!) Theheaders are 1 3/4 diam. with 26in long primaries into 3in collectors. The rest of the collectors and exhaust system would have to wait as I still didn't have all of the body parts collected! I couldn't build the exhaust to go through an opening that wasn't there! Here is the logistical nightmare I went through: The roof I was saving,the front nose,fenders(decided to go with the 1988 Huffaker style as opposed to Jack Ondrack's wider style--really for looks), center rear bumper and "whaletail"rear decklid came from the Huffaker moulds in Calif. The wide 1988 rear quarters came from Jack in Canada. The front chin spoiler came from Doug Kinney at Fiero Warehouse. While the front hood and doors are real,unused original Pontiac Motorsports panels found stored in Texas(a ton of thanks to a great find by Paul Hosler!) . So,I have panels from over 25 years apart, from 4 locations,2 countries and they all fit as intended like they came from one source!! I was amazed in how well the panels fit together!(for a racecar that is) But,I am getting ahead of myself!! Here is a mockup of the original "narrow" front track with Jack's "wide" custom front fenders: You can see just how narrow the track was here Compare the narrow control arms to the wider 1988 arms(there's a difference of 1.5in per side) stringing up the track and wheelbase: Next time...........Getting the suspension mocked up............And STILL waiting for a body!!! Dave Deerson JAN 04, 05:52 PM Here I am mocking up the suspension. I have made "dummy" sway bars out of wood so as to check the fit and packaging of full dimention pieces before I ordered them .Only this came from hours on the computer using a spreadsheet(thanks Paul H) to help choose not only the diameter and thickness of the swaybars,but the length of the lever arm also. Once these were speced out,I checked the fit of the wooden mock ups. I also would suggest anyone taking on a project like this to do as much mock up test fits as possible .Even if this means making parts out of wood,paper or cardboard(this my version of CAD---Cardboard Aided Design!),so the fit and integration of everything can be checked before some parts get fabricated,bought or painted. After confirmation of proper fit,the "real"parts are ordered: In the background you can see the interior tinwork taking shape. I reused the center "tunnel" that housed the fuel cell. All of the other panels were copied exactly using the originals as patterns. I did not reuse many parts due to them either being damaged (multiple holes drilled) or worn down. I may miss some details of what was going on in some of the pics as some of these were taken 1 to1 1/2 years ago,so if there's a question,please let me know. Here are some shots of the little details on the chassis coming together like oil cooler,engine cooling pipes,rear window,etc..: Next will be the interior,dash panel,and mounting the body(after 7 months of waiting,numerous phone calls,and even threats of legal action!!)