Operation T-Top Widebody (was: T-Top Revival) (Page 2/12)
AWautoworks JUN 21, 02:18 PM
This isn't my first rodeo with a wrecked fiero. Here is one I did for a customer a few years ago. I wish he had the funds for me to do a complete paint job but he didn't have them available at the time.
Here are the photos from the other wreck. It was hit pretty hard in the passenger side and shoved the whole front end over and down.








[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-10-2018).]

AWautoworks JUN 21, 05:12 PM
So apparently after digging through my phots I couldn't find any starting photos of what I started with. I did some digging around from the local junk yards and fellow club members and took a big chunk out of my own parts stash to get it to a rollable chassis as shown below.





I have to get the body on first so I can know just exactly what I'm working with as far as frame damage. doors and quarter parts are in the process.

[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-10-2018).]

AWautoworks JUN 22, 10:49 AM
After the initial frame pull this is where I am. Its not too far off but still quite a ways off. now that I have the doors on I can start to fine tune the adjustments. Now keep in mind most of the parts on this car probably wont be used mainly just using them for mocking up purposes. I did swap the wheels and tires over from another Fiero I own which turned into a parts car because of the rusty frame.



[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-10-2018).]

AWautoworks JUN 22, 12:52 PM
I have done my final Frame pull and ready so cut out the old and bring in the new. I sectioned out a B post from a donor car for replacement, A plasma torch does wonders to the donor car. (muahahahah Fire). So time to start grinding and cutting on this frame. and get the crunched up outer off the car. Once the outer was off I was able to make final tweeks to were the post needed to be. The door fits and lines up perfect with the outer skins. Being a body guy I have a stash of visegrips as you can see. This allows for precision cuts and fitment. Once I get it fit into the perfect spot I take some sheet metal screws and screw it into place that way I can take it back off. Prep all the metal for welds and come back to the exact same spot. Once prepped I put the panel back on and started welding away. I lapped the upper section and had to sleve the lower rocker for a butt weld. Welded all my spot welds up and brushed some seam sealer over my welds to bring that factory look back.
I prepped the post and sprayed in some por15 to etch into my bare metal and give it that flat factory frame paint look. Those pictures are to come. I forgot to grab some pictures last night.








I do just want to brag a little about how these welds just sank right in Minimal grinding needed

[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-10-2018).]

AWautoworks JUN 22, 01:09 PM
So now its time to start thinking about body engine and suspension combinations. We are for sure going with the fastback and 87/88 coupe bumpers. I do like a stock look but subtle modifications. We are planning an aluminum head 2.8 turbo swap for the time being but always plan on something bigger down the road so More tire is always a plus. That being said Custom wide body is what I'm leaning towards but I want a stock look. This is about the closest thing I can find out there to what I want but its just not stock enough.



I am also planning an integrated lip spoiler as well


oh the possibilities with a fresh canvas.

What are your thoughts?
AWautoworks JUN 23, 05:33 PM
Few more process photos. I went ahead and prepped the roof and all the t top parts and sprayed them black. Hopefully it looks good with the blue once complete.
Also have some pictures from SCHWA Motorspots with the engine. We are going to run a 2.8 aluminum head turbo engine.



[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-10-2018).]

eph_kay JUN 24, 02:42 PM
As the owner of this car I wanted to jump in. Some of you guys know me from Dells years ago, or the 30th anniversary with the Tube Chassis Fiero and the corner scales I was having people weight their cars on

Anyway, over the last few years I am been growing my performance shop Schwa MotorSports, SchwaMotorSports.com <-quick plug we build crazy custom cars and do custom t shirts of a stylized drawing on your car, anyway back on subject here

So years ago I started my fiero life with this 88 fiero coupe ttop car. 4 cylinder automatic:


When the water pump started to leak I proceeded with a 3800sc swap and fastback swap:


The car treated me well as a kid just out of high school, but as my first project it had problem and slowly but surely I got most of them worked out and thats when the pictures Alex already posted happened when I met a semi truck changing two lanes at the same time without seeing me. Luckily the fiero is tough and although I thought it was done, Alex has brought it back to life and it is once again sitting in my shop

So story time over lets get to what you all want to see/know about the engine. I am going to be running a gen2 60v6 aluminum head 2.8 with pivot ball rockers and a flat tappet cam. But I will be upgrading the intake manifold to the late gen3 3400 parts for a hopefully nice increase in upper rpm flow. Along with this I am going to be installing a Designs 1 turbo kit. When i got this motor the fiero exhaust manifolds had already been adapted to the heads as the engine had been previously installed in a Fiero. So with the turbo kit on the shelf and having a love for boosted cars I decided it was a good time to put the parts to good use

So here is the 2.8 engine with the aluminum heads and the 3400 intake test fitted with the gen 2 valve covers still in place:


Now one thing that needs taken care of when swapping intake is the fact that the gen2 intake actually has the oil fill cast into it. Simple enough all the aluminum head motor valve covers fit on the different generations even to the fact that I swapped on valve covers off a gen4 3900.

Since we are now working with a 2.8 with 3400 intake and I will be controlling all of this with a Microsquirt stand alone computer, which sadly can’t handle SFI, nor does the engine have the cam sensor needed for SFI, I decided to remove the casting marks. I also removed the EGR valve, extra vacuum fittings and a couple mounting bosses that were no longer needed:


Vacuum fitting removed:


EGR flanges removed:


Mounting bosses and such removed:


Now that I knew it all fit it was a matter of seeing if gaskets lined up. While they do line up, i wouldn’t say they line up well enough to recommend this, and honestly it might all crash and burn due to this The ports on the gen 2 head are a little lower into the valley than the gen 3 intake, its fairly close, but could be better. Since this is a quick build to get the car on the road, and I didn’t want to swap to the 3400 heads I had on the shelf I added a little silicon and we will see the results before too long:


You can also see in the last picture that the ends of the stamped rockers need clearance for the larger intake manifold.

For belt routing, using the gen2 AC compressor set up and timing cover, I Low mounted a fiero alternator and made a bracket to hold a gen4 3900 belt tensioner. Added a lower smooth idled and tapped a hold from the power steering mount for a upper ribbed idled and ended up with this, simple but pretty good belt wrap on the important parts:


Since I am going to be running a stand alone ECU I am able to run what every ignition set up I want, and even can waste spark fire LS1 based ignition coils. So modifying some left over brackets from my turbo vr6 vw rabbit I made some coil mounts and used the ls1 coils and plug wires:


Also you can see some color going onto the engine, well black:


I repainted the intake manifold adding a decal stencil for some fun and hopefully today I will be test fitting the motor, need to clean/paint some more parts and swap the oil pan over that has the turbo drain welded into it.

And hopefully if its running this week I will be taking back to Alex’s shop to get the newly painted/modified body panels installed

Having bought this car in 2006 wrecking it in 2012 and not even having it in my shop for the last 4 years I am super excited to have my first Fiero I ever bought back!

[This message has been edited by eph_kay (edited 01-16-2018).]

AWautoworks JUN 24, 04:47 PM
Before the car left my shop and went back to Chris I was able to finish the body work to the upper quarter. Our ultimate goal was to keep this looking as stock looking as possible, something where just walking by one wouldn't notice it's wider than your standard fiero. I will post photos here shortly With the process of the body work.
AWautoworks JUN 26, 11:41 AM
As I stated before I was able to get most of the actual wide body done before Chris took the car back to his shop for the engine swap. as far as the wide body goes our goal is OEM plus. Keep it as stock looking as possible but improve upon the design a little. We were aiming for 2 inches wider on each side but ended up just a little shy of that. To start out with I had to build most of this on the car so I could keep my gaps and body lines with the doors, bumpers and quarters. I started with 2 stock fastback clips. One was junk and all cracked out so no sad faces when you see how the process works. So to start I separated the outer skin of the junk clip with the inner structure, This gave me a skin that was flexible and able to overlay the existing quarter. After some trimming up I was able to get the fitment that I wanted. Now the task was to attach the new panel to the stock quarter. With my experience in the body shop I know of some good products for this operation. 3m makes an SMC panel bond 8219. I got all of my panel prepped and ready to make the step to attach the panels together. With a bunch of clamps and sheet metal screw (temporary) here is was I ended up with






Once the Panel bond was 100% dry now I could come back and start the glass and body work. I had to grind back down where the panels met and grooving out a little bit of material in order to get proper adhesion with the thin layer of fiberglass. (SMC resin not traditional). once the glass was dry I went back over with standard body filler to do my final coats. Every step I get closer the more excited I get to see the end result. here are some photos of the body work








I had to get some comparison photos just so see the difference just a little bit better.





[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-11-2018).]

AWautoworks JUN 26, 11:57 AM
The next step is to attach the mounts for the bumper, quarter and fuel door. Back to the same product I used before. I prepped the inside of the panels and used the mounting points trimmed off of the inner structure.


[This message has been edited by AWautoworks (edited 01-10-2018).]