quote Originally posted by Archie: In truth, if it wasn't for the build threads on PFF, you guys would have nothing to post about on RFT.

Bingo! For virtually everything discussed here (V8Archie related) on good ole' Pennock's is being discussed over there. They're like a bad marriage/relationship that has ended, but instead of moving on; they keep coming back in a drunken state; flicking on every thread asking for a fight.

"Declare your Independence"- what a joke. You can't declare "independence" if you haven't move on.

In case anyone wonders, "myfierogt" wasn't banned because people "ganged up" on him. He was banned because I banned him. There was something familiar about him so I checked my logs. Turns out he is the recently banned member "zimmer" who made it a hobby jumping into "Archie" threads and bash him but was banned and apparently re-joined to finish the job.

Now normally, if you are banned and return without the system detecting it, and this time around you behave, then kudos to you. But it's obvious why "myfierogt" returned and thus why he got banned again.

Yup, that would be Cliff, in the corner, quietly considering his Louisville Slugger...
"Speak softly and carry a big stick"...Indeed!


...Now...Back to the build!!!

[This message has been edited by TRiAD (edited 05-15-2008).]

quote Originally posted by Cliff Pennock: But it's obvious why "myfierogt" returned and thus why he got banned again.

Interesting, his very first post was actually in my thread where I am trying to sell my 2.8 V6 in order to start on my V8 swap.

I don't know if he was showing interest in order to mess with me because I'm doing a V8 swap or if he was really interested. Either way he messed up his plans by exposing himself in this thread.

quote Originally posted by TRiAD: ...Now...Back to the build!!!

OK, it looks like the dust has cleared.

Since we left off, we've removed the body from the chassis & are welding up the chassis some more in places we couldn't get to with the body on.



Here's an example of the many places we have to do the finish steel work.

This is the door jamb on the drivers side........ before.......



after.........



Working on building the rear window mounting frame.....





Overall, this chassis looks a lot like the chassis on my GT40 looked at this point in it's construction.



Archie

looking good.... but you need a better camera

quote Originally posted by kawana: looking good.... but you need a better camera

Yeah, you're right. Or I need a steadier hand.

Yeah, I think it's the camera.

A

The camera should have a button with a lightening symbol on it, you can push that to cycle through different flash modes. The one you want is a lightening bolt symbol, that will enable the flash all the time. Your camera is thinking that there's enough light, and there is if it chooses a very slow shutter speed, but slow shutter speeds make the pictures blurry. Setting the flash to always on guarantees enough light for clear pictures. Also, you can steady the camera by making a monopod for it, get a short 1/4-20 bolt and cut the head off, drill a slightly smaller hole in the end of a stick like a broom handle and glue the bolt into it. The bottom of the camera should have a 1/4-20 hole in it, just thread the bolt into it and presto, instant one-legged tripod.

JazzMan

We did a bunch more welding on the car today.

While moving cars around in the shop, we decided to take it outside for some fresh air.











Archie

Need about an inch in lowering Arch

Cordially,
Kevin

Love the fabrication ..hopefully Jay Leno will drive it and compare it to his "stable" of Miuras

I like what I see so far Archie. Even I have doubted some of your fabrication over the years but the test of time has proved it worked. This one looks pretty damn strong to me despite what the naysayers say. Hell it has more structure to it than a huge chunk of the production cars on the road.

Just a question though. The parts of the framework near the front and back wheels, are they going to be trimmed down at a later stage or are they overhanging for some reason I have yet to work out?

archie,
i have been reading this post and first off, i would like to say i think its awesome. i have been admiring your work since i join the forum about a year ago. what a lot of people do not seem to realize it the extensive amount of research and time thats involved in your work. to customize something, but yet make it safe, realiable and look good to boot is not an easy task. you have done alot of creative things and i enjoy the products you make, with that being said, i have a question about the build

what are your plans for the frame as far as a "finished product", or is it finished now besides the powdercoating? what i am talking about are the areas that appear that they could be plated for strength or filled in with fiberglass matting for a cleaner more finished look. just curious, thanks for the build...
spence

Thanks guys.

As with many of my threads on PFF this is a build thread. People say that threads suck without pictures, so I make sure there are lots of pics in my threads.

Because they are build threads, all of the pictures in the threads should be considered in process pictures. It's my hope that posting pictures of a build makes other Fiero owners be less afraid to go after some of their own dreams for their cars. Some people would be surprised at what they can do themselves with proper planning & care.

In process pics tend to show the good, bad & the ugly of the building process. None of my in process pics are "posed" it's a waste of my customers' money to clean up & paint everything everytime we take some pics. Typically I take pics of just about everything we do in one of these builds. Many times I take more than 50 pictures a day but less than 10% are used in online build threads. In some of my build threads, I've had people state that "The car should be lowered" or "the brakes appear to be too small for the wheels that are on the car". Guess what, that's because we haven't got to that part yet.

Someplace on this Forum there is a build thread on my GT40. In that thread, you'll find lots of pictures of the chassis & if you look thru the pics from beginning to end, you can see how the chassis went from "ugly, he'll never get it done" to "ready to take to paint" as you know, it doesn't happen overnite. It takes lots of planning & labor.

In the case with the latest pics I posted, we had to move a couple of cars around in the shop & the Miura had to be rolled outside. While it was out there, I decided to take some pics.

There's still a lot of metalwork & welding yet to do before we can send it out to powdercoat. In the above pics notice that the left side door jam area is much more finished than the same area on the right side. The rear window mounting flange is finished in these pics but wasn't even started in previous pics.

Our goal is to get ALL the chassis metalwork & welding done before we sent it out for powdercoating. I'm sure we'll miss something that will have to be welded later but we're trying to get it all at this point.

You'll notice 2 lengths of 2x2 box tubing running at the door sill plates at what will be the top of the rocker panels. They are connected to each other with 2x2 cripples. You'll notice that they tie together side to side via the 1x3 retangular boxes that form the cowl just above the heater box. Behind the doors the dual sill boxes are tied together by the structure that goes across the back of the car at the base of the rear window. While a lot of the original Fiero chassis is still there, you'll find a lot of steel tying it all together.

This build is real simillar to my Gt40 build & that car was extremely solid.

The plan is that the ends of the two 2x2 sill plate boxes will have a 2x2 box going in towards the center of the car and tie into the chassis at that point. These pcs. will double as a mounting point for the inner wheel well liners.

Among other things, we still have to build a trunk area for the Muira between the 2 rear verticals just above the rear cradle mounts. We will be welding in sheet metal between the front frame horns & 1x3's going fromt the cowl to the nose. This will also form the inside of the front wheel well. We still have a lot of open ends on the rails, they will be boxed in & closed off.

From the interior side, metal will have to be cut & welded in place under the sills & in the rear corners of the passenger compartment to close them off. Provisions will have to be made for the later mounting of rubber seals around all openings. We have pieces of a very crude dash & console, we will have to be welding in any mounting tabs we might need for the dash installation & we also will have to decide on an overhead console & make provisions for mounting that.

Inside the doors, the kit provides no provisions for hinging & window mechanisms. We've already designed hinges & mounted a steel plate in the front of the door for them but we still have to provide strength to the door & mounting points for the unknown window systems by running a steel frame inside the doors.

This is just an example of what remains to be done.

At some point, soon I hope, we'll be ready to send the chassis out to be powdercoated. We will show pics of it heading out at that time.

At that time I also plan to take the Forum for a picture tour of that powdercoating operation to show you what all is involved in running a powdercoat operation.

As you know, the body for this car was made in the U.K. & the panels are starting to warp & lose their shape. The panels were made with a very rich resin/glass ratio, so when we start working on the final body installation, we will have to do some heavy body reglassing. We will also be building a steel framework to glass into the inside of some of the larger body panels to help them retain their shape once the car is complete.

Archie

[This message has been edited by Archie (edited 06-07-2008).]

thanks archie,
i can picture the car as you explain the process. nice work
spence

WOW You are the man Archie!! That is the best fabrication I have ever seen. I love it!!

The car looks great, Archie....with that said, I hope the following isn't taken too harshly (because it isn't meant to be harsh).

I've been following this thread because the Miura is one of my favorite cars. Along with some of the other people here, I too question the safety of it...but I think they are looking at this from the wrong point of view. A large portion of the safety of a vehicle isn't so much the rigidity of the frame and it's ability to resist collision damage...but it's ability to crush in a controlled manner to minimize the forces of the collision on the driver and passenger. Unfortunately, this is a quality that can only be determined with crash tests...which I hope nobody does with this car. Yes....I question this cars safety. But I also recognize that every vehicle has compromises. You can't have the stiffest structure possible, and still protect the driver and passenger the best way possible in a collision. Stiffer structure aids performance. I would assume that you are focusing on maximum performance without compromising safety rather than maximum safety....which is exactly the way I would want my own Miura replica built.

Anyone that is questioning your methods, or the final results, need only look at your past builds. My car isn't pretty right now either...but at least you have past experience to fall back on. Can't wait to see more.

Archie - i just sent you an e-mail on a different subject. All i can say is that you REALLY know how to build an amazing car

Any updates ?

quote Originally posted by Archie: While moving cars around in the shop, we decided to take it outside for some fresh air. Archie

It almost looks like with a few more beams and some sheet metal you could cut the Pontiac out of the car...

Ok, it's been a month since I've put any updates up.

But we've been working. The chassis is headed over for powdercoating this week.

You can compare the following pictures to the last set of pictures & see that we've added a lot of stuff to it.

I was going to try to describe what all we've done but there's too much stuff to detail here, so we'll let the pictures do the talking.

Video link fixed

WIth those latest pics I am picturing it with Mad Max style bodywork, a few gun mounts and bullbars.

Can't wait to see it powdercoated.

Today, it's off to powdercoating.......











Archie

WOW.....this thing is going to be freakin awesome!!!!!!
Great work there guys!!!! Solid as a rock.

------------------
Order your Official Pennock's Forum decals in this thread. https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum4/HTML/040445.html



2" Choptop
Shortened Front Bumper
Shortened Rear Bumper
10" Stretch
Dubs
350 V8 Conversion pushing 350 ponies!!

Hey Archie, which process is better, pors-15 or powder coating?

bumpity bump I need IMPUT can't do these things any more so I need to see more

quote Originally posted by bubbajoexxx: bumpity bump I need IMPUT can't do these things any more so I need to see more

The chassis should be back from Powdercoating later this week.

BTW, I saw your project & talked to it's new owner extensively at the 25th.

Good work.

Archie

Wow! Looks great! This is gonna be a sweet ride when it's done.

Archie one question...The chassis looks beautiful and very very solid.
But in relationship from stripped frame weight of the Fiero to what you have now...how much heavier is the car going to be ?
I m considering on my v-8 swap to strengthen the frame (since the whole engine compartment will be tube frame) just wanted to stay around factory weight at finish product.

quote Originally posted by phoenixbeginning: Archie one question...The chassis looks beautiful and very very solid. But in relationship from stripped frame weight of the Fiero to what you have now...how much heavier is the car going to be ? I m considering on my v-8 swap to strengthen the frame (since the whole engine compartment will be tube frame) just wanted to stay around factory weight at finish product.

Good question..Archie have you weighed the modded frame?

quote Originally posted by Erik: Bubba, if you were to get together with Archie on as a design consultant ...

Archie is doing a fine job as it is he dose not need my 2 cents but if he had anyquestions for me I would answer them gladly if I can

We're still waiting for the chassis to come back from the powdercoating.

In the meantime the owner has had some new custom seats made for it.

I think they look pretty good.







Archie

not bad at all as lone as they are not to wide for rhe fiero floor pan