sooo. heres my questions.
id like to give alittle more room for exhaust work. i was thinking of shorting up the trunk. (making it shallow insted of deep)
you know how they have the small shelf like space on eather side? i was thinking of cutting the deep part and making it flush with the self like area.
so its all flat.
i know ill be lossing trunk space.

but will it look to ugly? or not worth the time and effort?
im just having thos idea moments!

when most people cut the trunk out they make it level with the shelf part your talking about and cover the hole with sheetmetal.

ahh thats what i was thinking.
is it worth it? the extra space?
id like to upgrade the engine.
it be nice to have the room and not worry about trying to make up some funky bend and what not

I refuse to cut the trunk at any cost. You have so little trunk space to begin with so why eliminate it? If you cut it then where will the tire will go after changing a flat? IMO cutting the trunk out makes the Fiero unsuitable for even overnight trips.

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" THE BLACK PARALYZER" -87GT 3800SC Series III engine, 3.4" Pulley, N* TB, LS1 MAF, Flotech Exhaust Autolite 104's Custom CAI 4T65eHD w. custom axles, HP Tuners VCM Suite.
87GT - 3.4L Turbocharged engine, modified TH125H
" ON THE LOOSE WITHOUT THE JUICE "

Thats what i think also and didnt cut mine to get my exhaust in using the 3x00 manifolds. Its also really loud though.

I originally cut mine out for a 3800 swap just to get space, but felt it was neccessary when I went to the Aurora motor.



Not enough space far a spare, but still a lot of space.

Bob

Haven't cut mine yet but its going to get cut.

With my 3.4l DOHC turbo I still have the full trunk. It takes a little more ingenuity, but you can keep the trunk. For long trips like Power Tour, I couldn't make it without the whole thing.

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62 Buick Special
86 GT, 5-Speed
87 GT, 3.4l DOHC Turbo 415 WHP, 11.9 @ 118
88 Toyota Supra Turbo

I am a big supporter of keeping the full trunk because I take my fiero on long roadtrips and really need the storage space.

i cut my trunk bottom off because it interfered with my turbo and with the ecotec exhaust facing to the back of the car it makes it so much easier to hide everything under there .i doubt if one of my 245's would fit in the trunk with the way it tapers at the bottom .the spare the car came with does not fit over my 11" brakes so i carry a can of fix a flat .if that wont do it i will have to get a tow to the nearest tire store .and i can still get enough stuf in there for two people for a week .if you have traveled as much as i have you learn to pack light .the decision breaker for me was that you cannot get two sets of golf clubs in there . but my set fits in easy , even with the driver still in the bag :

and the muffler and cat are nicely hidden up where the bottom of the trunk used to be :

Why cut your trunk when you can have something like this:



Click on the pic for a larger view.

[This message has been edited by D2inDFW (edited 01-31-2009).]

it probably help with the extra space so you have more options in mufflers with out having to chop up the mufffler to make it fit.
i would like to eventually stick a 4.9 or a 3800. maybe a SBC. havnt decied yet. but it would be nice to have the extra space. tho i have this funky idea where to run my exhaust once i get a new engine.
i dont know if it will work. if it will ill keep the trunk. ifff not. then i may remove the trunk for the extra space. i dont go on long trips. if i do. theres still the area up front to store afew extra things.
does anyone have any photos of there trunk moved up with carpet installed?
the one in the photo was what i was thinking of doing but it be nice to see some carpet to get a better fuller idea.
im not good with imaging things with out photos to look at.

I have a 3800 SC Series III installed (including cat and muffler) in one of my cars and the trunk is not cut.

It cost me about $500 dollars extra to keep the bottom half of the trunk. I think it will be worth it in the long run. I have not run my car on the road yet but the exhaust note is surprisingly low compared to what I thought it would be at idle.

hmmm. ill have to do some thinking about the trunk..
i would like to have space in the trunk. but i also like to have abit of extra room for exhaust.
hmm i wounder if i could just shorten up the well area. cut it in half so the well isnt as deep? but still have some room. might not be worth it. afew inches....
i havnt done a custom exhaust before.

the issue with mine was more wanting a turbo and the direction the exhaust came out of the engine .i can see it being fairly easy to save the trunk with a v6 or a v8 because you can fab up a crossover pipe and follow the stock exhaust routing .with an ecotec swap the exhaust manifold comes out of the engine right where the stock fiero muffler was .so you lose that space before you even start .add the turbo and you get the problem .roger thelin makes a set of headers that allow everything to fit in without cutting the trunk but it doesnt allow the use of a cat .i feel a cat is necessary for a modern engine like mine for proper tuning ,so the bottom of the trunk had to go .

quote Originally posted by Dennis LaGrua: I refuse to cut the trunk at any cost. You have so little trunk space to begin with so why eliminate it? If you cut it then where will the tire will go after changing a flat? IMO cutting the trunk out makes the Fiero unsuitable for even overnight trips.

Dennis this is one time you and I are in 100% agreement.

When I built my 4.9 I refused to cut the trunk. If I lose a little power by having a more restrictive exhaust then so be it. The Fiero has so little cargo room that I refuse to make it even smaller.

I cut out my trunk for the same reason as WTFB. I couldn't fit my rear 18's and 255's in there anyways so mine got cut out. Although a few months later, I went even further and cut out the entire trunk, bracing, and build a chromoly X-frame to get some more room and less weight back there.

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1988 Fiero Formula 4-spd- 3400sfi intercooled turbo Haltech ECU. Here comes 350+whp
1991 Galant VR4 - Summit White 2.3L, SCM61 powered Slammed Sedan
1990 Eclipse GSX - parted out
1992 S10 4x4 - lowered, bike/quad hauler, dd
1995 Kawi Ninja zx7r
2004 Honda TRX450R #33W MX

1987 Yamaha Warrior - for sale

I know this may sound stupid but I think that trunk is important when you go to sell the car. Everybody loves a well modded motor swap and all that but if a guy is looking at your car and his "girlfriend" is with him he'll be looking at that motor when you pop the deck lid and she'll be looking at that trunk. It's not like the cut trunk is affecting the resale value of the car but I just wouldn't want that to be the "deal breaker" for my sale. Plan on keeping your car forever? Mod it to your taste.

quote Originally posted by joshh44: it probably help with the extra space so you have more options in mufflers with out having to chop up the mufffler to make it fit. i would like to eventually stick a 4.9 or a 3800. maybe a SBC. havnt decied yet. but it would be nice to have the extra space. tho i have this funky idea where to run my exhaust once i get a new engine.

I run a 4.9 (full trunk - I also refuse to cut it) and have more than enough space to run whatever muffler I would like. Currently I just have a bottle type in the stock location (plus 2 resonators - at the time I tought it was too loud), but I am thinking of sticking on a flowmaster 80 - measured and it will fit just fine. In fact there is room for a full size muffler and a cat (which I do not need in my area, so it is cat delete right now).

If you find a muffler shop that does a lot of custom work (talk to any local Hot Rod groups), they can make anything work (BTW: my current set was only CAN$400 built/installed less the resonators as this was added afterwards). I took the car in, told them what I wanted and they basically said sure no problem, they actually gave me several options of how to run it as well. There is room for a full size muffler and a cat (which I do not need, so it is cat delete right now).

Another fellow near me did the same swap, but refused to take his car to the same shop I did, his total cost was over CAN$1100 and it looked like crap - one of the pipes actually was touching the VSS sensor - but this shop was lazy, took off the shelf parts and welded it together (plus his car was in the shop for approx 3 weeks vs 1.5 days for mine) - example of a bad shop (they probably would have loved to have his trunk cut).

Your call, but I don not see any reason to have to cut the trunk other than to take short cuts. Well I have seen one reason, and that/is a work in progress (N* with turbos) - so space is a bit of an issue here.

[This message has been edited by Mickey_Moose (edited 02-02-2009).]

Do you play golf? Without a trunk, you cannot carry your bag? Therefore, keep it for the reasons the other guys metioned above. You will hate yourself without the necessary place to put your golf bag and or other stuff.

Cordially,
Kevin

I cut the lower trunk of mine last year, to give plenty of room for the new exhaust on my SBC, I now have a really good flowing system, 2.5"/3" mandrel bent stainless into a Dynomax ultra-flo muffler, its a pretty big muffler and cuts down the exhaust compared to the flowmaster I had before, so its more nieghbour friendly. And I can still fit my golf clubs/bag in the back, although I don't have a huge bag, I do not miss the lower trunk at all, plus it used to get to hot anyway the old flowmaster was very close.

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84SE, aero body, 4 speed and an injected 355 V8

see my picture of my golf bag in my trunk above . it fits in quite nicely and is not a small bag .

I think I'm the only person I know who keeps a full size spare in the trunk.....

i dont golf so i dont need the room for a bag
only thing i really do is play floor hockey. but even then a hockey stick wont fit in the back.
i used the front space where the old spare used to go. theres some extra room there if your not planning on having a spare tire.
i removed mine so i got some extra space. im thinking about remolding everything up there to make it alittle more boxy looking. for trunk friendly i guess you can say.
iv stored some stuff up front before.
i jsut want to see some photos of a complete trunk shortend up. so far iv seen photos of it just metal placed and not carpeted over.
still looking for that.
i might have to try some photo shop to get a really good idea.

unless you have a paassenger then a simple but effective remedy is to remove 4 nuts from the passenger side seat and viola ..a huge area for storage..I have used it for sleeping space even on a long trip

iv done that before hehe. good times...

I think it looks neat w/o trunk

I will get a photo or 2 of mine probably later in the week when it warms up a bit, basically I chopped off the lower piece of the carpet, that went into the lower trunk, and then just cut out a piece for the new flat bottom, black carpet by the way, looks like it came that way.

quote Originally posted by joshh44: i dont golf so i dont need the room for a bag only thing i really do is play floor hockey. but even then a hockey stick wont fit in the back. i used the front space where the old spare used to go. theres some extra room there if your not planning on having a spare tire. i removed mine so i got some extra space. im thinking about remolding everything up there to make it alittle more boxy looking. for trunk friendly i guess you can say. iv stored some stuff up front before. i jsut want to see some photos of a complete trunk shortend up. so far iv seen photos of it just metal placed and not carpeted over. still looking for that. i might have to try some photo shop to get a really good idea.

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84SE, aero body, 4 speed and an injected 355 V8

I would strongly consider taking the extra time building the exhaust and trying to keep the whole trunk.
I lost half of my trunk to my turbo and intercooler. After a couple of years of dealing with hardly any storage space I have now gone back and redone my whole turbo and exhaust system, just so I can get my whole trunk back.