A few of you have expressed an interest in rally so I thought I'd post this. I have a rally coming up on the weekend of March 1-2. That's next weekend.
We're racing on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday will probably be better for spectating but I'll have a little more free time to spend with you on Saturday.
We're heading down Friday evening and will be coming back Sunday evening. I'm staying at the Westwood Inn in Hoquiam, and that's where the official start of the race is on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday finishes with a nice dinner at the Oakville Grange Hall that you're welcome to attend. Cost of dinner is only a $5 donation to the Oakville food bank.
All the info about the event is here: http://www.nwr-scca.org/rally/doowop.html Let me know if you're planning on coming and I'll keep an eye out for you. You can keep an eye out for this car:
I never use PIP because I try to save on bandwidth, I always host from my server or from an alternate site. But here are the pics. I found most of them on a couple of diffrent web pages.
------------------ David hotrodfiero@shaw.ca 85GT 2.9 4spd www.david.westcoastfieros.com
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01:26 AM
PFF
System Bot
Capt Fiero Member
Posts: 7657 From: British Columbia, Canada Registered: Feb 2000
Doug at one time I had all the pics of your roll cage install, if you could email those to me I can post those. Even if you could just send them to me, as a few people that I am friends with are considering intalling a cage in there car and would like to see how it is set up.
email is hotrodfiero@shaw.ca and yes I am on broadband so email can be up to 5meg.
------------------ David hotrodfiero@shaw.ca 85GT 2.9 4spd www.david.westcoastfieros.com
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01:30 AM
Nashco Member
Posts: 4144 From: Portland, OR Registered: Dec 2000
Here is a few more, showing what can happen to a great car. Don't worry Doug Fixes it better than it was after every.......... Uhm what do you call that doug, Tree Jumps, Stump Plowing, Over Drifting...........
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11:29 AM
onfire Member
Posts: 1560 From: Maple Valley, WA Registered: Oct 2000
I would love to check it out. I will let you know what day I can make it up there.
Sadly I don't think I can make it. I will be practicing my driving for a CDL all day Sat. As for Sun. I would only be able to watch part of the race, and I wouldn't be able to stay for the end to meet you. So maybe next time.
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12:24 PM
Larry Member
Posts: 509 From: Little Rock, AR Registered: May 2001
In the rear I have Koni struts. I cut the perches off of them and had Ground Control make me some longer threaded sleeves. I'm running 200 lb / in springs.
In the front I cut out all the stock spring perches and replaced it with a stock-car style weight jack that fits a standard 2.5" spring. Now I can adjust the ride height through a hole in the fender liner and I don't have to lift the car off the ground to do it. The front shocks are Konis and the springs are 400 lb/in.
The shocks and struts have been re-valved by Truechoice for more rebound damping. My spring rates are about double the stock rate and that was too much for the dampers. If I landed hard the back of the car would bounce back off the ground. That's no good.
I haven't settled on spring rates yet. I still have a little more understeer than I would like and I bottom out too much on some rough stuff. I'm thinking of going stiffer all around but more in the rear to get rid of some understeer. I'm thinking of rates like 250/450 or 300/500. It works pretty good right now, though, and I have a couple other projects to finish first.
I don't have any sway bars and my ride height is set about 1" higher than stock. The rear strut tower tops are now reinforced with 3/16" steel because I bent the original strut tower tops into a dome shape. My front setup seems to be holding up fine so far. The first front suspension setup I made bent on its first rally.
All the control arms and tie rods are stock Fiero pieces with polyurethane bushings.
The brakes are stock '84 - '87 front calipers on all four corners with Porterfield R4-S pads. I have a hydraulic handbrake, a rear brake bias adjuster, and stainless steel braided lines. I'm still having a problem with the pads binding in the calipers. I have one remaining idea about how to fix it. If that fails I have a choice of keeping the brake pads brand new, or switching to a custom setup with Wilwoods like David Cole did. I dream about the latter until I add up the price, but buying R4-S pads for every other rally ain't cheap either.
Wheels are stock Fiero 15" wheels. They're far from light, but they're cheap and have so far proven indestructable. Tires are Silverstone S525, size 16/64-15. I realize that size looks a little unusual; it means 16cm tread width, 64cm overall height, 15" wheel.
Steering is stock, but sometime in the future I plan to add power steering. I'll be able to go faster if I don't have to turn the steering wheel three complete rotations from lock to lock when drifting around a corner.
Did I miss anything?
------------------ Doug Chase '88 Fiero Formula 5-spd (autocrosser) '88 Fiero GT 5-spd (daily driver) '85 Fiero GT 5-spd (rally car) Custom roll cage fabrication available
Originally posted by Doug Chase: In the front I cut out all the stock spring perches and replaced it with a stock-car style weight jack that fits a standard 2.5" spring. Now I can adjust the ride height through a hole in the fender liner and I don't have to lift the car off the ground to do it. The front shocks are Konis and the springs are 400 lb/in.
Wow! I really like this front suspensions setup (I've been trying to come up with something like this for awhile now).
Do you have any other details on the parts you used (I've puchased from SCP before- but I'm not entirely sure what to look for)? I seem to be locating a few weight jack setups for 5 1/2" springs, but nothing for standard 2 1/2" springs...?
Do you have any other details on the parts you used (I've puchased from SCP before- but I'm not entirely sure what to look for)? I seem to be locating a few weight jack setups for 5 1/2" springs, but nothing for standard 2 1/2" springs...?
I just bought the bolt and nut. The buckets were fabricated (just like almost everything else on this car). They're easy to make -- just find some 2.5" OD tubing and weld it to a round plate. Voila! Spring bucket.
