Got another small item for the interior that I have been wanting. Now I have a place for cell phone. Came from The Fiero store and painted to match the interior colors.



Also here is a pic of the motor I got last weekend. I still haven't gotten it seperated from the trans yet and up on the engine stand. Can't tell if its too hot here or if I am just too lazy or tired! LOL



From what I have read about this motor it is 165 HP. It does have the one piece intake and I could still bolt on a super charger later. I am going to use my 4 speed with this. I have sent a couple of PM's to FieroX and Purple Reign about mounts but haven't heard anything back from either. I am assuming from what I have read that I can retain my original axles as long as I am using the 4 speed. This motor was complete accept for the coil pack and a temp sensor. The engine harness is complete but only to where the bulkhead connector was on the firewall. I have the original ECM as well. I think I got a good deal on it. We will see when I crack it open and take a look inside. Its supposed to cool off here Thursday afternoon so I hope to get a little done then and over the weekend.

Edit haven't owned a page since the first post LOL

[This message has been edited by donnie072003 (edited 06-07-2011).]

Beautiful car

Thanks jwrape. Its a labor of love LOL! Been kind of slow posting lately a lot going on here. I finally got the motor and trans seperated and the motor on the stand this past weekend. It cleaned up pretty good. I see your build is coming along nicely too.

So I finally got the motor and trans seperated and got the motor up on the stand. Took her outside for a good powerwashing. She seemed to clen up pretty good. Most of the aluminum parts are kind of pitted up but I think they will look ok after another cleaning a good coat of paint. Not in any hurry with this one. I'm going to just purchase things as the extra money comes along. But, for the price I paid for this one I couldn't pass it up. I think overall it will just need a gasket job but I am going to pull the heads and oil pan to make sure there is nothing funny going on inside. The fella I bought it from saved it from a car his wife had been driving but the rust took it over and he bought her a new car. This is by no means a powerhouse motor I think its only rated at 175HP if I remember correctly. But who knows maybe I can find a supercharger reasonably cheap to throw on it before I stick it in the car. Do series 2 chargers work on a series 1 engine? I am not all that up on this engine swapping stuff yet so I have no idea what my options are. Hopefully this winter she will get a new paint job at my buddies house. He is set up for it way better than I am and he is a much better painter. Gonna stick with white but going to change up and go base coat clear coat.

[This message has been edited by donnie072003 (edited 06-24-2011).]

Been a while since my last update. Tonight I finally pulled the valve covers off the 3800 to see what I was working with. Inside looked really clean no sludge at all and everything looked like it was in good shape. Thats a relief because I didn't want to rebuild this engine. I think I will still pull the intake and heads though and see what they look like. Intake needs a lot of cleaning anyway LOL! It was too hot in the garge today to do much and after doing yard work all day I wasn't up for much. I've been trying to pull those valve covers for 3 weeks now and just finally got to it. Are the series one valve covers made of some kind of plastic?? They seemed like they were made of plastic when I pulled them. Very light and when I scraped my finger over them it didn't leave a shiny mark like I was down to bare metal.

Awesome work so far, very impressive! If you need any help with the engine swap let me know since I am pretty close to you.

Thanks, I will probably take you up on that offer. The wiring I am not worried about so much its making sure everything is set in the right place that worries me more. It would be nice to have a hand that has already done it before.

So I bought this motor a couple of months ago and today I tore her down to see how the inside looked. I'm a little disappointed at what I found. Please let me know what you guys think of this. I never heard this motor run but the guy I bought it from had been saving it for a while. He even moved from Michigan to Illinois with it so he thought it was a good motor.

Under valve cover


Other side valve cover


Intake pulled


Heads not too bad but I did notice this in the front holes. What is this evidence of?


Back holes


And then I found this not sure what it is any ideas??






So I pulled the pan and found another piece




Found a few tiny particles on the screen but nothing was on the magnetic plug.


No evidence of damage inside that I can see.




So should I just chalk this up as a loss or should I tear it down further. Its a series 1 3.8 and its not what I really wanted so I am a bit disappointed. I really want a 4.9 to drop in this thing someday. Please let me know what you guys think. Thanks

A few fellow forum members think it may be from under the timing cover. Hope so. Thought it was odd that I had 1 chunk on the top end and another down in the pan. No other evidence of metal anywhere else.

Started tearing down the front of the motor and realized I don't have a harmonic balancer puller. Going to go ahead and pull the water pump off anyway to see how it looks. All this stuff needs a serious cleaning anyway. Its just too stinking hot out in the garage right now to work out there though. Hoping it will cool off a little this weekend. I did look over everything again to see if there was any evidence of damage and I saw nothing. From the looks of the entire motor I figure it has never been cracked open for anything. Luckily everything on the motor has broken loose reasonable well and nothing has broken or even acted like it wanted too. So far the only issue I have had is that one of the exhaust manifold studs is missing. Not a big deal though for sure. I think I should probably go ahead and pull the balancer and timing cover though just to be on the safe side. Wouldn't hurt to replace the timing chain anyway. WIll update once I get the balancer pulled. I should be able to borrow a puller from a buddy of mine.

God I feel so bad for neglecting my car and this thread! I haven't done much with mine lately since I bought one for my son. Been working out the bugs on his and I think we are pretty close to it being a really reliable driver. Tomorrow morning since the heat is letting up here I am going to start swapping the front springs on my car and installing the eibachs I have had for a while. My springs will be going on my sons car to get it off the ground. I am pretty sure they cut like 3 rings out of his front springs so it needs to get raised up a little. I will probbaly still cut one ring out but that should still raise it up like 2 inches lol!

Well I never got the springs replaced. I bought a seperator kit and one of the lower ball joints jsut would not let go. Everything else came apart easy. Turned my attention to the passenger headlight that had failed. Got the motor rebuilt and did some rewiring to it. Seems that the fuseable link had gone out to the passenger headlight so there was no constant power to the relay. The PO had wired the green direct to the tan headlight wiring to make it go up when the switch was turned on. I pulled new wiring over and got it back right. Also got my sons [assenger headlight to work (Gen 2) Ended up just reseating the plug to the module and it took care of it. I love easy fixes! LOL Since the springs didn't happen I did get back to work on my hood some more. I hate body work!

Keep up the good work! I wouldn't worry too much about that piece of metal in the motor if you didn't find anything obviously wrong with the rest of the engine. I bet the person at the factory was in a hurry to get to lunch and didn't notice she left it in there!

My youngest son surprized me today. He came home from school and asked if his Auto mechanics class could use my car to change a set of springs on. I have my Eibachs that I want installed so he asked the teacher (40 year veteran mechanic) if they could do it as a class project. Free of charge plus I get an alignment for free as well. Not a bad deal!! I fought that darn ball joint all I wanted to anyway!!. I think they will be doing it at the end of next week. I will post pics when they are done.

After a lot of debate with myself I am putting the GT up for sale. I am not getting out of Fieros though. I am going to sell mine and then take the one we bought for my oldest son. He loves the car but he is not looking forward to winter with it and I would hate to put this car on the salty Illinois winter roads anyway. It doesn't have any rust and I would like to keep it that way. Even though I have put a ton of work into this car and I love it there were still things that needed to be done to it eventually. My sons car already has a full poly suspension under it as well as coilover shocks. Engine is already an upgrade to a 3.4. The only down side to me taking this car is that it is an auto. I do love my 4 speed and going through the gears is a blast. But I figure I am not getting any younger so maybe I should just enjoy the ride and the sound! LOL My son has found a Jeep cherakee Lerado that a friend has that he is wanting. It is a nice SUV and I am pretty sure that we will be able to come to some kind of trade for my car and the Jeep. While I love the look of my sons car I am sure I will miss this one since I have put so much time into it. Looks like from this point forward I will be making posts on the red car as I will not be putting any more time into this one. I can't wait to swap the tires and wheels over to the red car and see how they look on there. I will be having to buy a trunk seal soon as his is shot but the rest of the car is very nice. I am still going to finish my hood project and I will be putting it on the red car at some point. And of course I will be buying another TXGOOD cupholder/armrest for this one too. Who knows maybe I will get up enough ambition to do another motor swap. If I do though I know it will be for a 4.9. I want that V8 grumble behind me lol! Not sure if I should start another thread as this car will be gone. Guess I will figure it out later after the deed is done.

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Getting closer every day!
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/080998.html

Donnie

Well the Fiero sold today. Kind of a sad day too me. but I will continue to be a Fiero owner. I have taken the Fiero we got my son a few months ago and am in the process of finding him something else to drive for winter. New owner was happy as could be to get it. I informed him about Pennocks so maybe he will become a member on here too. I gave him my number so if he had any questions or needed to find any parts I told him I would help as much as I could. In the mean time I guess I will be driving this one!

Well, if it weren't for my wife, I'd have bought that white one, trust me. Now that you've got the new wheels on the red one, it looks awesome. I really think you made the right decision keeping the red one over the white one though, even if it is an auto . It appears the red is in better condition overall. I think a V-8 in that car would be awesome combined with the suspension upgrades already done and the rust free Georgia body. Enjoy it!