quote Originally posted by ALLTRBO: LOL, it's pretty foolish to make those statements given that you didn't even read my post. That's fine with me. It's now posted here for relevant members to see who haven't seen my thread. That's all I wanted out of this one.

But you aren't taking anything away from me. All that this is doing is lessening my Fiero hobby work, making me concentrate on my German car business and build my own cars again....exactly where I was four years ago. I was happy and content with building cars for myself. I really don't care if I do swaps on the side. I am not doing it as a source of income...obviously. I'm still going to do a swap a year, but you really truned me off doing swaps for the public. Your OBD I, hybrid engine that has no technology and still uses pushrods to make 600whp, just wore me down.
My speed is more like my next planned swap. Variable valve timing, turbo, four overhead camshafts, six cylinders, and 400whp on a proven drivetrain. You won't take my love of Fieros away from me.

Yikes, 1 a year ??? At that rate you might get to mine in 2020. J/k!! Dave we all know you are very detail oriented with your swaps.

Darn, and I was going to ask you to do a twin turbo LS7 in Meg's car next year, too....

quote Originally posted by bmwguru: or grind the inside of the transmission to clear....either way will work.

This is a No-GO....NOT a good idea at all.....

quote Originally posted by MstangsBware: This is a No-GO....NOT a good idea at all.....

x1000

I missed him saying that. The part that contacts the transmission is very thin and it is under a lot of stress.

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Turbo 3800 E85 5spd spec5
11.54@132.7

Very good point.

I only mentioned the grinding of the transmission because that seemed to be the common method of clearing the pressure plate, but I have always just taken my flywheels down to clear.

Out of curiousity, does anyone know if the F23 has the same clearance issue?

I also decided to upgrade most of my swaps in the future to a stage 3+ clutch. After swapping the 3+ into my gold GT, I can't believe the better feel and grip.

quote Originally posted by bmwguru: Very good point. I only mentioned the grinding of the transmission because that seemed to be the common method of clearing the pressure plate, but I have always just taken my flywheels down to clear. Out of curiousity, does anyone know if the F23 has the same clearance issue? I also decided to upgrade most of my swaps in the future to a stage 3+ clutch. After swapping the 3+ into my gold GT, I can't believe the better feel and grip.

If the correct PP is used for the trans then there will be no clearance issues. Have to watch as vendors will send or sell u the wrong part...

One style of the spec stage 3 pressure plates I have use hit the trans, but that was one of the earlier designs.

quote Originally posted by bmwguru: Very good point. I only mentioned the grinding of the transmission because that seemed to be the common method of clearing the pressure plate, but I have always just taken my flywheels down to clear. Out of curiousity, does anyone know if the F23 has the same clearance issue? I also decided to upgrade most of my swaps in the future to a stage 3+ clutch. After swapping the 3+ into my gold GT, I can't believe the better feel and grip.

Hey Dave if you find time to do the F23 swap keep in mind there are more than a few of us out here looking for custom trani mounts, i guess it would be 3 peices 1 cable bracket and 2 trans mounts if you do this let me know i am in for a set for sure !

quote Originally posted by RULOOKIN: Hey Dave if you find time to do the F23 swap keep in mind there are more than a few of us out here looking for custom trani mounts, i guess it would be 3 peices 1 cable bracket and 2 trans mounts if you do this let me know i am in for a set for sure !

I got a cable from Mattwa and L67. I believe that Matt is making a kit and L67 is already making the cables, so I won't be making any kits for the F23.

quote Originally posted by bmwguru: One style of the spec stage 3 pressure plates I have use hit the trans, but that was one of the earlier designs.

They PP that is used for the 4 speed trans is the one that will hit the inside of the trans as it has rivets on the highest point...I ran across this one time.....

I always used to paint the inside of the bellhousing and spin the engine over by hand to see if any of the paint scrapes off. Now I just machine the flywheels down from the start. It seems to save time and I have put many miles on my personal swap with no flywheel issues
Dave

[This message has been edited by bmwguru (edited 12-19-2011).]

I definitely need to start looking into transmission optuions. The getrag in my car is just about finished. The 1-2 shift is getting impossible unless I rev match it perfectly. So, I took it to the track to give me a reason to upgrade the transmission....but the tranny held up. I could probably knock a full second off my times with a new trans.
The track was very slippery...they came out and added some sticky grip to the track after most of the faster cars almost crashed due to traction loss. I didn't break any axles, but bent my transmission brackets on the last run.

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www.hausofguru.com

We took Brian's car to the dyno a few days ago to get a baseline run on his 3800s/c. This is the GT that we modded the muffler and headers to give that "unique" great sound.
The current mods are: 1.9 rocker arms, Gen V blower with Northstar TB and 3" CAI, custom headers and exhaust and 3.4" supercharger pulley.

The upgrades we are doing are: Short stack intercooler, a supercharger pulley drop (size to be determined), and 42.5lb injectors

The humidity was horrible, but the numbers are right in line with what I expected. This is the first time we used this dyno shop, Precision Tuning, and they were very friendly and had a lot to say about our cars....all good things. They are a local Suburu performance shop and a bunch of nice guys.

I never looked at this thread recently till now. No I'm not making any F23 kits, as I don't have the space or equipment to do so. I also found out the same issues about the SPEC pressure plate in the F23, it hit the raised differential area. I went with the stock Getrag PP for now with a Spec 2+ disk. Justinbart found this out too, however he ground the area down and ended up leaking fluid out of it as he broke though to the inside of the case. I think he used JB weld on the inside and outside of the case.

quote Originally posted by bmwguru: I definitely need to start looking into transmission optuions. The getrag in my car is just about finished. The 1-2 shift is getting impossible unless I rev match it perfectly. So, I took it to the track to give me a reason to upgrade the transmission....but the tranny held up. I could probably knock a full second off my times with a new trans. The track was very slippery...they came out and added some sticky grip to the track after most of the faster cars almost crashed due to traction loss. I didn't break any axles, but bent my transmission brackets on the last run.

So you ran more 13s? I thought this was "way fast" now with all the meth injection on it?

quote Originally posted by darkhorizon: So you ran more 13s? I thought this was "way fast" now with all the meth injection on it?

I did run more 13's, but that was the fault of the transmission....and probably the driver too
My trans is shot and I am looking into options of the replacement. I don't want another Getrag. As for my car pulling harder, it it a definite "night and day" difference. I just can't get into second gear. My trap speed perked up too. I know this car is good for low 12's once I get it all worked out....I'm too busy building other's Fieros to get mine in tip top shape...lol.
I plan to get it dyno'd when we get Brian's car dyno'd after the mods.

Dave

What MPH? you could completely skip 2nd gear and still trap 110-112.

quote Originally posted by darkhorizon: What MPH? you could completely skip 2nd gear and still trap 110-112.

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Turbo 3800 E85 F23 5spd spec5
11.54@132.7

quote Originally posted by bmwguru: We took Brian's car to the dyno a few days ago to get a baseline run on his 3800s/c. This is the GT that we modded the muffler and headers to give that "unique" great sound. The current mods are: 1.9 rocker arms, Gen V blower with Northstar TB and 3" CAI, custom headers and exhaust and 3.4" supercharger pulley. The upgrades we are doing are: Short stack intercooler, a supercharger pulley drop (size to be determined), and 42.5lb injectors The humidity was horrible, but the numbers are right in line with what I expected. This is the first time we used this dyno shop, Precision Tuning, and they were very friendly and had a lot to say about our cars....all good things. They are a local Suburu performance shop and a bunch of nice guys.

We took Brian's car back to the dyno yesterday for some tuning after the mods. We dropped to a 3.25" pulley and came up with a really nice looking setup for the SSIC plumbing. Instead of heater hose from the rear to the front, we ran hard lines on each side of the gas tank and secured them in between the coolant pipes in the front. It looks cleaner and no sagging hoses over time.
At the end, it generated 301.6whp. They couldn't get a torque reading unfortunately. Their inductive pickup for the spark plug wires wasn't reading the rpm accurately. Nice bunch of guys though....they let me run the show on their dyno and gave me enough time to make some tuning changes without worrying about how long I tied up their dyno.
Dave

I have been thinking about the shop and finally came to a decision. We will still be offering swaps, but as of January 1st 2013, I am making changes to the business.

All swaps and Fiero repairs will now go through Autobahn Automotive. This protects me and you. If we get hurt while working on your car, or if your car gets damaged, it will be covered under my worker's comp and shop's insurance. In order to do this, I must charge you the shop's hourly rate @ $100 per hour for basic repairs and $150 per hour for custom fabrication.

We will no longer be making our prices competitive with the Fiero market. I currently charge $50 per hour for custom work, but as stated prior, the labor rate will meet my shop's current labor prices.

I will now charge by the flat rate hour as per Alldata times on Fiero repairs. Custom fabrication will still be by the hour.

All parts will be provided by Autobahn Automotive....and I will mark them up a minimum of 35% (most shops mark up the parts 35% to 50%...and I do too. It pays for the insurance, rent, utilities, office costs etc) (it costs me $27,000. a month to just open my doors)

All engines for swaps will be reman...no longer used. All transmissions will be reman and no longer used.

The benefit of doing this is now the Fieros will be completed faster as they will no longer be side projects, but I realize that a typical $10,000 swap is now going to be in excess of $20,000, but that is what it will take to complete these inside of shop hours. It will also help minimize the risk of failure.

I came to this decision after doing more than 20 Fiero swaps and even more German car swaps and major mods....the German swaps and mods always seem to go smoother with less issues and are completed in a fraction of the time. They are also 6-8x the price. I'd like to keep the Fiero market competitive, but to be honest it isn't in my best interest to kill myself while trying to modify a 25 year old commuter car.

I still love my Fieros and I realize this will drastically cut my Fiero business, but I feel it is for the best.

Dave

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www.hausofguru.com

Smart move. Especially with the crap going on in Dean's thread. It's definetely not your obligation to kill yourself working on Fiero's for a third what you usually charge.

quote Originally posted by ALLTRBO: LOL, it's pretty foolish to make those statements given that you didn't even read my post. That's fine with me. It's now posted here for relevant members to see who haven't seen my thread. That's all I wanted out of this one.

dave this guy is a tool dont let him bring you down. your work is excellent and 99.9% of us can testify to that. the fact that he went though all that to pick at stuff is just belittling himself. keep up the good work. i would go to you for a swap anyday of the week.

This really isn't directed at Alltrbo. He is a sh!thead, but that is old news.

I spent some time reading all the swap threads and what you people want from your vendors. I am not stopping swaps, I am just going to officially do them through my shop. This way it protects you as a consumer. You can check my business ethics. I have been in business since 2002 and have an A+ BBB rating. This is what you guys want.....but I can no longer do swaps for beer money and gas money. I can't go hide when something goes wrong, like Loyde.

Now, I have to charge shop labor rates to cover the added insurance, overtime hours and unfortunately, I will have to bill for every hour spent on the cars as I do with my German car owners.

I am sure that there will be people stepping up to take on the 3800 swaps out of their garage, but owning a repair shop is a lot different than working out of your garage. I spend 3-4 hours a day on paperwork to make sure I meet EPA standards, emailing written estimates to customers...etc. The Fieros will be treated NO different than a BMW that comes into my shop.

Dave

Just a friendly bump and a comment for Dave.

There's another shop under heavy fire right now, and one of the main things people have been harping on is lack of communication. Now there's a backlash coming in about poor quality, and a lack of effort being put into their vehicles. Whether or not Dave decides to do more Fiero stuff, I want people to know my experience.

Dave has NEVER ducked any of my calls. He either answers his phone or calls me back immediately. I get a response from text within a few minutes every time. When I've asked about things, he always explains the situation, even when there's a delay. He didn't inflate the cost of parts like many others do, and when something went wrong, he always made it right, even if it meant he cut into his own profits to do it. Like all builds along these lines, there will be some confusion, apprehension, and maybe even irritation on both sides between a builder and the customer, but Dave has always been able to keep things going in the right direction, even when I threw curve balls at him (which I have a few times now).

Since I had options of where I could have sent the car, including the shop that's being heavily discussed in another thread right now, I'm VERY glad I chose Dave's shop. People have PM'd me and asked me why it's taking so long and I've vented a bit about things coming up, and issues, but the past couple of months have proven to me that the car is in good hands and that it's better to have things take longer than you thought for quality's sake, than to have things rushed and not get what you paid for.

Thanks Dave!

Michael

Yet you were supposed to get the car over a year ago. You have no idea how well its build or what is under the shiny paint.

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Turbo 3800 E85 F23 5spd spec5
11.17@132.6

Agree totaly with you Dave !!! I have been approched many time to install a 3800 into a Fiero and i have always said the same thing to all of the people ! Unless its a rebuilt motor by my engine guy, proper mounts and basicly all new parts i wont touch the build, its sad to see so many shops getting turned up side down over a build, Preformance shops here in Canada basicly give no warentee on any preformance work, A moddified motor is definatly not under any kind of warentee, for example if you buy a 3800sc from a wrecker here in Canada and you drop it into a GTP and in 90 days there is a issue you may be lucky to get a repalcement motor, but tell them its in a custom car with a 5 or 6 speed trans, there is nothing you can do,

150 and hour for custom work is cheap !! and know one understands how much time it realy takes to keep things clean and show quality during a build, for anyone who has seen my car ,and Dave has seen it , Imagine the hours into it and i did it 3 times point made i wish i had started with a fully rebuilt motor right from the start....

[This message has been edited by RULOOKIN (edited 11-20-2012).]

quote Originally posted by Justinbart: Yet you were supposed to get the car over a year ago. You have no idea how well its build or what is under the shiny paint.

I never had an actual completion time. If you're talking about when I joked about coming to get it on that one Saturday, it was just that a JOKE. Dave and I only had one goal, and that was that it would come home when it was completed. Would I have liked to have had it a year ago? Sure. Would I rather have it when it's finished and when the issues have been completely resolved? Absolutely. which is one of the reasons I chose Dave, because he doesn't make his living off of this and he makes enough on the German side to keep his shop open no matter what happens on the Fiero side. This means it will take longer, but I don't have to worry about another shop closing down while they have my car.

[This message has been edited by mptighe (edited 11-20-2012).]

I agree with Mike. Dave has always done right by me as well. We may have had some complications along the way, but for certain vendors (WCF) that put us way behind, Dave worked diligently to come up with working alternatives for what others failed to provide. I had no problem with Dave driving my car and putting miles on it. How else was he going to find out if everything met up to his standards? When Dave said he was satisfied with my car and it was ready for pickup I knew it would be good. He stands behind his work 150%. Last week I had to go see him because the hoses from Summit Racing used for my remote oil filter were defective. Dave fabricated braided steel lines for me and when he drove my car into the shop he didn't like the lack of pressure on my brakes. He and Ryan were able to determine I had a cracked fitting in my proportioning valve (probably happend when I was trying to stuff a bag in the front trunk last month). Anyway, he and Ryan spent the remainder of the afternoon fixing my brake issue and bleeding the system. I was gladly prepared to pay him for his efforts, but he told me he's calling it "warranty work". Not only do I trust him with my Fiero, I trust them with servicing my Mercedes. With him being that obsessive about my Fiero he is just as obsessive about servicing my MB. I do hope he gave Summit Racing an ear full about their crappy hoses! As far as hauling my Fiero anywhere...Joey is the only person I'll trust to do that. She is as obsessive about hauling Fieros as Dave is about the mechanical aspect. I do hope you don't drop the Fiero side from your business Dave.

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

I don't see us stopping from doing Fiero swaps. I just want to build my car next and Ryan wants to build his. Once ours are complete, we will only take on one Fiero at a time to ensure that we can dedicate 100% of our focus on that swap....because our swaps will be treated as full time work.

Dave

quote Originally posted by bmwguru: Thanks for the kind words, guys. I don't see us stopping from doing Fiero swaps. I just want to build my car next and Ryan wants to build his. Once ours are complete, we will only take on one Fiero at a time to ensure that we can dedicate 100% of our focus on that swap....because our swaps will be treated as full time work. Dave

As one who has seen a few of your swaps, I can vouch for the fact that they are all top notch. I'm sure that when you get back to it, customers will again enjoy the high quality that you have been known to produce. Don't let the few negative posts here get to you. When you are on the top, there is always someone trying to shoot you down.
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" THE BLACK PARALYZER" -87GT 3800SC Series III engine, custom ZZP /Frozen Boost Intercooler setup, 3.4" Pulley, Powerlog manifold, Northstar TB, LS1 MAF, 3" Flotech Afterburner Exhaust, Autolite 104's, MSD wires, Custom CAI, 4T65eHD w. custom axles, HP Tuners VCM Suite.
"THE COLUSSUS"
87GT - ALL OUT 3.4L Turbocharged engine, Garrett Hybrid Turbo, MSD ign., modified TH125H
" ON THE LOOSE WITHOUT THE JUICE "

[This message has been edited by Dennis LaGrua (edited 11-21-2012).]

Here is a sneak peak of what I'll be working on this year. I believe this will be the first GM High Feature swap done in a Fiero. What I chose as my initial "swap of the future" is the Saab 2.8t LP9.
There are a lot of things to overcome from what I see so far. For instance, the vss is read through the ABS module from the wheel speed sensors....not a vss in the transmission.
I'm not sure how often I'll update my progress, as there is no timeframe set. This will be swapped into my orange and black GT which just had the body moved over from a 87 chassis to a 88 chassis.

[This message has been edited by bmwguru (edited 01-20-2013).]

dave I sent you a pm about making me a 3800 header for the rear trunk side just like the one pictured in this thread. Let me know what's up. Thanks Lonnie

[This message has been edited by fierofan25 (edited 02-03-2013).]

pm returned

Thanks and your swaps look awesome.

With all the customer's swaps out of the Haus, I decided to go though my Spring cleaning. I started with firing one of my employees that was only giving me 80% of his full potential. I spent the day yesterday interviewing about 9 guys that applied to replace him.
The next step was to work on my neglected F350 7.3. The injectors needed some work, the oil cooler ruptured and it was time to get it ready for hauling again. Once that was done, I took my gold GT out of the trailer that it spent the winter in and looked it over. The Gen III blower was due for an upgrade and I wanted to add a proper pcv system to keep my oil from getting fuel fouled.

The end result was this....

Gen V blower with added pcv
N* throttle body
42lb injectors
1.84 roller rocker arms
short stack intercooler
size 5 meth nozzle
3.0 pulley
headers
105lb valve springs
Spec stage 3+ clutch
cold air intake

I was a little worried about running the 3.0 pulley without a cam or head work on the gen V blower, but I started my day with a 3.2 pulley and left the meth off. Then I dropped the pulley once the tune was dialed in. dropped the timing and added the meth to kick on over 10psi of boost. I trimmed the fuel and brought the timing up to 15 degrees at 100% throttle. I have no KR and it seems fine. I plan to datalog it the next few weeks and adjust what needs to be done. The goal was more blower whine, even at the loss of a bit of power. I'm not looking to pick up a tenth, but I like the sound of the supercharger in my ear.