With a 23rd on Saturday, and 27th on Sunday, that makes this our best weekend to date. We were anywhere from 35th to 11th depending on pit cycles. The car was great, and had only minor issues. The driver's side wiper arm came loose from it's driveshaft, and the exhaust kept coming off it's hangers. Otherwise, a solid weekend. Here's the weekend's highlight reel:
The factory one does not provide any noticeable downforce, even at high speeds. It's mostly an aerodynamic benefit, which more than anything helps fuel mileage. Even a non-stock spoiler won't change how much grip is available, and more than anything else, I feel that was the problem this last race. All 18 hours were on a wet track, more than any other race we've run.
Thanks! This is only really only 20 minutes of footage that has "wow" factor. There's plenty of awesome passes, pack racing, etc. that simply doesn't make it into this highlight video, because it's too long/not interesting enough for a short period of time.
Blake is the only one of us four that has not owned a mid engined car. Ken (my Dad) and I (Justin) are owners of daily-driven Fieros, as well as this race car. Drew had a Turbo MR2 for a few years. Blake has mostly driven a Geo Metro, although he just took a huge jump up to a 2000 BMW M Coupe.
We were hit in the RR corner once before, and that took the bumper skin off, and partially removed the bumper bar. This is nothing compared to that. From my limited inspection so far- the bumper bar might have bent a little on the driver's side, but it's tough to tell with the bumper cover still on. There's a tiny little more of a gap on that side between the tail light and the bumper skin, but that's the only evidence I can see. I'll have to check pre-race photos, and see, I might even just be imagining that gap being bigger. The trunk is intact and undented. As I've always been told, the Fiero is a strong little car!
We typically burn about 4.9 gallons per hour on track. With the size and shape of the Fiero tank, we're unable to go the full 2 hour maximum length of a driver's stint. We start sputtering in corners after about 100 minutes. I think a mod for next season is going to be getting the larger '87+ tank, as that would most likely get us a full two hours. Our 4.9/gal/hr is actually pretty modest. A lot of the bigger cars can burn in the neighborhood of 8 gallons per hour... but of course those kinds of cars come with stock tank that is much larger than ours.
I'm not sure if you're going to gain the capacity you're looking for as the difference is pretty small, but thats the only option right? I'm assuming you can't use a fuel cell or custom tank in this series?
Hopefully there is no major damage, good to see that after almost 2 years of racing the car is still holding up. I wouldn't expect a stock 2.8 to take this much abuse.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the stock tank is 10.1 gallons, and the later one is 11.9. If it really is only 1.8 gallons larger, then that would net us an additional 22 minutes. The longest stint we've ever needed was 1:45, so that would get us to there for sure. It would put us close for the two hour mark. I raced recently with another Fiero team, and they have a 1987 with the bigger tank. They were able to go 2 hours in the dry even.
We could use a fuel cell. The rules state we must either use a "stock tank in the stock location" or an SFI certified fuel cell, so long as it's +/- 2 gallons of stock capacity. This would allow us to go for a 12 gallon cell, perhaps even a 14 if I could convince them that the Fiero went up to a 12 gallon tank. The only issue is that no fuel cell that meets those requirements will fit into the stock location, so that puts us in an odd situation of where to put it.
I feel there really shouldn't be any damage under there. It was a pretty square hit, and it didn't dent the trunk wall any. I've seen plenty of Fieros with trunks dented there from a rear-ender.
It's not a 2.8 anymore. We build a Frankenstein 3.1L that made it's debut this race. It's a Gen II 3.1L block and crank, 2.8L Fiero rods and pistons, Fiero heads, and the rest is stock carried over from the 2.8. The pistons come out of the block .140" when you use the 3.1L crank. I had the pistons flycut down, which puts them at deck height at TDC. With the .040" iron-head head gasket, that puts us at an ideal quench distance, with 10.55:1 compression. This motor has got some pull, let me tell you. My team mates had nothing but positive reviews of the engine. I was able to put it together for something like $511, including a new neutrally balanced flywheel, water pump, and gaskets. Not bad.
[This message has been edited by ManMadeChickens (edited 11-08-2012).]
It's not a 2.8 anymore. We build a Frankenstein 3.1L that made it's debut this race. It's a Gen II 3.1L block and crank, 2.8L Fiero rods and pistons, Fiero heads, and the rest is stock carried over from the 2.8. The pistons come out of the block .140" when you use the 3.1L crank. I had the pistons flycut down, which puts them at deck height at TDC. With the .040" iron-head head gasket, that puts us at an ideal quench distance, with 10.55:1 compression. This motor has got some pull, let me tell you. My team mates had nothing but positive reviews of the engine. I was able to put it together for something like $511, including a new neutrally balanced flywheel, water pump, and gaskets. Not bad.
Definitely try the later style tank, if I remember correctly the extra capacity came from the expansion tank up in the quarter panel which wasn't exactly useful. I know on my 87 GT I'd only get about 10.5 gallons of fuel in from empty. If the its working for the other team then definitely go for it!
Way cool Brother! I always love the vids. I watched 10 minutes of it, but I will check out the rest later. I have never wanted to live on the west side of the state as bad as I do now.
I know on my 87 GT I'd only get about 10.5 gallons of fuel in from empty. If the its working for the other team then definitely go for it!
Well there you go. In the earlier tank, when I'm sputtering around in search of a gas station on the street with my car, it doesn't take more than 8.5 gallons. I think you're pretty much destined to never get the last 2 gallons out of a Fiero tank.
Tony - We may make it to Spokane someday. We really want to do a 24 hour event sometime (or longer! The Spokane race this year is 36 HOURS!). Our 2013 schedule looks like we'll be running Portland in the middle of April, The Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington in late August, and then Portland again to finish off the season in October.
Great video! I have to admire the guy in the (BMW?) convertible; I hope he had some drainage holes in his floor pans. Not to give you advice as you know far more than I about your situation, but, I really don't think a spoiler would help much on the low speed turns that you make, but it looks like wet weather tires would be worth their weight in gold. I hate driving at night in the rain; I can't imagine racing at night in those conditions. So, was their a dominant car or brand when the race was over?
Those open top cars must be a chore to drive when it gets that soggy. I'm very happy we have a roof over our head.
We have some Goodyear Eagle GT tires we used to run, which have more grooves to shed water. Almost unbelievably, the Star Specs are pretty much still the must-have tire in these conditions. They outrun just about any other tire that falls within our rules.
The video makes the night racing look even more perilous that it really is. Racing in those conditions lend new meaning to the phrase "requires your full attention." Don't even think about anything else while you're out there, or you might find yourself in an unpleasant situation. I made up a bunch of positions in the running order at night (I think it was 8 or 9).
There's always a couple teams that do the best around here. I think preparation in car and team is much more important than what hardware you're running. If I had to pick, I'd say that Miatas are typically a pretty smart choice, as is a BMW E30, or really anything Honda. We chose a Fiero because it's what we love, and we have a few of them... not because we thought it was going to be the best car out there.
Hello again everyone! Hairballrm is right, we're right back into the thick of things next weekend, at Portland International Raceway. Not too much that was needed on the car in the off season, but we've been tinkering a bit here and there.
The usual between-race brake refreshment; I have noted that we shouldn't run the "lightly used" pads, even for the "short" 6 hour duration of a Sunday event.
I took the 3 year old packing tape off the tail lights, as it had started to fog up, and fall off anyhow. Cleaning all the crap off the lenses after the tape was gone was a real chore. They came out great though. The plastic juice bottle section repair to the RH tail was reinstalled. This kind of craftsmanship needs to be on display!
We're working on putting in a new Kirkey racing aluminum seat. It's fantastic. A lot more support, and because it gets us in a better position in relation to the cage, we can mount it for a much more comfortable seating position.
ChumpCar started the practice of assigning numbers "permanently" by region, per season. We somehow got sniped by a team in California for our original #55, so we're gonna have to go by the Huffaker alternate #50. They're also requiring the use of their own number background vinyls. Hence, all the number vinyls had to come off the car. The roof one may be gone, but it's not forgotten!
The car has always had a high idle, a condition which has been quite bad recently. The most recent set of codes were for High Idle speed, and EGR. This kind of confirmed what I believed, and that was that we might have a cracked EGR tube. I pulled it off the car, and immediately found the problem. I didn't have "an" EGR tube anymore, I had two pieces of one. The bottom part separated from the rest about 2" from the exhaust side flange. Luckily, I did have a spare sitting on the shelf, so I put the insulation blanket on the new part, and reinstalled. Voila! High idle gone. I imagine this might also help alleviate the tendency to ping a bit, too.
One of my teammates, Drew, has purchased a 3D Printer since our last race, and we've been experimenting making all sorts of random things with it. The latest creation is a radio box for our two-way, so we don't have to awkwardly strap it to the dash bar on the cage. This box will be fastened to the cage, and then the radio just slips into it.
That's the interesting stuff I have to post about for now. I'm gonna be busy working on the car more this weekend, so expect to hear about it. I believe there may be a bigger tank going in. Gotta get the full driver stint on one tank!
Hey wmorse - I have seen that thread, and would really like something like that. Unfortunately, the ChumpCar rules only let you run a stock tank in the stock location, or an SFI-certified fuel cell properly installed. If we use anything other than a factory Fiero tank, it needs to be a fuel cell. About the only place to put an adequately sized cell would be up front where the spare tire tub used to be. Then we'd have to move our battery, run new fuel lines, etc. It would be a lot of work.
Instead, I believe what we're going to do is get a later 1987+ fuel tank which is slightly larger. It wouldn't take much to get us to our longest 105 minute stints on one tank. We're only about 5 minutes shy of that now. The later tank is shy of 2 gallons bigger, so I think it'll do the trick nicely. It's kind of a loophole in the rules as far as I'm concerned. It's a stock Fiero tank, in the stock location... it's just not the exact one that came in this car. It would be no less safe than what we have now, so for the intent of the rules I feel it should be OK. Not something I think I'll be mentioning unless asked however.
I love this thread and build, and I learned a bunch of pointers I hadn't thought of... My team and I will be running an 85 SE V6 4 speed at MIS and Road America this summer, The car runs and drives great so I'm thinking we might just stick with the 2.8 for this first season, would hate to do a swap and find out the new engine doesn't last. Also I might be getting mixed up in chump builds but did you guys purchase the Roll Cage "Kit" off Summit? I'm a novice welder but if all I have to do is put together and modify pieces I think I'd be fine.. thoughts?
There's a lot of truth to sticking with the 2.8 if it's currently running fine. We've blown up two motors from stupid things. First was simply having it run too low on oil, and we starved it and ruined the rod bearings. Second one had an EGR leak, and pinged the whole day until it blew up. A properly tuned, properly running engine should be reliable whether it's 2.8, 3.1, or 3.4 or whatever.
Yeah, we bought a 12-point cage kit from Jegs. I would discourage anyone to do so in preparation for ChumpCar - the kit we got had plenty of tubes smaller than required diameter. The page we ordered it from never indicated this. We ended up buying a fair bit of bigger tube in addition to replace the small stuff we couldn't use. Also, the kit didn't fit the greatest. Our a-pillar bars are functional, but could be tucked MUCH closer to the pillars. The way the kit was bent pretty much prevented us from doing it any other way. It's really not that much more expensive to get a bender and all the bulk tubing you need and do it yourself. Ultimately, you'll end up with a better cage, and much better fab skills when you're done! I had an opportunity to have our cage done for us for $1500 by a reputable cage builder, and thought "oh, we can do it cheaper than that." We spent almost that much on the kit, tools, etc. to make it all work... and his cage work would have been much more professional. If you can find someone that knows what they're doing, and doesn't want to charge you an arm and a leg, take them up on it!
Otherwise, there's a ChumpCar series sponsor Roll Cage Components that is very well regarded. They may have a cage kit for a Fiero already. If not, they need you to provide them some key measurements, and they'll custom make you a cage kit.
I email back and forth with a bunch of Fiero teams. If you have any questions don't hesitate to post here, or PM me. I'm very much of the opinion that a Fiero can be a great ChumpCar, and if we work together we can make that be a reality!
I love this thread and build, and I learned a bunch of pointers I hadn't thought of... My team and I will be running an 85 SE V6 4 speed at MIS and Road America this summer, The car runs and drives great so I'm thinking we might just stick with the 2.8 for this first season, would hate to do a swap and find out the new engine doesn't last. Also I might be getting mixed up in chump builds but did you guys purchase the Roll Cage "Kit" off Summit? I'm a novice welder but if all I have to do is put together and modify pieces I think I'd be fine.. thoughts?
I'm not sure about the summit roll cage kit but the jegster kit from jegs will not work. The main hoop width is to wide to fit in the car.
I'm quite a fan of the headlights! They do a great job of illuminating the track, and letting us keep going 10/10ths at night.
Thanks for hanging out, lending a hand, and taking the pics, Britt. It was nice meeting you, and enjoying the weekend. You're always welcome (and encouraged) in the Pontiaxed pit.
I realize I've been quite delinquent in updating the contents of this thread. In the coming days, expect an update with the progress we've made in the time since.
Several weeks later, I am still editing pictures from early August at PIR
green drops, I fire up my phone to watch the live timing.
I do a double take. Kinda cool when a Fiero gets the green!
Airborn Ken going off in the chicane
Hangin loose at 80
Congratulations Pontiaxed on a good race and finish! Thank you for letting me be a part of your program. All these images are available in full resolution on my FB page.
Let's play the catch-up game! Since the last "big" post in April of 2014, we've been making constant progress on the car. That April 2013 race resulted in a blown motor. We oil starved it pretty bad, and spun a rod bearing. Driving it home, the rod bearing was so eroded that the piston was hitting the head at TDC. This is the result:
It blew, putting a nice "inspection window" in the side of the block. By July of 2013, we were preparing a new engine to take us to NW FieroFest, and to race with in October.
Towing it off to swap a new motor in.
All torn out.
The new hole in the block.
Chunks of rod, piston, and block all sucked up to the screen of the pickup tube.
"Bearing and oil smoothie"
"Well, that's you're problem there!"
Pulled these parts of the con rod out of the pan.
Put a nice kink in the rod.
And in this direction, too!
Even a bit of twist to it.
A new engine was assembled, and that's what we raced with in October. The new engine had lots of pull, but unfortunately was not long for this world either.
[This message has been edited by ManMadeChickens (edited 04-05-2018).]
We build a Frankenstein 3.1L that made it's debut this race. It's a Gen II 3.1L block and crank, 2.8L Fiero rods and pistons, Fiero heads, and the rest is stock carried over from the 2.8. The pistons come out of the block .140" when you use the 3.1L crank. I had the pistons flycut down, which puts them at deck height at TDC. With the .040" iron-head head gasket, that puts us at an ideal quench distance, with 10.55:1 compression. This motor has got some pull, let me tell you. My team mates had nothing but positive reviews of the engine. I was able to put it together for something like $511, including a new neutrally balanced flywheel, water pump, and gaskets. Not bad. 
