Last night I built the coil overs and drilled one of the ones to prepare for the 88 cradle and tonight I ordered my cables from cali push pull for the F23 trans. Spent the other part of the night working on the front brakes for my plow truck (85 k5 blaser) only to find out I have a leak in a rear line also. Oh well, I still love working on old cars.
O.K. so I bought a set of rims off craigslist. They are not the best looking rims and the chrome has some issues but I got them for $250 with halfway decent tire on them. I bought them so I could continue on with the corvette rotors.
The corvette rotors are very impressive looking, especially when put beside the factory rotors.
I made a tool out of an old wheel bearing hub as suggested in another thread and drilled out the corvette rotors to fit the fiero. Once I got the tool the way I wanted it, drilling out the rotors was surprisingly easy. Here are some pics.
Once again the rims are either just for now or will be done something to make them look better, (with that being said) here are what the rotors look like mounted on the cradle with caliper and wheel.
After some poly motor mounts from WCF and some new axles, bearings, balljoints, poly suspension bushings, toe links, and seals it is actually starting to look like something
where did u get the bearings and axles for the swap?
The bearigs and axles are new in the pics, but they are just stock replacement Fiero axles and bearings. Nothing special, just picked them up at the local auto parts store.
[This message has been edited by BlownFiero86 (edited 11-13-2012).]
The bearigs and axles are new in the pics, but they are just stock replacement Fiero axles and bearings. Nothing special, just picked them up at the local auto parts store.
ah ok just was wondering cause they looked so pretty so your swap uses both stock fiero axles?
I got the custom f23 cables in today from california push pull and they are sweet!! I will probably work on the car this weekend and get a few pics of the cables.
I have been very busy st the garage and have unfortunatly forgot to slow down enough to take some pics. I have my shift cable mount bracket fabrication complete and ready for paint. I picked up my motor from the machine shop on monday and began putting everything back together again. I spent both of my days off working at the garage after running some errands. I basically have a long block now and have it on the cradle with the trans. Now I need to fab up my front trans mount and I am thinking about adding another engine mount for strength. I am using zzp H beam rods and dimond pistons in the motor which has lightened the the pistons from factory about 7.5 lbs total and also deleted the balancing shaft which weighs in at 5.5 lbs. I need to finish porting and modifying the intake manifold. Hopefully in the next week I will be about ready to install the cradle back into the car. I am sooooo excited to see how it runs with all the modifications and the new f23 trans. Here is some pics the finish this update.
O.K. so I bought a set of rims off craigslist. They are not the best looking rims and the chrome has some issues but I got them for $250 with halfway decent tire on them. I bought them so I could continue on with the corvette rotors.
The corvette rotors are very impressive looking, especially when put beside the factory rotors.
Hey! I like your choice in rims... Look familiar? Mine were corroded so, I sanded them down and I re-sprayed them in a metallic gunmetal Before!
I still love the brakes... Ill be interested in how they are biased so thats a 88 caliper with c3 vette rotors? any additional mounting brackets and where did u get them? are you using stock master and booster?
I made the brackets off of a pattern I found here on the forum. I am going to design a bracket for the front which is still 86 so I can use an 88 caliper. I plan to use stock master cylinder with the 88 calipers because according to what I have found they have the same bore piston as the 86 caliper. Using these calipers should keep the factory bias with larger rotors that should improve the brakes by about 15% because of the extra leverage on the center of the hub. I may upgrade the booster but am unsure at this time. I will probably drive it and see what I think. The rims that I have are corroded on the chrome so I will probably end up doing the same thing with mine as you have done.
O.K. it has been a little while since I have posted so I have a lot of pictures and info to add. I have mainly been assembling the motor and taking my time doing it. However the last couple of days have gone really well for productivity. The first thing I have is my front mount for the f23 trans. There is not a lot to mount to on the one that I have, except for the top, where it mounted in the cobalt. I took some scrap metal that was under the welding bench and through together a rough structure.
After some modifications for strength and aesthetics, this is what I ended up with. It may not be the best, but I think it is strong enough and it didn't cost me anything.
I also got the shift cables changed out with the new ones from cali-push pull and changed out the 86 e-brake cable that goes into the car for the 88 so it will work with the new cradle. I did not get pictures but hope to post some later of the radiator in the car. Before I came to work tonight I put the altenator on and a few other things and took the cradle off the saw horses and put it on the roller. Then put the wiring harness on and hooked up all the vacuum and intake pressure hoses.
Almost forgot that this time around I stole an idea that I seen on the forum here a while back. I can't remember where I seen it, but they drilled and tapped the coolant port in the intake and the water pump housing to a 3/4 pipe thread. I put a plug in the water pump housing instead of capping it off at the port in the tensioner pulley bracket and used a barb fitting with a 90 barb fitting to send the out going line along with the main coolant tube to the firewall for the heater core. I think it will clean up the install a little and it keeps me from running the extra 3 feet of hose I had run before from the heater core to back side of the engine. Here's a good pic of the barb fittings.
Going to stick with the supercharger for now but I do tend to be one of those people that just can't leave things alone. Only thing I own that has never been tweeked is the wife's car because she said NO!!! LOL
I have driven the car for over 250 miles and I am loving it. The looks that people give you are hilarious. I walked out of a store with my wife and as we are walking throuh the parking lot one says to a another "dude do you not see the fiero sitting there" the other guy " that is awesome". I walked up to get in the car and they asked if it was mine and told me I had a really cool car. The best part is I didn't show them what was under the hood.
I have driven the car for over 250 miles and I am loving it. The looks that people give you are hilarious. I walked out of a store with my wife and as we are walking throuh the parking lot one says to a another "dude do you not see the fiero sitting there" the other guy " that is awesome". I walked up to get in the car and they asked if it was mine and told me I had a really cool car. The best part is I didn't show them what was under the hood.
Yeah, the wow factor makes it worth all the effort to keep them going, especially when they're done up nice like some of the member's cars here.
[This message has been edited by Joseph Upson (edited 12-23-2012).]
Thank you Sage, I got the fender changed out today that I got off of you. The car looks a lot better already. Hope to see you agian soon when the weather breaks.
Yea, I need a ride in both the cars you guys built! Good to see you back FF25.
Glad the fender worked ok for ya. Man it got cold here since you were here! Any wind damage in your area? We had some helatious winds last night (Wednesday).
As far as measurements go I am not sure how big the garage is. The garage is my dads, which he doesn't use all that much anymore and I kind of inherited. The tools are a collection of the one he inherited from his dad, his, and now mine that I have added. I do not claim to be this great mechanic, but we have always worked on our own cars and been taught well enough to get by from father to son. By the way he is really proud of how the car is coming and that probably means more to me than anything.
[This message has been edited by BlownFiero86 (edited 01-31-2013).]
I went with a buddy today to Lancaster, which is about an hour away. He wanted to go look at a fiero and ended up buying it. On the way home we stopped at the local lake and took a few pics of the cars together.
I took the car out tonight and ran it a little bit to see what it had. I changed out the break in oil the other day and everything looked pretty good, so this is the first video since the forged internals, ported intake, and balancing shaft delete. Let me know what you guys think.
Took my brother for a ride and was showing off, ran it up to 2000 rpm and and dropped the clutch in first and the car did not move. Engine reved, but the car would not go in any gear. After looking under the hood I found that I had sheared an axle clean in two. It twisted off so quick that it broke off striaght as if you cut it with a knife. Here are some pics.
I sold the original 3.8 trans out of the riviera because I wanted to stick with the manual trans. As far as what I had read before the F23 is one of the stronger trans so that is what I went with. As for my opinion goes, I love the F23. Using the 09 cobalt trans for the higher gearing and the smoothness of the shifting compared to the original getrag, it makes driving the car even that much more fun. I have beat on my trans pretty hard, I even went so far as snapping an axle without any problems out of the trans. Highly recomend the F23 if you do not mind having a standard, because I love mine. With all the things on the car that I would go back and do differently the transmission is not one of them. Thanks for checking out my thread and let me know if you need anything else.
I will probably work on the car this weekend and get a few pics of the cables.
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Before! 
