Awesome! I gotta see this car when you get it home Troy!!! I'm in N.Merrick, so let me know when it's in town!
Archie, great job! maybe I'll yank both kids outta college so I can have you do one car for me....
ps if you are interested I can photochop the existing chin with minimum mods that could blend in better. That is till you go up any driveway in our area and remove it.....
I'll drop you a line when it gets home. I have an idea for the driveways that should work, but it's the things I don't see coming that worry me.... Are you going to Archies next week? flights from LI to Chicago only 39.99 each way on southwest. photochops welcome
[This message has been edited by troyboy (edited 09-02-2006).]
Much better, and maybe getting rid off the side molding wont be a bad idea either. It makes the car look timeless. This car has enough money and time into it and shaving the moldings is not the place to get economical on it. (My 2 cents)
I was looking into shaving it but ran into two problems. First the molding on the front finders is not separate, it's part of the fiberglass mold with a matching void behind it. second in the rear the molding is part of a piece that supports the light housing. But I will talk to the master (Archie and crew) next weekend to see if it can be done. P.S. please send the 2 cents via paypal, I'll need it by the time the car is done.. hehehe Thanks for your input
The side moldings give the Fiero it's classic raked look while adding symmetry to the project. Sorry, couldn't resist the two cents. This is an outstanding project and I have all the admiration for the effort. The deep wells of those rear wheels set the project off in an attractive fashion. Great job so far, now let's see the paint!
ok, here is the fixed side view I did. ( I tried to extend your side moulding shadow thru the door didn;t turn out as well as I'd hoped cause the starting image was compressed, but you get the idea) For the chin piece, I basically detached it along the line where it attaches, shaved the front edge along the top what would be around 1/2- 3/4" (quesstimate) and dropped the back part down about 3/4". the front would look the same as it does now, only the bottom openeing would be slightly narrower. That extra height in the front should extend it's life about 5 minutes or 1 steep driveway, whichever comes first.
ok, here is the fixed side view I did. ( I tried to extend your side moulding shadow thru the door didn;t turn out as well as I'd hoped cause the starting image was compressed, but you get the idea) For the chin piece, I basically detached it along the line where it attaches, shaved the front edge along the top what would be around 1/2- 3/4" (quesstimate) and dropped the back part down about 3/4". the front would look the same as it does now, only the bottom openeing would be slightly narrower. That extra height in the front should extend it's life about 5 minutes or 1 steep driveway, whichever comes first.
DAMN. That really is the Perfect Union. (and it's not even done yet!)
Archie the parts for faze 2 were shipped out today and should be at your place by next week. The Netherlands connection will play a major role in the Perfect Union's completion.
Well, you gotta remember that the modifications that we did to the nose were done to a Figerglass nose. The same mods would be a lot harder to do to a soft plastic Fiero nose.
Archie
Hmmm,.... i wonder could someone just buy the fiberglass IMSA nose to ease the modification ?
[This message has been edited by exoticse (edited 09-07-2006).]
Archie the parts for faze 2 were shipped out today and should be at your place by next week. The Netherlands connection will play a major role in the Perfect Union's completion.
it must just be me, but this car so far looks a lot worse than i thought it would. it just doesnt flow, it seems really awkward. the doors dont work, it sits too high, and the spoiler looks awful.
i do liek the hood and headlights, but the rest of the car seems kinda wack.
good luck on it, and maybe with paint it will shape up a bit, i certainly hope it does.
[This message has been edited by FieroRush88 (edited 09-08-2006).]
it must just be me, but this car so far looks a lot worse than i thought it would. it just doesnt flow, it seems really awkward. the doors dont work, it sits too high, and the spoiler looks awful.
i do liek the hood and headlights, but the rest of the car seems kinda wack.
good luck on it, and maybe with paint it will shape up a bit, i certainly hope it does.
I keep looking and looking at this to see what is throwing the look off. Archie's post on the chin spoiler idea works. I like 4.9's wing better. but I think after looking at it, those side mouldings have to go. they don;t flow with the lines of the car, the rear due to the flair line actually appear to curve in some of those pictures. if you remove that line,well, gimme a minute or two...
Here's my tweek to the wing. Also added a little to the bottom of the rockers and lower sides of the dam.
Lowered the rear for you XzotikGT
That looks 100% better. Nice photoshop work there. I hope something gets done about the taillights, they don't look quite right with the widebody rear.. some 355 style lights would probably look nice on this car.
this is perfeect to me.....not too much more work just a few tweaks. shaving it made the doors look like a lot of negative space.
quote
Originally posted by Steven Snyder:
That looks 100% better. Nice photoshop work there. I hope something gets done about the taillights, they don't look quite right with the widebody rear.. some 355 style lights would probably look nice on this car.
I think it's time that we have a little talk about the practicality & common sense that has to be considered when building a car.
Some have advocated that we lower the car to where the fenders hang over the rubber. That's not practical.
We went to a lot of trouble getting 13" wide tires mounted onto this car without sticking outside the lip of the wheel well. Now we would have to make the tires about 2" narrower to make them fit up inside the bodywork if it was lowered to get the look they are advocating.
You can look at hot roding type magazine & find pictures of cars that are slammed down over the tires/wheels. You'll notice on everyone of those cars that the tires are well inside the wheel wells & THAT'S NOT the look we are looking for.
THIS is the look we are looking for.......
We want the tires to be as wide as posible without exceeding the width of the body.
Let's be practical, this car is going to be driven on the streets of New York. So we may even have to raise the car a bit to clear the chuckholes without banging on the bodywork.
If someone was to lower the car as much as has been advocated, then the narrower tires will also begin to rub on the tops of the wheel well liners. If you want to slam your car down to where the tires are narrower & rub whenever you hit a chuckhole, then you go right ahead. But it will take away from the driveability.
As for the side molding. IMHO, I've not seen a trimless Fiero yet that was as practical as we want this car to be. For several reasons.......
1) Troy wants to retain the stock outside door handle. Removing the trim & leaving the stock door handle is going to be pretty hard to make look correct.
2) Removing the trim makes it so that you cannot remove the door panel without damaging the bodywork & paint.
3) This is the most important reason...... This IMSA body needs the parting line provided by the side trim to make it look right. You need something to define the side of the car & to define the angle of attack & the molding does just that.
So we are still having discussions on the side molding, but heavily leaning towards leaving it on & slamming the car is out of the question.
We will show you some pictures of the car when it's finished.
its kinda funny that you are worried about chuckholes withe the rim/tire combo you guys chose. I Just think the car would look good if it were level. So if you were against lowereing the rear, then raise the front. Other than that I feel ya on the side trim part. Without it it does take away from the profile of the car.
sorry i'm never able to post a pic, but on mine whoever smoothed out the trim either ground the doorhandle down more flush to the body and put a metal plate over it, or it's a flat handle from some other car. matches up ok with the trim gone though.
We got the body for this IMSA Chop Top from Doug at Fiero Warehouse. The parts look great, some very nice fiberglass. Thumbs up to Sage Glass Works, I wish he lived closer to me.
In the following pictures we are just trial fitting the panels to the car to see if we need to do anything special to make them fit properly. This is a loose fit, many of these panels are not even aligned or bolted together.
Try not to get ahead of yourselves but we have a lot of work to do to mount the body before we actually chop the body panels.
Archie
Excuse the ignorance, but does this mean that there are 'new' replacement body parts available ? I want to replace the rear clip next year and bumper cover on one of my GTs, and 'new' sounds better then 'used'.
driving in NY with those low profile tires? With that kinda pothole action Id figure there would be some more sidewall width. Plus the rims are too big. IMO
ya know, after atring at it for so long I finally figured out why the car looks lifted in the rear. In the picture I couldnt tell at first just how tall the rear tires are. The rears are taller than the fronts, but in the picture the tires look like fender gap. After staring at it for so long, I see that the gap in the rear is nearly the same as the front. So I guess a taller tire in the front with a slight lift?
well, I did the shave pic for some perspective. to me with it shaved it looks too much like a mid 90's 300zx. Not that its a bad looking car but that was what I mean with the comment about it looking like another car. I like the line you get, and going with black side molding works for me. I have it on my white 88 gt, and it gives a flow to the car. the tires and rims will be fine here in ny. ya, some places are not so good, but out of the city limits it's pretty smooth. biggest concern here is road crowns on cross streets and driveway pans. with the 1" lower on my front and no chin, I hit my driveway if I don;t angle it perfectly. if I had any chin piece it would be dust. Archie is correct about the lowering being the worst thing for a car in this area, and probably alot of areas. besides, there is a legal limit you can get failed on for ground clearance, not that it is generally enforced, but it does exist 4.5" here I think in NY. I can;t wait to see it done, it's gonna be nice, and really, it is Troyboy's car, he has the final say, he's payin for it and he's gonna be drivin it.
Archie please continue to post the progress pics. This car looks so awesome. The work your shop puts out is amazing.
Yes.
I must say that, viewing the car in person is the only way to take-in everything at once. The pics do not do the car any justice. They're are enough items to view on the car for at least 3 hours. I saw it for nearly two days and I still didn't finish veiwing it.
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