BTW Curley, Check your EMail, I sent you pics of that special little project we were talking about.
Archie
Thanks Archie. The mods pics are excellent!!!
Today, Archie and I covered alot of ground work for the C6 flipper and working should continue on Monday. Oh yeah, Thanks Sage & Doug (Fiero Warehouse) for kicking out the Camero bow-tie wing on time. This operation: "Tail-wind" mod will make the Arch Rivel's back end very "popish" as is demonstrated on Troy's super ride.
I just had the opportunity to see this car in person on thursday and all I can say is WOW. I think I spent more time looking at curly's car than my own, lol.
I just had the opportunity to see this car in person on thursday and all I can say is WOW. I think I spent more time looking at curly's car than my own, lol.
tweeks are nice if you see what is done bumpity bump
Currently, they're working on the lower portion of the nose (fog lamps and center nose openings). The C6 flipper will closely follow 4.9's photoshop example seen here along with a few more items are being added too.
We currently have Curley's car up in what I call the "Hot Spot".
The "Hot Spot" means that it's up on the lift & the lift is brought up to a working height for whatever we are working on.
You'll recall that we had Troy's car in the "Hot Spot" for about 4 weeks & we had everyone working on it installing the interior parts, modifying the front bumper & the rear facia.
On the Arch Rival we are modifying the grill & driving light openings & fixing the wheel well lip openings.
So plan on seeing a bunch on this car for the next couple of weeks.
One of the problems we felt needed to be tweeked was the radius around the front wheel wells. They just didn't have a consistant radius around the tire & they didn't match perfectly from side to side. He was wanting to "fix" the hood scoop but everytime I sent him a profile shot of the nose (so he could tell me what he wanted) all he would talk about was the wheel well openings. So before we can fix the scoop, he's gotta have the wheel wells tweeked.
We also wanted to tweek the wheel well openings as viewed from the front were not parallel to the edge of the tire/wheel.
He also wanted to eliminate that flat lip around the edge of the wheel well opening.
We thought about making a new wheel well arch using a pc. of flat fiberglass sheet. However, the opening still wouldn't match from side to side because the forward lower edge of the openings were a different distance from the wheel side to side.
In these pics we used a ratcheting strap and a piece of 4x4 to pull the front end down to the expected ride height.
I'll show you what we finally decided to do in the next post.
Archie
[This message has been edited by Archie (edited 01-18-2007).]
This is absolutely insane. I haven't been on this site in over a year (sold my fiero a few years ago) and look what has happened in the meantime. It took me ALL DAY to read this whole thread (56k Modem), but it was worth every minute. You guys are doing fantastic work. It's people like you that inspire the rest of us. I need to sell off the rest of my toys and get another Fiero.
------------------ No matter how much I try to get these cars out of my head, they keep finding their way back in.
I spent several hours contemplating what would make a good wheel well arch & be something we could locate off of the centerline of the wheel it'self since there wasn't a place on the front we could locate off of.
After a little walking around the shop and looking at various things, I noticed this.....
It's the wheel well arch from the front clip of a F-40 replica re-body. After some measuring & checking with some dividers we found that the radius was a true radius. We decided to make 2 copies of this radius out of the F-40 mold. These would be the arch & about 2" of F-40 fender around the arch.
Here is what they looked like when we first tried them on the car. Note that the fiberglass part had not been trimmed at all yet.
After we trimmed off the extra fiberglass "flashing" & used some screws & shims to locate them left to right on the front clip, they looked like this......
Everybody know what the grill & driving lights have looked like up 'til now.
To this point the C6 driving lights have been mounted in the nose with the lenses flush with the fiberglass. They look good like that but the light beams from them actually cross each other 30 feet or so out in front of the car. On the C6 Vette you'll notice that the driving lights are mounted farther around the corner of the car so that the light beams shine straight down the road.
You can see this by comparing the angle of the driving light lens in this front clip to the angle of the lens in a C6. This clip just wasn't designed for those driving lights, so we're going to build some parking light pockets that allow the lights to point in the right direction.
But, 1st we gotta open up & reshape the grill opening.
As you can see in the picture above, We've moved the top of the grill opening up about 1-5/8" & we've set about modifying the left & right side walls of the opening to be more like the photoshop earlier in this thread. You can see the mounting hardware & hinges for Norm's Flipper so we can only go so wide but that's no problem because I didn't want to go any wider than this.
Once we figured out the shape we wanted, Kris hand shaped some very thin sheet metal we keep on hand. He shaped them the way we wanted them then used some selftapping screws to mount them to the outside of the nose. These pcs' of metal represented the walls & roof of the new grill opening shape.
Looking from the inside, after we opened the front clip, Kris laid up several layers of fiberglass mat onto the sheet metal.....
After it sets up & the metal is removed, you have a pretty nice grill opening.
I gotta say that the guys I have working for me are the reason this kind of stuff comes out so nice. It couldn't be done without them. We all get together and work out the details of how something is going to be done & then they take the time & use the skills to make it happen just right. None of them had any background in this fiberglass kind of stuff when they started working for me, yet we all learned together. I'm sure days come along where they get pretty tired of working on a cerain car or a particular project. On those days we try to work on another car or project so when we return to the project at hand it's with renewed vigor & new ideas.
^ Rob, Kris, Mark ^ This is my way of saying Thanks.
Archie
[This message has been edited by Archie (edited 01-20-2007).]
Hello Achie and your crew, You guys are doing a wonderful job. Its great to see where I can give someone a start and have them be able to be so creative on there own customizing. Thanks Norm
------------------ Norm Vandermee
[This message has been edited by normsf (edited 01-20-2007).]
Hello Achie and your crew, You guys are doing a wonderful job. Its great to see where I can give someone a start and have them be able to be so creative on there own customizing. Thanks Norm
Thanks Norm, wait 'til you see the driving lights, they're going to be soooooo cool.
From where the driving lights were originally mounted in the front clip, we determined that they needed to be rotated about 20 degrees to get them pointed in the right direction.
In this picture looking down at the driving light, you can see that rotating it 20 Deg. will make it hit some of the framework when the front clip os opened. So we determined that it also had to be moved back in the car an inch & outboard by an inch.
Here we are trying to determine what angle the light needed to mount at & how deep the pocket was going to be.
Once we figured that out is was just a matter of figuring out how big & where the driving light opening would be in the nose, it was time to build up a floor, inside wall & a top wall.
Bring the light back up into the pocket & take a look.....
So what did we SEE? ...... Looks like we found a use for the side vents that Norm has in the front clip.
A little bit of reshaping the opening over on the right & this is where we are at right now.....
Ohh baby! Now the C6 flipper is begining to take shape, charactor, and form. I don't like to preach but, never bolt-on a part....tweak it baby, tweak it!
[This message has been edited by madcurl (edited 01-21-2007).]
Why not trim the front left corner of the driving light, say take out 1/2 to 3/4 inch, tapering the front edge to the untrimed right edge? It'll bring the lamp out more.
[This message has been edited by Gokart Mozart (edited 01-21-2007).]
Why not trim the front left corner of the driving light, say take out 1/2 to 3/4 inch, tapering the front edge to the untrimed right edge? It'll bring the lamp out more.
Hmm....I'm not following you. Although it's a done deal right now "as-is" due in-part of 4.9's photoshoping skills, but please explain. Your suggestion may benefit FieroGTguy's C6 flipper that Norm is currently working on. Ideas and photoshops are always welcome.
At any rate, one of the reason why it was performed this way was to give the C6 flipper definition. Secondly, it allows for Norm's side vent to have function along with form. Another benefit is the back side could then be used to funnel air to the front brakes if such a vent was installed.
Why not trim the front left corner of the driving light, say take out 1/2 to 3/4 inch, tapering the front edge to the untrimed right edge? It'll bring the lamp out more.
I think he means trim the light something like this...to match the curvature of the fascia better.
It just seems to make more sense to me to do it the way they are...in the event you ever had to replace a housing (extremely low probability) then you wouldn't have to completely modify the new one. I'm sure they are expensive enough as is.
It just seems to make more sense to me to do it the way they are...in the event you ever had to replace a housing (extremely low probability) then you wouldn't have to completely modify the new one. I'm sure they are expensive enough as is.
Just my opinion...not trying to put anyone down.
Yes. I agree on all points.
Also by "Archie and the Crew" doing this way may result in less body work do to the area involved being larger. It also prevents the fog lamp housing from mimicking the original Corvette housing thus fooling people as to the [fog lamps] true origins, making it a truely one-off, and most importantly allowing the are to flow vs. an appearance of being [plastered-in]. Over-all it allows on-lookers to [think], ponder, speculate, and move onto other areas----then repeat the whole process over again.
Example A: A 2007 Corvette.
Instead of coping the style of the Corvette's front fog & headlamps cues, it's better [IMO] to change the fog lamp housing just enough to allow for specualation and to avoid someone saying, "Hey, he has the C6 front-end on a Fiero."
[This message has been edited by madcurl (edited 01-21-2007).]
I think he means trim the light something like this...to match the curvature of the fascia better.
]
Yep, that's what I was thinking of. If you use a new piece of clear plastic for the front, you can shape the housing to the fascia. Attach the clear to the fascia instead of the housing. If it gets damaged, easy fix.
wow i think its been a week or two since ive really been on, but wow, this thing will be the altiment when done, but it does give me ides for my fenders, i want to flare them out like that too.
Yep, that's what I was thinking of. If you use a new piece of clear plastic for the front, you can shape the housing to the fascia. Attach the clear to the fascia instead of the housing. If it gets damaged, easy fix.
Oh, now I see what you where referring too. The idea is great but I think it'll add more time involved in making, adding and, modifing the part.
I think the way these driving lights are going to look when we are finished is going to be great. It will be almost as revolutionary as the way the NSX-R lights looked on Troy's car. It'll look like it was designed that way.
If we were going to remove the lenses from the C6 lights & put some plastic in it's place then we might have been better off with some AutoZone driving lights. We haven't put this much work into this car for the last year to settle for something that would look like it was designed for a cheap kit car.
We'll stick with these lights, you'll see they will look & work great.
If we were going to remove the lenses from the C6 lights & put some plastic in it's place then we might have been better off with some AutoZone driving lights. We haven't put this much work into this car for the last year to settle for something that would look like it was designed for a cheap kit car.
Archie
Never said anything about removing the lens, just the clear plastic to mold with the nose. Make the hole what you want, not follow the original shape etal..
quote
Originally posted by jscott1:
Okay, us armchair amatuers will sit back and see what the professionals have dreamed up.
[This message has been edited by Gokart Mozart (edited 01-21-2007).]
Never said anything about removing the lens, just the clear plastic to mold with the nose. Make the hole what you want, not follow the original shape etal..
Sorry, I didn't mean to make my post sound so negative.
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