Just in case any of you are curious, I went and weighed the car.
for my '88 coupe, with stock body, AC compressor and condenser removed, and the 3800 NA and 4 speed Muncie, the weight was 2880 lbs with 5/8 tank of gas, me, and my work bag. If I figure that I have about 7 gallons in there, and I think gas is around 7 lbs per gallon, and the bag and I together weigh 220, that leaves me with a dry curb weight of 2610. Not too shabby, considering the big wide 17's.
I couldn't measure front vs rear, and I just used the scales at the local dump, but they're calibrated daily to a maximum of 20lbs error, and I weighed the same on both the "in" and "out" scales.
Interesting for anybody curious about the weights.. I'm pretty sure I dropped about 30 pounds from the duke / auto combo. Pretty cool considering I more than doubled the power.
Ran like a champ. I changed the break-in oil Thursday with about 250 miles on it, and nothing looked scary, so i topped off all the fluids, checked tire pressures, packed a WHOLE set of tools in the trunk and drove down Friday.
Even with the 4 speed and driving like a lunatic, i still averaged about 24-25 MPG. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and order Rodney's Getrag shift cables so I can throw that 5 speed in it for highway cruising. 3200 RPM at 70 isn't fun for several hundred miles in a row...
It was a great shakedown run. I have a tiny coolant seep from somewhere on the waterpump housing edge, and the exhaust touches the cradle sometimes and rattles a bit, but those are pretty minor bugs on a project of this scope, especially considering I have no formal mechanic training of any kind. As soon as we get back below the upper 90's I'll drive it more, just too stinking hot to drive the fiero when my DD calls to me with it's sweet air conditioned interior..
[This message has been edited by aaronkoch (edited 08-14-2012).]
The car now has 1000 miles on it, and I finally recently had a chance to go beat the snot out of it around a local lake. She handles Sooooo nicely, it makes me glad I spent all the time making sure the parts were all new.
I drove down for NW fiero fest, and while there on the weekend, noticed that the back end wanted to change direction when stomping on the gas, and would pull the other when letting off. I searched the forum and discovered that I hadn't snugged up the bolts enough on the back end. That, and apparently I'd forgotten to torque the rear wheel bearings once the car was on the ground.. Apparently, 50-60 ft. lbs isn't quite enough..
Also, I noticed that when I really wound the motor out and/or cornered hard, there was oil leaking from somewhere around the timing chain cover area. I was a bit bummed about having to pull the motor out again so soon, so I started looking for the leak to see if I could get at it. It turns out, there was a tapped unused hole in the block that had oil in the threads.. Hmm.. Could it be that this hole isn't a blind hole?
Turns out, it's not. It goes through to the lifter valley. Here's a random shot I found online of the back side of that same hole.
So, as I'd rev it up, the balancer would sling enough oil around that some would get out that little hole, making me scared for no reason.
I grabbed a short bolt from the bucket, cleaned it up, and put it in, and no leak since.
That, and apparently I'd forgotten to torque the rear wheel bearings once the car was on the ground.. Apparently, 50-60 ft. lbs isn't quite enough..
Also, I noticed that when I really wound the motor out and/or cornered hard, there was oil leaking from somewhere around the timing chain cover area. I was a bit bummed about having to pull the motor out again so soon, so I started looking for the leak to see if I could get at it. It turns out, there was a tapped unused hole in the block that had oil in the threads.. Hmm.. Could it be that this hole isn't a blind hole?
I thought you'd learn from my mistake.... (gold fiero at NWFF). I think someone told me 200 ft. lbs is the spec And you were the one who let me borrow your 30mm deep well! Anyway, the car looks great and i'm glad you found out what that leak was. (I think i remember you saying something about it in richland at baskin robins). Hopefully you don't get one of your wheel bearings sheared in two! Hope everything is going well.
As a matter of fact, I just ordered my plastidip kit on Saturday to spray the car. I tested it out on a couple of interior pieces as well and it looks awesome so I think I'm going to color change the interior to black too. We'll have to do some kind of Spokane area fiero BBQ soon to kick off the summer properly...
[This message has been edited by aaronkoch (edited 04-01-2013).]
So, since I just ordered a sprayer and 3 gallons of PlastiDip, I figured I'd better practice a bit. So, I went to the local Walmart and picked up a couple of cans of the black to do the emblems on my 2012 Chevy Sonic DD. This stuff is really pretty awesome.. I also sprayed my spare dot-matrix gauge panel trim as a test of interior pieces..
I think an interior color change is coming too now..
Here's a shot of how the emblem came out:
It used to look like this (ugly on a white/black car):
For those of you who haven't heard of plastidip, check out DipYourCar.com
I'll be a guinnea pig for you all.. Funny though, it looks like quite a few fiero dudes are active on the forums there. Personally, I can't think of anything better for a plastic car, especially since it flexes, and if you don't like it, peel it right off.
[This message has been edited by aaronkoch (edited 04-01-2013).]
As a matter of fact, I just ordered my plastidip kit on Saturday to spray the car. I tested it out on a couple of interior pieces as well and it looks awesome so I think I'm going to color change the interior to black too. We'll have to do some kind of Spokane area fiero BBQ soon to kick off the summer properly...
Well, got my color mixed up! Looks awesome. It's almost the exact periwinkle blue I'm looking for. I might have to throw another purple pearl in, and maybe another can of white to lighten it up a shade, but it's really cool looking. Now I just have to finish up the body work, and pull panels to spray.
Color was a bit too dark, and not frou-frou enough, so I spiced it up with 2 more cans of white and 100 gm of violet interference pearl. Perfect.
Joe was kind enough to lend me his paint tent, but the weather's starting to roll in, and I don't want to break it. Cross your fingers for nicer weather this weekend!
[This message has been edited by aaronkoch (edited 04-18-2013).]
So, I put up the super-paint-tent that Joe lent me, and spent yesterday sanding and disassembling the bumpers, tail light, and sail panels.
Today, I cleaned and prepped, and was just about to start spraying when the hugest thunderstorm of the year started rolling through. I didn't want to risk the tent being perfectly waterproof, so I dragged the bumpers in to the garage and painted them. Turned out AWESOME!.
Can't wait to finish the rest of the car..
This Plasti-Dip stuff is really cool, and the gun they send with the kit work really nicely. Easy to adjust.
I'll do the rest of the car as soon as I get a break in the weather..
Some more progress. Got about 4 coats on the car, so far so good. I need to go back over it one more time with a nice heavy coat to even out the satin sheen, and I should be done with the blue. Then, I'll wait for a day or two before taping to shoot the black for the kick plates and trim.
Started running out of light, so i had to clean up for the night.
I wasn't sure either, but that's what's fun about the plastidip. If you don't like it, or you mess up, you peel it off and shoot another color.
As it is, I already had to redo the roof panel, the air hose popped off the earlex spray gun, and dribbled dip on the roof. I waited about 20 minutes, peeled it off, and shot another couple coats on.
It's pretty forgiving stuff. I've never really painted anything before, and with $200 of dip and pearl can get this kind of result, that's neat.
There are some small flaws which I'll touch up, and note to you all, If you plan on doing this LEAVE THE PANELS ON the car: This stuff is not as durable as paint, and until you get a coat of spray wax on it is pretty susceptible to scuffing and scratching, so when you go to put the pieces back on the car, you are likely to scuff the pieces on install.
The best description of the texture by feel is the rubbery back of those older motorola phones, or the silicone handle of a cooking utensil.
Here are a couple of close-ups:
You can see the pearl flecks in these shots. I bet the photos don't do it justice. There is a blue I was testing that photos can't even show how it looks in the sunlight.
[This message has been edited by Dan Ro (edited 05-01-2013).]
I decided I wanted black rockers and belt trim, so this weekend I pulled off the rockers and swapped them for the unbroken ones off the old white parts car. Then, tonight, I masked off and plasti dipped the trim. Ran out of daylight, so I'll have to finish later. It takes 5 times longer to mask than it does to spray...
WOW!! That puts my Krylon "spray paint" job to shame. Great job, love the color, thats almost the exact color I was thinking about doing my other Fiero, only I was going to do it with a wrap instead of paint. Now that I see the color on a Fiero, I really love it.
Got the belt line finished. As soon as I have time, I'll put on my new dew wipes and touch up my goofs. Other than that, the exterior is done. On to the interior!
I decided I wanted black rockers and belt trim, so this weekend I pulled off the rockers and swapped them for the unbroken ones off the old white parts car. Then, tonight, I masked off and plasti dipped the trim. Ran out of daylight, so I'll have to finish later. It takes 5 times longer to mask than it does to spray...
a question: why did you spray the trim, couldn't you just peel off the dip? i was thinking of doing the same, painting the trim and just peeling it but if there is a reason why it shouldn't be done that way please explain.
(copied from my 1/4 mile post here for reference) Did my first runs in the car, found it surprisingly hard to launch just right on a really sticky track.
In any case, my '88 coupe with a 3800 series II NA / 4 speed muncie ran a 14.432 @ 93.94 best for the night.
The good thing, I guess, is I'm pretty consistent.. all my runs were within 15 hundredths. Spokane county raceway is at 2600', and last night were at a density altitude of >3200 feet.
