Busy couple weeks

I've been trying to keep busy, doing odds and ends try to clean up some of the little things, I got the front bumper formed, curved and installed. Also I built the fan shroud to hold two 12" slim fans, why two? because I got a deal on both of them and the stock ION harness requires two fans. Today I got to working on the seating position, steering wheel height and clutch pedal/brake pedal assembly. One thing I thought that I might have a issue with was the electric power steering motor, it turned out to be true, the stock ION/delta chassis motor sits low on the column but when it was installed on a ION/cobalt/G5 it was a non issue (although I do remember striking it with my foot a few times on that car), but since the Fiero is such a low car and there isn't much room in the drivers compartment this issue is compounded. In the photo's I took a couple shots of my feet on the pedals and how close it is, although I can still use the pedals with no issue, getting in and out will require watching your foot position and getting it under the motor while you get in. Lastly I got the rear clip cut up and mounted the fastback sails via metal brackets and tek screws.

Tomorrow I hope to weld in the brackets for the racing seats and maybe mount the tabs that will hold the rear brake calipers.

Bumper reinforcement beams

I decided after looking at the condition of my bumper beams that it was probably time to get new ones, on top of that they interfered with my exhaust system and I wanted to enlarge the radiator supply through the front bumper so that one had to change as well. Instead of using thin steel on this I figured on going with 1/8" thick alum, should be a little stronger, also it turns out that each bumper will be about 4lbs lighter over stock. The front bumper hasn't been formed yet, the setup of the bends are a little tighter than the rear bumper and due to that the bending order has to be very specific.

The project finally gets some direction

Well, directional input......ok its a bad joke.

Since I am using an ION electric assist power steering column, finding a hub can be kind of difficult and expensive, nevermind the stock wheel had airbags and cruise control inputs so I decided to make my own. Fortunately for me GM doesn't like to redesign components when they build cars (as Fiero drivers/owners know very well) so I found at the wreckers a stock Saturn S-series steering wheel minus the airbag and decided to give it a try (also because if it didn't work my daily driver is a S-series and it has a very worn wheel), low and behold it fit perfectly. After the initial test fit I trimmed off everything but the center steel splined collar, then had a couple circle pieces cut and tack welded it to a 3" long piece of 3.5" stainless pipe left over from the exhaust construction.......total cost, $69 for the steering wheel, very nice. I've made the hub 3" deep because the stock wheel for the ION is about that depth, but when I get a seat installed and do the final adjustments on the driving position I might have to adjust the length of the hub to suit. Later I will add the buttons for the cruise control and probably the nitrous as well to the steering wheel assembly.

Finally have some new things to post

Its been a very long time and I am sorry about that, this summer has been really busy and unfortunately it didn't involve being busy on the project car. I was actually hoping to have some rough forms of the body set up while the weather was warm and good for fibreglassing.

Today I got something started that I have been sitting on for a few months, the front and rear sway bars, actually I got the rear swaybar mounted and linked to the suspension already, the front bar is installed, but the removable arms haven't been set yet as I need to install the wheels again to test the full lock to lock turning of the wheel against the bar location set up.

Also I mounted my aluminium radiator, still contemplation building new rad support brackets out of alum instead of the metal ones. Lastly I brought the front and rear bumpers so I can create some new ones that will aid with the location of the exhaust and the redesign I want to do with the air feed to the radiator.

So enough of the writing onto some pictures.