Real Fiero Tech

The ORIGINAL 302's were carbeuretted and had flat tappet solid lifters. They required valve lash adjustments every few months and carb retuning every season.

As far as the bearing life goes, as long as you have enough oil pressure, you won't have bearing issues. IIRC, a Chevy requires 15 psi to idle and 10 psi per thousand RPM. 80 psi of oil pressure will get you to 7500 RPM.

Ring & cylinder wear is related to average piston speed, which is directly related to stroke. At any given RPM, a 302 has 80% of the piston speed of a 383, which means that at any given RPM, the 302 has a lot less wear, and for the same wear/piston speed, the 302 turns 25% more RPM.

If you build a 302 with extremely long rods (6.250 like I mentioned above), you'll end up with a phenomenal rod/stroke ratio that will dramatically reduce cylinder side loading and give LESS cylinder wear than longer stroke engines like the 383.

In addition, with modern roller cam technology, you can get power and 7500 RPM capability without as raucous an idle and horrible street manners as the old flat tappet engines used to have.

Ok, so some asshat was trying to convince me it was a better idea to build up the 350 for the last 4-5 days, even AFTER I explained I needed a powerband that was torquey AFTER the transmission is safely out of danger.

I'm still looking at a fair amount of cash to drop on the 302 build though, plus tranny adaptor plate, plus mounting the engine... I think I'd better buy a running V-6 GT and just do this as a slow process...

Good idea. Do it right the first time, even if it means saving money and doing it right with good parts.

nfswift wrote:I think I'd better buy a running V-6 GT and just do this as a slow process...

Exactly as I'm doing. You won't regret it if you take your time and do it right the first time!

Ditto. I'm at almost two years since my Northstar car ran... Should be coming together soon, though, and it'll have NICE stuff inside.

Yea, I'll probably just have to drive it stock for a while. I'm looking to end the build at around 400hp maybe?

So I'm definitely looking at a good strong bottom end (would that crank and rod donated from the Caprice actually hold 400 horse?), some kind of good aluminum heads, a high RPM ready valvetrain, a suitable camshaft, a good manifold/spacer/carb combo (at lest one that'll fit under the lid anyway), and a really nice free flowing header to exhaust setup custom for the Fiero...

I'm looking at close to $4,500 there I'd imagine...

Found the perfect car for you.
http://www.fiero.com/forum/Forum4/HTML/033598.html

You basically build a 302 and drop it in. Engine swap is pretty much done. Its a pretty good price for the car, nice and clean looking.

I find it funny that guy never dynoed nor ran it at the track. What a waste.

MUST HAVE MORE SWITCHES!!!!!!!

5 that you can see in the pic? For what, its carbed?

Service Unavailable

For some reason, you have been denied access to this site.

What the fuck?

I can log into Old Europe and everything, haha, what thread is it?

You can't click links to there from here. If you are using Firefox, once it says that, just click the "Go" button and it will work. If you're using IE, copy-paste the link.

crzyone wrote:Found the perfect car for you.
http://www.fiero.com/forum/Forum4/HTML/033598.html

You basically build a 302 and drop it in. Engine swap is pretty much done. Its a pretty good price for the car, nice and clean looking.

There's something going on with that car. He had something wrong with the motor trans/flywheel/suspension being really out of whack. I think there's a thread where he stripped the threads on the motor/trans adapter. I'll post a link if I can find it.

edit: Here it is. Sounds to me like it's a just the .610 cam and a solid mounted V8. Anyhow, he mentions aluminum shavings in the bellhousing from something.

http://www.fiero.com/forum/Forum2/HTML/074555.html

Gotcha.

Too bad that car is central-East US and I am EXTREME West coast Canada.

I'm also kinda looking for an 88 GT, that saves me some of the effort doing handling mods.

I'd personally rather have an 85-87 fiero, much easier and cheaper for parts.

The handling difference isn't significant enough either, plus there are aftermarket suspension pieces for the earlier cars.

I flew to Seattle to pick up my car and drive it back, but since that one is not drivable, you can have it shipped for $1000 or less.

If its not your style, thats fine. Buy a nice condition fiero and go from there. I just thought this would be easier. I didn't realize he was having problems with his swap.

Eh, I'm just betting it would be over a grand to have it trucked, and as clean as the car is, I'm biased towards buying a fastback GT instead of a notchback (ironically I liked notchbacks first by a longshot, Fiero fans are funny folk...).

Plus, I'm going to need a running V-6 to begin with, the swap will likely take me some time, I think I'm going to buy the car in time for me to use my Kawasaki for commuting etc and have the swap complete by the time I actually need a car again, but December driving in a Fiero doesn't sound appealing at all...

$4k for a rolling chassis? Good lord man is it made out of gold Pixie dust?

He is obviously selling because there is an issue he doesn't want to have to fix, or thinks it can't be without a lot of time and work. Tranny is probably on the way out.

Shaun41178(2) wrote:$4k for a rolling chassis? Good lord man is it made out of gold Pixie dust?

See, I thought it was a little out of my range for some reason.

:salute:
sayonara

Street Dreams, HTD, and all those other places are selling variants of the Zumalt V8 kit. As much as we bag on Rchee, his kit IS superior to the Zumalt based hardware.