Drool, me wants. If only I could start over in life.
Photography courtesy Cars & Bids
Who needs a Lotus Evora when you could have a supercharged Pontiac Fiero instead?
In place of the V6 or four-cylinder engines offered from the factory, this Fiero is now powered by a supercharged Series II GM 3800 V6 mated to a Muncie five-speed manual.
Other notable upgrades include an uprated fuel pump, coil-overs, an aluminum radiator, aftermarket exhaust and brakes sourced from a Pontiac Grand Am.
Find this 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT for auction from Cars & Bids.
Drool, me wants. If only I could start over in life.
I do want that! I will not get it, but I do want it!
That really is a good looking Fiero. I checked the bidding, currently at $8000. The seller built it for his 74 year old Dad, who's since passed away, so it's being sold. As a good looking car to be driven gently by an older guy, it's not a bad choice. But if you're gonna drive it hard....
We had an 88 Fiero with the same engine that we raced in Lemons races, and it was pretty darn quick. We passed Barbie era Corvettes like they were tied to a tree. The engine was bulletproof, but the wheel hubs were a disaster. Keep in mind the 88 had the "redesigned, upgraded suspension". Racing on 200 TW tires in 2017-2018, stock front hubs would completely fail in 4 hours of track time; the Rodney Dickman ones were no better. I finally redesigned the front suspension to use Mustang II 2" drop spindles; that worked very well.
Stock rear hubs would barely make it through a weekend before developing huge slop. I eventually adapted stronger "H Car" (Citation, maybe?) front hubs to the rear, which were a little better, but only OEM junkyard ones were "strong enough" to last a few weekends. Aftermarket parts store hubs would not last even one weekend.
The Fiero 5 speed transmission was barely strong enough if we shifted gently and didn't pop the clutch taking off. We still blew one up.
The car eventually got totaled in a race accident, I was straight up relieved that I wouldn't have to work on it anymore. The engine still runs today in a 1987 RX7 Lucky Dog car. The engine is installed North/South, not transverse, using V6 Camaro engine mounts, oil pan, and exhaust manifolds.
cholmes said:The engine still runs today in a 1987 RX7 Lucky Dog car. The engine is installed North/South, not transverse, using V6 Camaro engine mounts, oil pan, and exhaust manifolds.
That sounds like a pretty neat setup.
Sheerly out of curiosity, how difficult was it to mount that engine in the RX-7?
I keep hearing so much about the <88 front suspension being so inferior to the 88 year but have never seen the underside of either car, What is preventing someone from swapping out the old style subframe with the 88's?
Just about an hour left. Sitting at $8000, though I imagine that might get bumped up within the hour.
We had an 88 Fiero with the same engine that we raced in Lemons races, and it was pretty darn quick. We passed Barbie era Corvettes like they were tied to a tree. The engine was bulletproof, but the wheel hubs were a disaster. Keep in mind the 88 had the "redesigned, upgraded suspension". Racing on 200 TW tires in 2017-2018, stock front hubs would completely fail in 4 hours of track time; the Rodney Dickman ones were no better. I finally redesigned the front suspension to use Mustang II 2" drop spindles; that worked very well.Stock rear hubs would barely make it through a weekend before developing huge slop. I eventually adapted stronger "H Car" (Citation, maybe?) front hubs to the rear, which were a little better, but only OEM junkyard ones were "strong enough" to last a few weekends. Aftermarket parts store hubs would not last even one weekend.
The Fiero 5 speed transmission was barely strong enough if we shifted gently and didn't pop the clutch taking off. We still blew one up.
When I worked for a GM dealer in the 90’s in the parts department, I would always get a copy of the Performance Parts Catalog from GM. They had a swap kit for their FWD cars that ran in IMSA’s ProFormance/Intl. Sedan class that used late 60’s Olds Toronado hubs and half-shafts to improve reliability.
The rear sub-frame of the Fiero was the GM X-Car FWD sub-frame from the 80-85 Chevy Citation/Pontiac Phoenix/Olds Omega/Buick Skylark. Having owned an ‘81 Citation X-11 and several Fieros (mostly parts cars for my Improved Touring B Fiero), they are definitely the same.
The best transmission for the Fiero was the non-Isuzu built 4 spd. It was either a Muncie of Getrag unit, and was the strongest of the four available manuals.
Hammer was $8,500; that's less than I thought it would be. Seems like the buyer got a good shake of it.
brandonsmash said:Hammer was $8,500; that's less than I thought it would be. Seems like the buyer got a good shake of it.
Agreed. I figured it was going sell for a little more than that.
Maybe we all just have a weird taste in cars. 
Every time I see a nice Fiero I am reminded why I loathed GM product for so many years. These should have been great cars but it seems like GM phoned it in. I suspect the bean counters were heavily involved.
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