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Fiero, the best budget Historic Rally Car?

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  • Fiero, the best budget Historic Rally Car?

    Hi again Guys, you lot helped me heaps 10 years ago with valuable advice, now I am considering a new project for personal use, in Historic Rallying in Australia.



    The rules are pretty simple, car must be over 30 years old, engines over 20 years old (I don't think anyone is going to care if it's a 15 year old pushrod 3.9 V6).



    I was involved in rallying back in those years and dreamed of owning cars such as Alpine Renualt, Porshe and of course one of the ultimate Rally cars, the Lancia Stratos.

    But that's nonsense, I can't afford anything like that, so searching through all the available cars in the World, it struck me that the Fiero is simply a poor man's Lancia Stratos! Light, simple, mid engine traction, say 280hp should be reasonble to acheive on a budget.

    Would be the early Notchback.

    Being Australian, and only ever seeing Fieros, I wonder if I could ask a couple of questions please that may seem obvious and boring to you guys,sorry about that:

    Is the 3.9 a reasonable thing? I'm not worried about the electronics I see quoted around here, aftermarket ecu or even I'll make a carby manifold for it. I want to know if the engine is up to a bit of light stress and a few revs? Obviously cubes helps, or maybe a 3.5? Lightweight is important so the aluminiumheads will help, also keep the weight lower.

    Gearbox. In Australian rallying, it's tight to medium speed dirt roads,and speeds aren't that high very often, and in this case, closeness of gear ratios are far more important than top speed, especially the gap between 2nd and 3rd, where 90% of the driving is done. So it doesn't matter if it's the 4, 5 or 6 speed box (although weight is always an issue) but the spacing of the gears is, which of the boxes is the closer gap between 2nd and 3rd?

    Rallying isn't that hard on gearboxes because of wheelspin on dirt, but some consideration away from a gearbox that is known to be weak.

    Is there different diff ratios and limited slip diffs available?

    That's the main questions, thanks for any help :-)

  • #2
    Last year's biggest Australian Historic Rally

    2019 Alpine Rally of East Gippsland. Video shows some of the many classic cars competing in the rally.

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    • #3

      Hello,

      One thing you'll want to keep in mind if you're going racing with an early Fiero is that the rear end has Pro-Squat geometry which also means it has Pro-Lift under braking. This has plagued us for a long time in our application (endurance road course). For rally this may be beneficial in starting rotation if you can control it. I keep meaning to make a write-up on what we did to solve our issue but haven't gotten all the information together in one place when I had the time. Also since you probably wouldn't mind raising the vehicle a little, it would be a lot easier to fix the geometry.

      The LZ* motors (w/ VVT) seem to have all the benefits of the earlier motors with LS like ports and valves as well as a larger bore. The VVT cam has bigger cam journals so it's not compatible with the older cams. Some have used spacers with an older cam but there was also a traditional cam with larger journals used in some later LNJs (for the US this seems to be a rolling change for 2008 ). If using the LNJ cam you'll need a the cam timing gear and it's bolts from the LNJ as well.

      Good luck and have fun!

      ~sam
      Last edited by neophile_17; 02-25-2020, 10:32 AM.

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      • #4
        It has a sleek, wide, racy body meant for speed and handling. It is a really good car to just drive for the sheer fun of it, especially if it has the 5-speed manual transmission and the spoiler.

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