89 Cutlass Ciera Race Car Build

[lemons bob]

If it is donated or stuff around the garage you are suppose to estimate, but typically scrap metal is overlooked. They mainly care when people happen to have a set of coilovers sitting on the shelf, or an old race motor. Pratt and miller, the Lemans Corvette team, ran a camaro with a full race car built sbc. They got caught and the engine was bought for $500 and they had something like 10,000 penalty laps.

[lemons bob]

Oh and I'm pretty sure we are going to be looking to do anything we can to help with the body roll. Here are some pics of our front left tire.





even with some decent negative camber we were still running on the sidewalls and chewing the outside of the tire up.

[SilentWing]

Wow... now that's a chewed up tire... but with the picture you got of it around the curve that doesn't suprise me. Good front struts and the strut tower brace along with the bigger swaybar you've got should help you guys out quite a bit. We took mine out the other day after getting the 'new' cluster in and I was sitting in the back seat (front was all full of parts, wires, etc) and I noticed the back rolls a lot more than the front now lol. So we'll probably be putting on a rear shock brace this winter. Anytime you want to get that front brace done though let us know, it only took Luke a few hours to make mine and most of the time was spent grinding the sheet metal ends smooth.

[lemons bob]

Once we get the residual, I think the plan is to first fix the engine problem, whatever that may be. The new front struts, upgrade the springs, u van or fe3, have to figure out what will be best, then the tower brace and rear sway bar if it is still in the budget. Then see how much we have left. Maybe look at a rear spoiler, or ecu chip or something.

[lemons bob]

Here are some pics of our not good suspension

Here is us braking



and here is us taking a corner

[Duke George V]

That is some awesome body roll. KYB makes struts and shocks for our cars.

[occupant]

I think your tire sizes are off. The front are WAY too small. What are those? 195/60/14?

[Duke George V]

Shorter tires are usually better in racing. Less sidewall flex means better stability in corners. Shorter tires reduce the overall final drive, meaning better acceleration. Very important considering this car has a three speed, most of which came with a 2.84 final.

Also, Bob and others, once you guys find out how much residual you have, send me a PM. I think you guys could use some more power, and I have just what you need.

[lemons bob]

Occupant those are the tires we were running and Duke George said exactly why we did it.

Once I find out I'll definitely pm you. However fixing it is first priority and handling is second since that should help us keep the tires from falling apart. Plus power is not the most important thing in this race actually. The winner of my class was a geo metro that was stock except for cut springs. Heck that little metro i think ended up 8th overall.

[Duke George V]

I bet that Metro was an LSi, which has a 70 hp four cylinder. Weight reduction would easily take it to 1300 lbs, so it's not really surprising that it won the class. (If it's a three cylinder, color me amazed.) A larger, heavier car needs power to overcome the weight disadvantage. I agree that handling is quite important, but the straight bits in between can make up the difference.

[lemons bob]

3 cylinder, but I think they said they went through like 30 gallons all weekend, 3 hour stints and they just stayed on the track. While putting in a fast laps is good, the abitlity to just keep putting in lap after lap is how you win. classic tortus vs the hair

[Duke George V]

Something else you guys might want to think about is your transmission. The 2.84 final is a good match for something with loads of torque, like a Buick V6, but a Chevy V6 is just a dog. I would try to get a 3.33 differential from a Fiero. You'd lose a bit of top end, but the acceleration would really be worth it.

[lemons bob]

We'll have to put that on the list of things to look for. Might be a ways down the list though, plus its getting hard to find fiero's around here. The wheel size I figured dropped us down to about a 3.03 final gear ratio, but with how we are eating tires understeering as it is not sure we need more power. Although that was why I was looking at the WOT TEch chip. It doesn't seem like a heck of a lot more torque but with the engine originally being rated at 175 not sure we really need all that much more, and their dyno makes it look like the power starts at a much lower rpm which would end up having more performance gain than just dumping a bunch of high end torque.

In the thread about the race I linked a couple videos one of the drivers took. in the second one he has the fastest lap of the day. ITs funny cause you can tell he isn't pushing the car at 100% through the whole lap, but getting the right lines carrying the momentum through the turns and it really adds up. That 5 mph extra you carry through the turn equals 5 mph more the whole straight. Thats really where the handling makes the big difference in these races. And power to weight ratio we aren't really that bad, atleast not out there. Sure the geo with the taurus sho engine in the back was way better in that regard, but they totally sucked in the rain, same with the fiero with the 3800. Actually if we could make it rain the whole weekend we would end up pretty well.

[Duke George V]

Well yeah, the MFI engines make peak torque around 2600 or so, and peak power is either 4400 or 4800, depending on application. J-bodies got a different cam profile to peak lower, as you can see in my Celebrity's dyno (PO swapped a Cavalier engine). If you take a four speed automatic as having a 24% power loss, then a 2.8 makes 125 hp and 160 tq at the crank, and:

95 hp and 123 tq at the wheels. Your three speed will sap a little less power, but it's still not a whole lot. And the example dyno on WOT Tech is for a five speed manual 3.1 Beretta.

You are right that you need to address your handling issues, which is why I suggested KYB shocks and struts. GR2's for struts, Gas-A-Just for the shocks. A strut tower brace and a rear sway bar will go a long way in flattening the car as well. I believe SilentWing made one for her Ciera. If she designed it in CAD, I'm sure she'd be happy to send you a copy of the file.

[SilentWing]

If all goes as planned and Bob has the money we'll be making his strut tower brace for him, since he only lives like 5 miles from me