Michael Smith's Fiero webpage

The nose redesign project

The idea behind this project was to take the popular air dam idea already available for Fiero GTs and streamline it and provide more functionality. I wanted to remove the "pasted-on" look of other GT air dams; they'd just bolt right up underneath the lip, and look as if they were a barnacle just hanging on. Not very aesthetically pleasing. The nice lines of the aero treatment of the stock GT, all around the edges of the car, stop at the nose and lift up, as if the body designer ran out of ink on his page. One practical reason for having the nose lift up, as it does in stock configuration, is to avoid bumping everything in front of it while driving under normal conditions. A strong contributor towards this tendency is the fact that the nose is actually quite long, and far in front of the front wheels. Take the newer M-class BMWs... their noses are as close to the ground as they like, but only protrude about 5-8 inches in front of the front edge of the tires. The nose is shorter and thus, less liable to swing out and hit things.

To address this, I am also contemplating removing a goodly portion of the bumper 'honeycomb' material and, if necessary, relocating (re-welding) the radiator further back a few inches, to facilitate tilting the whole nose down a bit and cutting and shortening it by a few inches, both actions, making it several inches shorter, and thus able to get lower to the ground without scraping quite as much.

To illustrate: Imagine a teeter totter that's three feet long on one end and only 8 inches long on the other. Now take two slides and push them towards the center of the teeter totter--so the bottoms of the two slides touch, right in the center of where the teeter totter pivots. The slides represent your inclined curbs and driveways. The three foot section of teeter totter will hit the slide as it lowers, way before the 8 inch section ever will. The front axle of a car is like the pivot point on the teeter totter. Thus, the shorter the front air dam, the closer you can get it to the ground before scraping. For a truly effective and convenient to use air dam, The stock Fiero GT nose is "way" too long.

The following pictures only depict (via Photoshop) the air dam and open scoop redesign, as well as the hood outlet for hot air from the radiator. They do not yet depict a shorter, tilted nose. The bottom 'jaw' of the mouth is tilted down slightly to form an airfoil, of sorts, providing some ground effect, and taking that effected air and forcing it through the radiator. This, in order to ensure we don't create a high-pressure scenario under the hood from all that air rushing in a directed space (and lifting the front end up at high speed--the opposite of the desired effect), The hood vent allows the forced air to flow past the radiator and back out over the vehicle. (In a way, it's too bad the engine's not up front, or we couldn't try to direct this incredible source of forced air to the engine with long ducts, but it would be too bulky and inefficient to try.)

the side view of the nose redesign concept

the front view of the nose redesign concept

The camera tends to distort the size of the nose, like a fisheye lense, and proportions make the nose and 'mouth' seem larger than they will be in execution

Those four little "Catfish" vents above the mouth are a conceit ripped off from Calloway Corvettes, and to be honest, probably not useful at all. I just like the way they look.

The execution of the redesign

The problem

An important design feature of the Fiero, and today, many cars, is their flexible panels that are liable to take a hit every once in awhile. These parts, namely the nose and bumper, are made of Polyurethane. In the past history of home car redesign, stiff fiberlgass was the saviour of the hobbyist who did not have access to a sheet-metal working plant, but I feel stiff fiberglass compromises the most endearing feature of the Fiero: it's ability to take a hit in the snoot and suffer only some micro-cracks in the paint or clear coat. With stiff fiberglass, you get no chances, and the first time you hit something, you are in for expensive and time-consuming repairs.

The solution

Body shops use a newer 3M epoxy glue specifically for flexible plastic parts repair for autos. It's part number 5895 and comes in two tubes, one black and one white, which when mixed together on a sheet of cardboard, and spread out over a crack, dries and sands in 25 minutes. The strength of crack repair is greatly enhanced by employing a strip of mesh or fiberglass cloth behind the crack, glued with the epoxy, to ensure it does not pull apart. These repairs are flexible. A little light went off in my head and I thought, "what IS fiberglass, but just the glass cloth and epoxy resin/glue?" "Why can't a fiberglass layup be flexible"? Below are some pictures of the first experiments in making this Fiero GT redesign come true, and including the best feature of the Fiero--it's flexible nose. The 'mouth' is a bit more conservative in how low it dips, and the size dam created. The reason: I am anticipating dropping the angle and also shortening the whole nose so it is closer to the front wheels, and less liable to scrape. I also feel this look would make the Fiero GT look a bit less 'front' heavy in proportion. If the front mouth were too large, it would be too low, if the nose were also dropped at an angle.

here's a picture of a junkyard GT nose with the proper cut to open the 'mouth' yet maintain the same attatchment points for fenders, et al, and keep still them strong. The edges of any surface that I plan to need to putty or adhere fiberglass to, have been sanded down to the dark grey urethane itself, for maximum adhesion. You can see where I plan to cut around the middle fender side marker to tilt the nose down, and keep the side marker in the same place.
You can (barely) see that the slit doesn't go all the way to the fender well. This maintains strength.

I made the wooden jig which helps to hold the nose and also maintain register while changing things.

Here's the rough technique to get the fiberglass in the opening: I put tape behind the opening and literally will spread the epoxy glue onto the tape and then lay in a layer of fiberglass on the glue, which adheres to both edges of the opening. Once completely finished, I'll remove the tape from the back. I intend to lay up several layers like this.

The two small wooden blocks in the 'mouth' hold it open and prevent misalignment.

Here's all you need to do this hack project: Two tubes of 3M 5985 epoxy, a carboard square from a ceral box to mix the thick epoxy, and a dipstick. The fiberglass came from a hardware store.

And now, the moment you've all been reading all this darn text for: fiberglass is laid up on the right portion, looking kind of silvery. The dark grey is epoxy, waiting for fiberglass.

So far, I have about 3 layers laid up and the fiberglass is flexible and seems to hold the urethane well. The problem is, the fiberglass and epoxy is getting stiffer, the more layers I add, and the structure will actually be stronger if it's all the same flexibility, so...My plans are to rip it all out and start over with a more shallow tape 'trough' to guide the epoxy and layups. It will be easier to reach the surface level of the outside of the nose in the proper amount of layers, without getting too thick and stiff.

I may also go for it a bit more and drop the mouth open another inch.
OK, a year later, and I did. One afternoon I got a wild hair up my butt to try the nose on and drive with it. Unfortunately, It did not occur to me to take pix until late and it was a Sunday, had to go to work the next day and I had to get the nose back off. The pix suck, but here they are:
this one's the worst pic, but shows the whole car.

front shot

and here it is next to a standard parking curb.....

Next time: Ryane motorsports AVO coilovers, drop spindles and A-arms on an 88GT!!!!!

just waiting for the disposable camera to get developed.

comments: mrwax@macrat.com