The new life of the formula fastback

[GTRS Fiero]

Fietofool must be right.  Must be the shutoff on the pump.

[NoMad]

My best guess at this stage is that I will have to drop the tank and make some adjustments to the fuel level sending unit. It seems to be reading only the very top of the tank and showing near empty at what I would hazard is avout the 3/4 tank mark.

On the plus side, my bracket kits and 12"corvette rotors arrived today. Now to get them off to the machine shop in the morning.

[GTRS Fiero]

You might want to check the voltage from the sending unit, to see if the issue is the gauge or the sending unit.  That having been said, the sending unit from TFS likes to get hung up on the baffles.

[NoMad]

Ya, Sunday and Monday will be my first real days to dig into the gremlins due to work. This morning is my late start day so I used it to call around and find a machine shop that could redrill my corvette rotors that arrived yesterday. Took about 20 calls to find a place but the guys seem nice and are just getting going. Price is nice and low and the owner is going to get them down to my neck of the woods on an evening so I can skip the hour and a half round trip drive.

Now to grab some new bulbs for the gauges and see if it is the simple fix or a more in depth. Hope to get that sorted before work....

[NoMad]

More sharp learning curve....

Looks like the guage might more accurate than I thought. Had surging on 75 south and the car acting like it was low or out of fuel. Limmped it to a fuel station and went to fill it up. This was a second pump that if set on even the slowest fill rate caused spray back and shut off in less then an 1/8th of a gallon. Slowly tricking fuel in she took just shy of 10 gallons. Should be a 12 gallon tank so I am guessing that the vent has somehow gotten plugged and is causing both the filling and the low fuel causing surging issues. No trip meter but a quick but of mental math without exacts is showing about 16-17 mpg highway which seems low to me even for the snappier engine. Thoughts?

Also, before I order a new one, does anyone have a known good tach filter I can swap in for a second to confirm if that is the issue causing the pegged tach?

No more CEL issues and none that have stayed illuminated once the car was turned off and then restarted.

Looking forward to figuring out what the body will end up doing.

Also, any preferences on shocks/struts? With the new bushings on the way I feel like a full suspension reset is in order rather than partial. I will end up doing bushings first to see if that clears the sway/wobble just for the sake of knowing down the road. Then the shocks struts right after.

[TopNotch]

You can never get the stated capacity of fuel into a Fiero tank. Ten gallons is a good fill.
If you have an auito trans, and the TCC solenoid is bad, your mileage will suffer.
Refer to this article, and build your own tach filter.

[Fierofool]

The Fiero tanks all have approximately 2 gallon of unusable fuel.  Eight gallons into an 88 tank would probably be put in on the side of the road.  You were close to running out.  You should be getting better than 20MPG with that engine.  I get mid 20's with my 3.4. 

Not sure what's going on with the filler.  I put 5 gallons in it across the street from Northlake Automotive when we first got the new injectors installed, and I had no problem.  You may be able to disconnect the vent hose from the tank and back blow it with compressed air to see if it's somehow become plugged.  I think Mike still has an old tank that you can look at to get an idea of the inside construction.  When we installed the last pump and the new sending unit, the gauge was reading somewhere close to the amount of gasoline we put into it. 

I have a tach, speedometer, trip meter and tach filter.  I also have a complete 88 instrument panel internal assembly with all gauges, but I don't know how good the circuit board is, or if all the gauges work.  I have several 85 V6 instrument clusters that could be installed as a test unit just to see if your sensors and wiring are good.  The 85 has an 85 mph speedometer but it would work for testing. 

I am running Monroe SensaTrac on my 86, front and rear.  Also on the front of my 87, and they do very well, even in agressive Run For The Hills style driving.  If you're interested in installing a set of KYB's on the rear, I know where you can get a pair, cheap.  http://www.gafiero.org/bbs/index.php?topic=3146.msg30313#msg30313

We noticed that the air filter is a K&N.  Recent studies have shown that while the K&N may improve engine breathing, it is at the expense of filtration.  By opening up the filter, larger particles of dust can pass through.  I've seen a lot of recommendations for WIX or Purolator1 or Purolator Gold air and oil filters.  I removed my K&N several years ago and have switched to Purolator. 

[GTRS Fiero]

I thought this was a manual, so there should not be a TCC.  Your 5zspeed should do better than my auto.  I get about 35MPG, but it got 22MPG with the 2.8 and a bad TCC.

If your vent is having issues, your system could be creating a vacuum inside the tank, which would cause issues.  When you removed the gas cap, was there a rush of air?

I suspect that your tri-link bushings are shot.

[GTRS Fiero]

You can never get the stated capacity of fuel into a Fiero tank. Ten gallons is a good fill.
If you have an auito trans, and the TCC solenoid is bad, your mileage will suffer.
Refer to this article, and build your own tach filter.

I can get about 11.8 gallons in my Fiero, according to the fuel pump.  I regularly get more than 10 gallons.  That's 350 miles, though.  My gauge reads about half a tank at between 208 and 219 miles.

[NoMad]

Well being this close to summit racing is getting expensive....



All the poly bushings and new switches arrived from the Fiero Store. At summit I grabbed some KYB front shocks to swap in during the work and some paint for the calipers and for the engine louvers. Tomorrow will be some work on the front to try and get the bushings done. Also planning to run up to Jefferson for the KYB rear struts and some braided stainless brake lines.



Finding the transmission giving some grinding and a thud down shifting to second when moving at more than a crawl. Might be the synchros letting me know a rebuild might be in the future.

[GTRS Fiero]

The braided stainless brake hoses?  Be aware that they usually do not come with the brackets.

[Fierofool]

In all the driving I did around the subdivision and the test driving up and down La Vista Road, I never had any problem with the transmission shifting.  Only with the slave bleeding down. 

So you're going to get the KYB's from Kay?  I've seen the brake lines and the don't have brakets to fasten them to the strut.
 Bigger Ace Hardware stores have P shaped clamps with a rubber insert that can work well on the hose.

Don't let her talk your ear off.  Sweet lady, but she loves to talk. 

[NoMad]

Ya, planning to grab them and the lines from Kay since she seems to need the help financially. Small price to pay for the drive to help her out. But yes, it was very tough to get off the phone and back to work.

[Raydar]

The Fiero tanks all have approximately 2 gallon of unusable fuel.  Eight gallons into an 88 tank would probably be put in on the side of the road.

I regularly put 9+ gallons in mine, with just under 1/4 tank indicated.
I reworked/recalibrated my sender, years ago, but I'm not sure that I trust the gauge. (Never could get it to exactly zero ohms, empty.)

[GTRS Fiero]

Since the '88's have the expansion tank, they can take more fuel than they would be able to take without the expansion tank.  I wonder if the inlet tube is placed higher on the tank, or perhaps the vent tube is higher.