Thread: Fiero IFS instead of Mustang II

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Turbovauxhall. Books have been written on front suspension geometry, so the guys can't cover everything involved in narrowing a factory front suspension. Just keep in mind that if you need to narrow this Fiero front end to make it work, you should probably look a little longer for something that will fit better. Good luck there! If you do indeed narrow the Fiero front suspension by narrowing the crossmember only, you "may" create an ill handling car. Narrowing the rack to correct may get expensive. Moving the rack to correct may not be enough and requires special equipment and knowledge to do correctly. This is not a simple fix! Building tubular a-frames to narrow the suspension requires special tools and skills. Those small budgets make it tough! The guys were just trying to prepare you for what may be ahead if you do an install like this. And engineers do not build "bump steer" into a suspension. They are paid to engineer it out of a suspension design, and engineer the correct amount of ackerman into the suspension. Not the same thing.

All I did was type in factory Bumpsteer in Mustangs. It's out there to read on other cars also! They Do come with factory bumpsteer!

Read ---> http://www.mustangandfords.com/techa...ned/index.html


Narrowing a front end is not that hard, and it is not hard to reset it back square. All the Mustang II front ends they sell use the same upper & lower A frame mounting location, But there is a bunch of top name ones that locate the top off place front to rear!

I didn't say to narrow the rack center, if that is needed there are many other racks out there to use that are shorter.

Getting the rack in the right place (As to factory) is simple to figure out. there is a imaginary line from the top a arm pivot point to the lower a arm pivot point. the racks pivot of the inner joint has to fall in that line anywhere!
Then you need to raise or lower the tie rod end to be flat in line (or the same angle it was stock) from the rack to the tie rod end mount on the spindle. lengthen or shorten the tie rod to fit. That is on the stock ride height.

I don't know why you would say that the Ackerman would come to play? That would Only come into play if he was going to change the tie rod mount location on the spindle The wheels will still turn the same amount!
This is not like putting the center link of a beam axle & turning the spindles around to the front!

I don't see why building tubular A arms are brought up either.

You don't know anything about me as far as what I know or do to say "so the guys can't cover everything involved in narrowing a factory front suspension."

Pat

Whew! Tech is right. I've got to try a little harder. Geez.

Originally Posted by turbovauxhall

This is a pic I found on the net. Looks very promising. Basically Chevette suspension. Suposed to be a strong boxed crossmember as well. Coilovers are available as well. 88 is a little different, but supposedly a better "Lotus inspired" setup. Best of all it's CHEAP and common. Maybe it'll turn out to be the new Mustang II replacement. Who knows.

Hey,turbo..I would suggest you lok at the Opel or Chevette front end,as the Chevette,albeit,a little different to the English Chevettes,were the next model to replace the Viva,which is essentially all you have...The American Chevette may not be too much different,and the Opel Kadett is all in the family,too,so they would be where I would start looking first..If its a bit wider,give it a few inches extra in the fenders,,the rear end will have to be replaced anyway,so it will look ok with a bit of extra width..

Ok, I'm going to add my 2 bits worth here. You mention this is a project for your son (14) and its only going to be a lightweight car.
Had you considered using the stock vauxhall frontend and adding a decent set of aftermarket gas shocks (dampers) and look into a brake upgrade to suit - you may be able to achieve this by either a bearing change to allow using a larger hub/disc rotor or possibly use the vauxhall front hub and adapt on a 'Hat' type disc rotor (slip over style as fitted to a lot of Japanese vehicles '80s - '90s)
and then fabricate caliper mounts and add calipers to suit.
I suggest this option for a few reasons, the vauxhall front end is not a BAD design ( here in NZ there were many vauxhall vivas repowered with SBC using stock front ends) this would save you having to adapt in a complete front end swap, keep the track basically stock and hopefully keep the project on budget.

p.s. Vauxhall viva is essentially a firenza .