I was going to Huntsville, AL with the wife yesterday afternoon, and I happened to catch this place open. It is called the Fiero Factory, and this is the first time I have seen them open. I usually go down that way at night. Anyway, all they do is work on Fieros. They had 2.8 liter engines and parts laying around everywhere, and I was able to score a set of valve covers with the 12 hold down bolts for 20 dollars. I thought that was a pretty good deal.

One of the most popular swaps that this place does is TomP's famous 3.4 liter swap, except that they use the FWD version. They do those a lot. The other really popular swap is to put a Cadillac 4.5 liter V8 into the engine bay of the Fiero. This particular caddy V8 has the GM 60 degree bellhousing cast on it. The ones that they were using were throttle body injected, too. I think that they used the computer from the 4 cylinder Fiero, with a custom burned chip, to run the Caddy motor, since they were both TBI. The problem with this swap into our cars would be the motor mounts, and possibly the oil pan. The guy did say that those engines produce a lot of low to mid range power, but fall off on the top end. Apparently, Cadillac tuned them for torque to get those big cars moving.

I was wondering if anyone had tried to swap one of those into a RWD car. Yes, I know you could put a regular Chevy V8 in there, but this would be a bit different, and you could use your current transmission. I also wonder if there are any other V8s GM has made with the 60 degree bellhousing?

 

Must catch your error...

TomP has the famous tune up...

KED85 has the famous 2.8-3.4 swap boogie

 

Oooops! I stand corrected!

One other thing about the Caddy 4.5 liter is that the guy said that the starter is on the opposite side as the Fiero motor. I don't know if that is the same or the opposite side as our motors are. The guy said that you could cut a notch in the bellhousing to get the starter to clear, and that is what they do on the Fiero swaps.

Also, for everyone (like me) who is still dreaming of a Turbo setup on their 3rdgen V6, the fiero exhaust manifolds might be a good starting point from which to fabricate a custom turbo setup. You could swap sides to get them to dump in the front. At least you could use them to start making yourself a set of pipes or headers, and you wouldn't have to cut out all the exhaust flanges. If you are worried about your smog equipment, I am sure that you could weld a tube onto the manifold to hold your EGR valve, etc...

Just some more random thoughts.

 

I drilled and welded a plate to adapt my digital egr onto my eld. headers. Not hard, but time consuming to make sure no leaks.