The 2.5 4 cylinder
to
3.4L V6 CONVERSION!

Jason's Fiero is a second-owner Fiero with relatively low mileage considering its age (1985). The interior was in perfect shape. Nothing like the other cars that we have seen were the dashboards are chiped, vinyl is warped and the seats are torn. I remember the first time I took a ride in it, The sterio had a white Zombi tape stuck in it. His Fiero was a four cylinder with an automatic transmission.

He drove the Fiero only in the summer until the brakes went out. One of Jasons friends had offered to fix the brake lines for him, but after removal they didn't do anything else. So the Fiero sat in the yard for three years before being towed to Jason's house and then again to another garage.

Well there was a divorce and some money came about, so Jason, me(Andrew) and Dan (with the help of Tim's garage) started to work on converting Jason's Fiero into a 3.4Liter V6 with a 5 speed manual trasnmission.

-Work started with buying a 3.4L V6 engine from a junk yard.
-Then Jason bought an intake with value covers.
-Next we bought a "donnor" engine so that we would have all the brackets that we'll need.
-Jason bought a fly wheel but then had to return it since it was the wrong one.
-Jason bought flywheel #2, this time the right one.
-We then found a car with the 5 speed tranny that we needed, but the guys at the junk yard torched all the wires, mounts and cables
-bought new used shift cables
-new used tranny mounts
-new used rear axles
-new cluch line
-new cluch (yes, they broke the cluch!)
-bought a diffrent ECM (computer for the 2.8 V6)
-cluch pedal and assembly
-cluch master cylinder
-2.8 V6 wiring harness (I don't recall this ever being purchased)

We started the inital engine work Tim's garage, put on the intake, swapped brakes arround. Later we brought the Fiero to my house so that we could work on some of the heavy stuff. We mounted the starter on the opposite side of the motor. Hooked up the 2.8 wiring harness to the motor. We did try to use the coil pack from the 3.4L motor but that prove to be to much work. We put in the HEI distribitor instead. When the engine was all together we did a test run with the engine sitting on the floor, no exshaust just headers. It was awsome. Fire shot out the exshuast headers!

Ok so the car is still at my house. We disconected everything on the engine craddle and the engine, then lifted the engine and tranny out using an overhead crane. There is now a foot print on the roof of the car. We pulled the engine and tranny up out of the top of the car together at the same time. With the motor and tranny out we pushed the car into the drive way, diconected the subframe and the jacked up the car. We removed the subframe with the struts still attactched, then left the car there up on blocks.

To get the car back into the garage (remember the Fiero has no rear tires now) we lowered the back of the car onto a palet jack and rolled it into the garage. Then we lifted the Fiero by the strut holes with the overhead crane. The crane lifted Jasons Fiero right off the ground! We moved the sub frame and engine assembly underneath and lowered the car down on it. When the Fiero got close to the sub frame, we propped the car up with the jack and removed the cranes chain from the strut mounts. We moved the jack arround to help line up the bolts holes, striped one nut but, everything is in!

Now its the tedious task of hooking everything back up. Wires, radiator hoses, pullys, air - conditioning, vacum houses, wire harness, dog bone, ground wires.....

Problems? well we had some problems.. For starters, the brakes were not just bad, they were gone! We could not get anyone to work on the brakes for us. After explaining to them about the car, they would just say "its sounds like you guys are capitale of fixing them yourselves, besides, brakelines are easy". So we had to replace the brake lines ourselves. All the way from the master cylinder to the brake hoses. And it was a bastard all the way! Every single thing had to be replaced and nothing would fit together! It felt like it took 2 weeks and 16 trips to autozone just to get them done. It wasn't "EASY" they just didn't want to do it!

Another problem we ran into is that the axles for the automatic are shorter with smaller CV-Jionts than the axles for the standard transmission. So we had to buy new ones. $270.00 from buckeye autoparts, but we were lucky. We found some used ones for $40.

A big problem was in the eletrical system. it turns out that Pontiac installed all of the wires in each and every Fiero. I'm talking about the main cable that runs from the engine compartment to the fuse box. So whether or not your fiero came with a standard, automatic, v6 or straight 4, the main wire harness has the wires for it. So, if you want to to change your 4cyl for a V6 well then most of the wires are allready there. That is just one problem. The main harness has three of each colored wire, none of then are labeled. So its a big guessing game!

One easy part of the conversion was restoring the gas tank. The gas tank was all rusted underneth and the brackes were shot. I made up some new brakets out of scrap metal. Ground and sanded down the rust. Then treated the tank with rust converter paint.

Dungeon Studios with like to thank the following for there help in this project: