Thinking out loud: aluminum parts

[S8n]

Try willwood Forged Super Lights, they are aluminum and have 4 piston calipers. BTW are not expensive as ppl may think. I bought 4 brand new for $300.




DreX

No dust boots though. Gotta clean them pretty regularly.

[teamlseep13]

Everyone I have know who have the non dustboot willwoods, which includes 6 piston vette brakes and 4 piston wrx brakes, say that the lack of dust boots isn't a big deal, they havent had a problem in the 2 and 3 years they have had them.
But thats just what I have heard

[The Dark Side of Will]

I'd stay away from them in places with a lot of salt on the roads, but otherwise I've heard the same...

[The Dark Side of Will]

Here are a couple pics of the solstice suspension. (Though you can't really see the knuckles very well)


The KAI on the front looks pretty close to the fiero, but it could just be the angle of the picture.

The Slostice has a strange bolt pattern... 5x110mm maybe. I'd go with Corvette hardware, personally. I think someone a while back took some rudimentary measurements indicating that a front Xmember could be built that would allow C5 front suspension to bolt into a Fiero.

[Series8217]

Might not be that far off.

I'm collecting used balljoints to cut them apart for the balls. I'm going to have an early knuckle and a late knuckle CMM'd to know the exact position of ball joints & tierod ends relative to the wheel. That will let me assess kingpin angle, etc. to see if one knuckle design would fit both chassis.

I know the steering offset on the early knuckles is huge compared to that of the '88 knuckles, but I know how I'm going to deal with that. The biggest potential difference I see is kingpin angle.

If there's anything I can do to help, lemme know. I have a bunch of 88 parts laying around at the shop and at home.

[cactus bastard]

Aluminum spindles would be very sexy, but even the stock spindles don't weigh too much. I think the most effective / reasonable way to knock unsprung weight off a stock fiero is in the brakes. I think the wilwood neon brake kit should be relatively easy to adapt, and I'd really like to see somebody have a go at it. Presuming you were already going with larger brakes, the two-piece rotors and aluminum calipers are going to be much lighter than any of the common swaps out there. The price difference isn’t very extreme either.

If I were to put real cash (aluminum hubs) into an 84-87 suspension , I would NOT want to replicate the factory suspension. I'd be looking at a new crossmember with different pickups, and would probably have to design the suspension around whatever spindle I decided to use.

I mentioned the aluminum hubs that wildwood produces. They make them for mustangs and camaros, (and other cars, but there’s a good reason to go with the mustang II spindles. There are lightweight versions too). I suspect the difference between steel hubs and aluminum hubs is around the difference between steel and Al spindles. Factor in the lightweight brakes, and you’re removing a LOT of weight there (from the front).

Btw, are the C5 hubs aluminum? I have a feeling they’re not… Either way, they could be easy to use on fabbed spindles (pricey though).
The rest of the C5 stuff is pretty damn light, and cheap too; if a decent suspension could be designed around C5 parts, that would be pretty cool. Of course, once you add the huge corvette brakes… They weigh a ton, and aftermarket brakes are $$$.

Hmm, yeah, I keep coming back to the brakes. Aluminum hats, nice light calipers, aluminum hubs even… That’d be pretty light, even with a steel spindle.

[crzyone]

GM is still using tie rods in the rear suspension???? :puke:

[whipped]

It's interesting that they have a "mock tubular" (welded stamped halves?) a-arm, instead of the old fashioned stamped steel pieces...

[The Dark Side of Will]

GM is still using tie rods in the rear suspension???? :puke:

It's a production expediency, and even Corvettes do it. It's that way so the car can use the same knuckles front and rear.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I think the most effective / reasonable way to knock unsprung weight off a stock fiero is in the brakes.

I disagree. Stock early brakes are dam light... aluminum calipers, 9 3/8 x 3/8 solid rotors... brakes don't get much lighter than that.

Corvette knuckles are aluminum.
Corvettes use cartridge bearings like the rear of an early Fiero. They can't have aluminum hubs.

[cactus bastard]

The Slostice has a strange bolt pattern... 5x110mm maybe. I'd go with Corvette hardware, personally. I think someone a while back took some rudimentary measurements indicating that a front Xmember could be built that would allow C5 front suspension to bolt into a Fiero.

Yeah, it is 5X110, and I guess there's no point using their knuckles if we can't use the hubs.

An entire C5 front end would be dead sexy. All polished up and powdercoated or even anodized would look tits. I'm sure it could be done.. You'd still have heavy brakes though :bootyshake:

If the main goal is reducing unsprung weight I'm thinking you'd be better off with one of those wilwood kits. There's a lot of aftermarket ford stuff. You could probably design something that used mustang II spindles, then you could use that hub and brake kit I'm so in love with. They (wilwood) claim weight savings of up to 35 pounds over certain stock front ends.

Kind of a long shot, but on the 88s you may even be able to adapt the ford spindle snouts onto the stock spindle.
Then you could get the aluminum hubs, lightweight brakes, and solve the wheel bearing issue all at the same time.
I just got my 88 a few weeks ago, so I don't really know much about them yet. I bled the brakes, but wasn't paying atention to the spindle at the time. Is the hub assembly bolted to the spindle like a corvette?

[The Dark Side of Will]

The '88's use cartridge bearings like everything modern.

[cactus bastard]

Ok, I looked at a pic of an 88 too..
Adapting a pinto spindle into an 88 front knuckle just to use the aluminum hubs would probably add more weight than the Al hub would save.

If you were replacing your existing knuckle with an aluminum one, you could still use the pinto stub and aluminum hubs. If you were building your entire suspension from scratch I'd probably use the mustang II spindles (again for the availability of affordable lightweight brakes and hubs).

Using the C5 spindles would probably be a lot less work, and you could even leave the vette's suspension geometry mostly stock. It'd be (relatively) cheap as well. And it would look absolutely fantastic.

It used to be my dream to stick corvette suspension under my fiero, but the more I've thought about it, the less it's appealed to me. I really love the way the aluminum suspension arms look. But I think I'd still rather use tubular arms with adjustable endlinks. So that leaves me using the Corvette knuckle, hub, and brakes. The knuckle is still pretty sexy, and I like the low scrub radius allowed by the shallow wheel mounting surface, but I'd still have too much weight in the brakes and wheels for my liking. I think corvette suspension would make a lot of people really happy, but not me.

[Chase Race]

It's interesting that they have a "mock tubular" (welded stamped halves?) a-arm, instead of the old fashioned stamped steel pieces...

If you're talking about the Solstice parts, they're cast aluminum.

And rear tie rods or not, that suspension works, and works well.

[whipped]

It's interesting that they have a "mock tubular" (welded stamped halves?) a-arm, instead of the old fashioned stamped steel pieces...

If you're talking about the Solstice parts, they're cast aluminum.

And rear tie rods or not, that suspension works, and works well.

Really.... interesting. Looks stamped/welded in the 3d graphic

[The Dark Side of Will]

It used to be my dream to stick corvette suspension under my fiero, but the more I've thought about it, the less it's appealed to me.

I like the idea a lot. The Corvette isn't THAT much heavier than a Fiero, and the hardware is built to be used hard in a high performance manner. The brakes may be heavy, but they're pretty light for what they are. Find a Porsche, Ferrari, etc fixed 4 piston caliper that's lighter than the Vette's 2 piston floater... Some weight can be cut out of the rotor with an aluminum hat, but other than that trimming weight without decreasing brake effectiveness would be difficult.

Also, a custom X-member could have adjustable mount locations for the Vette's leaf spring, which would allow adjustment of spring/roll rate without changing parts. A really slick design could use a piece of threaded rod to locate the pivots so that the spring/roll rate could be changed with a turn of the screw.

[cactus bastard]

For any high performance car to be driven hard, you do need big brakes, big rubber etc. And the corvette gear is all very well suited to that task. (My personal interest is more towards a "nimble" feeling car than all out performance)
Maintaining the leaf spring is an interesting idea, and certainly something I hadn't considered. It does open up some interesting opportunities; what's the track on a C5 though?
Using as many corvette parts as possible would save some $$.

[crzyone]

And rear tie rods or not, that suspension works, and works well.

I'll take your word for it, never been in one.

I just see GM cheaping out again... Solid rotors in the rear and tie rods... Just seems wrong for a car they are passing off as a sports car.

Do the turbo versions have better brakes?

[teamlseep13]

With a car that light the rears don't need anyting better in the rear that a solid rotor. Sure a vented disc is better but when it comes down to it, the solid rotor is quite adequate consider these aren't cars that are going fast like a Corvette would be.
I think the GXP's have upgraded suspension and brakes but I am not sure.
The tie rod end rear suspension that GM uses for all of their IRS setups acutally works quite well and at least in my shop, a Cadillac shop we rarley see the XLR's have them be a wear item.

[crzyone]

Stopping once is fine for a non vented rotor, repeated stopping is bad. I could see some major brake fade after a few laps on a track.

I would think it would mess up your brake bias the longer you race.