Category Archives: Cars

DRIVE channel made a film about my Fiero project car

October 14, 2014 Steven T. Snyder

A few months back, The Smoking Tire posted a request for interesting local cars and I posted a photo of my car. I guess they liked it, because in late September, Matt Farah of The Smoking Tire and /DRIVE channel spent the day track-testing my Fiero at a Speed District event at Buttonwillow Raceway. They were originally going to film it up Angeles Crest or another canyon road, but I insisted on taking the car out to a racetrack so it could be driven to the limit.

It was awesome seeing my car covered in cameras, and nice to hear that the car was fun to drive from someone who has driven everything from Lamborghini Aventadors to the Hennessey Venom GT.

The resulting footage was turned into full-length 10-minute video on /DRIVE+ for subscribers, and a 5-minute version (not trailer, just a shorter edit) on the free /DRIVE channel.

The videos turned out AWESOME. I didn’t think I spoke well during the interview, but I guess I did alright. With clever editing, I narrate a large portion of the film!

For once I came home from a track day and didn’t have to edit any videos myself!

Here’s the full length version for /DRIVE+ subscribers:

… and the free, shorter version:

Big thanks to Matt, Thaddeus, Zack and Nino for making the film, to Speed District for hosting the track day, and to my friend Chris for long hours spent helping to make the car ready for a flawless day at the track!

Here are a few pics of my car covered in cameras:

Cars, Motorsports, Photography

NASA Buttonwillow Enduro April 2014

Gallery April 8, 2014 Steven T. Snyder

I visited California’s Buttonwillow Raceway on April 5, 2014 for the NASA / WERC 3-hour endurance race to capture some photos. Endurance races are fantastic photo opportunities due to the variety of cars and lighting conditions (they nearly always run through sunrise or sunset) . Here are a few of my favorites.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Cars, Fiero, Motorsports

Extended wheel studs for the 1988 Fiero

March 21, 2014 Steven T. Snyder

With aftermarket wheels and/or thicker brake rotors, the Fiero’s stock wheel studs don’t provide much thread engagement with the lug nuts. I found that on the front of my ’88 Fiero I was only getting 8 turns with the C4 12″ rotors and my Motegi wheels. That’s 12 mm of thread engagement on a 12mm stud. Marginal at best. With the 3mm spacers I wanted to add behind my rotors to get some control arm clearance, I would be down to a dangerous 6 turns or 9mm.

I scoured the ARP and Dorman catalogs to find a good candidate. The 1988 front hub holes are about 0.490″ with the stock studs removed. Dorman recommends a hole size between 0.017″ and 0.027″ under the knurl OD, while ARP recommends 0.005″ for iron and steel hugs and 0.007″ for aluminum. It’s not clear why there’s such a big range or difference between the recommended interference.

The closest longer studs that would fit are ARP 100-7708 and Dorman 610-323. The ARP 100-7708 studs have an 0.509″ knurl, making a 1/2″ reamer the closest common size to the correct hole size (0.504″ by ARP’s recommendation). When installed, these studs increase the thread length by 0.84″ (21.4mm) over the stock studs.

The Dorman 610-323 studs have a 12.80 mm (0.504″) knurl, which fit in the original hub holes based on Dorman’s specifications. They are 54 mm long, thus increasing the thread length by 12mm over the stock studs.

I pressed the lug studs out of a brand new Rodney Dickman 88 front hub and measured the hole size as about 0.490″ at the smallest and around 0.50″ at the largest. I went ahead and pressed the ARP studs in without reaming the hole to 0.503″, and they pressed in without too much trouble. The hub didn’t split, but a few metal shavings were produced by the knurl pushing through the hole. This fit exceeds the ARP recommendation for the interference fit, but is within spec if Dorman’s recommendation is followed.

1988 Fiero hub with ARP 100-7708 studs installed

Since these studs are so much longer than stock, open-ended lug nuts must be used. For GM wheels the stock ones should work. In the aftermarket, I found some inexpensive Gorilla lug nuts on Amazon.com. The part number is 20033SD for a set of 20 lug nuts and the spline drive socket. These nuts are narrow enough to fit in aftermarket wheels. I tried some White Knight lug nuts but they were too large in diameter to fit in the lug but counterbores in my wheels.

I purchased these inexpensive Gorilla brand open-end lug nuts on Amazon.com. p/n 20033SD

The Gorilla lug nuts fit perfectly in my aftermarket Motegi MR116 wheels. The only disadvantage of these nuts is that the require the use of Gorilla’s spline drive key. Some hex drive lug nuts are available from Vorshlag that look like they might fit, since they are small enough to use a 17mm hex instead of the 19mm hex on the White Knight lug nuts that were too large for my wheels.

After installing the extended studs and open-ended lug nuts, I had plenty of thread engagement while running a 3mm rotor spacer

The same studs will work just as well on the rear bearings as on the front.

Cars, Motorsports, Photography, RallyCross

2014 Porterfield RallyCross Season Opener

Gallery March 18, 2014 Steven T. Snyder

On March 16th 2014, a field of 83 drivers slid their cars around Glen Helen Raceway’s dirt course for the 2014 Porterfield Glen Helen RallyCross #1, the first event of the year.

The massive turnout brought an incredible variety of vehicles out to the race including Mazda Miatas, BMWs, VWs, a Dodge Neon, and others, with 50% of the grid consisting solely of Subarus.

Danny Downey (1992 Dodge Stealth #711) started the season with a Stock 2WD class win, leading by 13 seconds over John Black (2012 Ford #34) ), with Matt Price (2013 Ford Focus #39) close behind. With with Downey’s previous rival Bill Martin — the 2013 Championship winner for Stock 2WD — having moved to Stock AWD class this year in a new car, Downey doesn’t yet have a close rival in this year’s championship.

Stock AWD class saw a very close finish between rivals James Veatch (1997 Subaru Impreza #155) and Mathew Mendoza (2004 Subaru WRX #420) with only 0.416 seconds separating the two but Veatch coming out ahead — that’s a mere 0.1% difference in total times! Bill Martin finished 6 seconds behind the win, but expect to see him remain a contender for the rest of the season.

Prepared 2WD saw a grid of 3 drivers, with Sarkis Mazmanian (1993 Honda Civic #777) and Vahan Yessayan (1988 Toyota Corolla FX #160) in a close battle for the lead. Mazmanian finished 0.541 seconds ahead of Yessayan — another surprisingly close race that mimicked what happened in Stock AWD. It’s looking to be a good year!

Brent Smith took the Prepared AWD class lead in his 2009 Subaru STI (#433) with the fastest total time of the day and 7.3 seconds over Daryl Fike’s 2005 Subaru STI #16.

Modified 2WD saw the largest grid of cars with a total of 20 entries. Eric Martin took the lead in his 1982 VW Rabbit (#4) with a 5.41 second lead over Michael Cadwell’s 1994 BMW 325is (#854). David Moss (2010 Ford Focus #22) finished in 3rd, 4.93 seconds behind Cadwell’s BMW.

The flagship Modified AWD class saw 18 total entries and some close finishes. Cameron Meng (2006 Subaru WRX #511) took the class lead, followed by Mark Ackenback’s 2004 Subaru STI (#733) and Thomas Bloess’ 2008 Subaru WRX (#31).

And now.. on to the pictures!