A reflection into my past.
It all started back in 2005 when I decided to pimp my Fiero to next levels.
Having done a few changes to the engine, i.e swapping the CDI and stuffs I wanted to build a big bore version. Thanks to the help and support from my dear friend venugopal, this journey has come a long way.
It’s been nearly 4 years now and I’m still going strong with my plans for my forever evolving Fiero. I wonder what is keeping me so motivated and this is one engine that I cant loose interest for.
A little into the past of my Fiero.
June 2005, we built the first big valve head for the Fiero. The cubic capacity was 195. This being our first attempt in building a big-bore we always kept the refinement for later. The bike first ran on a VM28 carb with jet sizes that can scare most RD owners here. Next was an imported 26mm Mikuni carb and the finally I decided to rest with the famous BS29 CV. The results were a lot encouraging with the CV and the jetting was more consistent if not the best. Like I said all the refinements were planned for the next set-up. The bike would still eat into a p180 and karizma effortlessly.

March 2006, the second big valve head was conceived. The entire cylinder kit was changed and ports were reprofiled over the previous head. The compression was also upped a bit. I was running a stock exhaust however with a bigger bend pipe. I did a dyno test for the first time and the power at the wheel was 13.6bhp which is an estimated around 17bhp at the crank. Quite good for a hand built engine, back then. We had limited resources and I’m proud that we made the best out of this.
For the first time we did a speed test and the results were really good. Fiero clocked a true top speed of 131kmph in a distance of 1km during an xbhp meet.
A pic,

July 2006, I built my first tuned freeflow exhaust and the results were instantly evident. The bike would unleash a lot more torque and rpms throughout the range. The exhaust was built focusing more mid-high end power I also built a tacho for quick references (Fiero never had an OE tacho) and was mounted on the dash. With this set-up I have done countless amount of touring and street blasts. The set-up was ultra reliable and would clock a true 130kmph any time of the day. Fuel efficiency was stunning at 40kmpl. I have covered a good 10600kms in a matter of 4 months and the bike only need regular oil change @ 2000kms and tappet clearance check. The bike would eat into a comet in a 400mtrs drag and also top-speed stints back then.

A pic of my Fiero with the newly built freeflow. Note my handbuilt tacho

February 2007, the third set-up was built. This time the cylinder head was based on the Apache. The main reason was the camshaft which had slightly higher lift and duration over the stock Fiero cam. The rockers were roller type and hence the engine would be a little less noisy. The ports were painstakingly redone. Special thanks to venu here. The set-up was again all new with a new cylinder kit, sleeve, piston/rings etc etc.
Just a week after the engine was set-up we decided to do a speed check.
A particular stretch in Bangalore was chosen where most tuners would come for a speedcheck. We borrowed the speedgun from Ron of RDD and decided to do a few runs. To give you an idea, modified RXs and stock RD LTs would only do a little over 130kmph at the point where we tested. Fiero hit a top-speed of 136kmph and eventually beating a drag built RX from a famous tuner in the given stretch as well. The distance was around 600mtrs. The run was captured on a camera and helped in shutting the mouths of a lot of critics who proclaimed that a Fiero (being a 4-stroke) would never do that.
A few days later the bike was put on the dyno, although there were a few AFR issues. The output at the wheel was 15.8bhp now. A week later the cylinder head was stripped for further tweeks to the ports.
The cylinder sealing issues meant that we could not run any drastically high compression. However on the dyno the engine produced 16.4bhp at the wheel.
A few other changes were done internally to the engine and that’s a long story.

July 2007, the fourth cylinder head was crafted. This time it had a highly radical port geometry with a lot of new innovative changes to the set-up. The crank was also modified to make it lighter and help increase the rpms. A special thanks to my pal Srinivas who helped me on this set-up.
The compression was upped over the previous set-up and was now at a more constant 200psi. A lot of other tweeks have gone in which helped the set-up gain good numbers even quicker.
With this set-up we have done countless speedtests and this was the same time around when Kushanth’s karizma was worked. We put a stage 3 camshaft on the karizma and it was a battle for the topspeed king. . Kushanth has had sleepless nights wondering how my stock cam Fiero kept up and even did better in the overall performance over his full works engine . Just kidding man!
The bike would always clock speeds around 138/139/140 on the speedgun in a distance of 600-700mtrs while the karizma would also do about the same.

The clutch on the Fiero has been its weak-link. The clutch simply cant take any abuse over some 1000kms of hard riding. In fact on my Fiero 200, the clutch would take a toss once every week. The torque laid out was really high. During all these speedtests, the Fiero suffered from a week clutch and it was high time something was done about this. I have tried all things to make the springs stiffer etc, but the results were nothing to write home about. I have probably changed some 20 odd clutch/pressure plate sets in a matter of 2 yrs. Add to that my regular adventure of getting more ponies and I have probably wasted some 10 sets of pistons, cylinders, countless ring sets, valves etc in the bargain.
So I needed a better clutch and also a 5-speed engine was preferable. That’s when I got my hands on an apache engine which I picked instantly then.
The engine bottom was swapped however we could not swap to the modified crank. I prep’d the bike basically for a trackday at CBE and I was on a time constraint.
I did a few set-up changes as well. Also forgot to add that sometime in September 2007, the bike received a new CDI which was basically the RTRs. The engine would rev till a heady 12600rpm on the electronic tacho.
So I chose my new gearing to match the 5-speed ratios and the apache clutch was put to test. Kudos to TVS for having built the most robust clutch in business. It can literally take any loads of abuse from the engine and rider. The clutch routing was changed to the front and then I did my first speedtest on this set-up. The result was 144.4kmph (tallied with a speedgun as well) in the same 700-800mtrs patch where we test. Sai_ace was also present when this attempt was made in dec 2007. The bike was never dynoed for some reason of either the dyno not being available or otherwise, but the bike was a lot faster than all our previous set-ups.
This is it,

Well after this attempt, I decided to give my Fiero a small break. I have been a mad man behind the Fiero and it was high time I did something else. In April 2008, I picked my RTR 160 and then decided to take a tour on circuit racing. The Fiero received no attention and the engine was stripped for a few works which I took forever to complete. The bike was idle for a good 6 months.
Since the racing bug had hit me really hard, I decided to start racing the Fiero. So I need to stick to the racing class for drag racing. Hence decided build my own drag Fiero based on a 165cc engine for the Upto 165cc Group B 4-stroke class.

December 2008,
It was my long time desire to turn my Fiero into a drag bike. So I picked a different frame and started with a blade. Cut the sub frame and built the frame using aluminium to save weight. It was a painstaking 2 weeks of day night efforts to build the frame and other components. The Frame now has 35% aluminium along with every other unwanted bits shaved off. The engine received a lot of tweeks and this time having taken a solid 2 weeks off from work, I was full on day in and day out. The engine has a lighter crank shaft (short stroke), fully modified internals, altered ignition timing, custom modified piston, radically modified big-valve cylinder head, new tuned megaphone exhaust, and a lot lot more. And for the first time I’m using a modified camshaft which is a custom ground camshaft from USA. That’s another story, but I was eager on installing the engine with the new cam. I had to make room for a new and now higher lift valve train and hence custom valve springs were made. A lot of works on the engine done are one-off. This bike had to be ready by the 14th of Jan 2009 for the Deccan ¼ mile drag at Hyd. Worked day and night to meet the deadline. Finally made it to the drag. I had no time for testing or optimizing as the bike and barely put back into shape barely on time for the bikes to depart. I won the race and it was some time for me to rejoice.
This is how the Fiero looks now and this is after winning the race.

Right now I am still working on the Fiero. Have a lot more things to optimize and also the quest for more never ends. I will have a speedcheck this Sunday first time on this 165cc engine set-up and will post results.
This is been a long post, I hope it’s not bugging. I just spoke what I had in my heart, since a long time.

Cheers,
Joel

hey !!! who drew the line above ?