Pontiac Mera - impart thy knowledge o wise ones

dculberson wrote: Ahh, I forgot about that! Sorry, and you're right, power steering would help in that case.

no worries. seriously.

mthomson22 wrote: I'm specifically looking for an automatic car with p/s because http://www.miata.net/motm/2007/thomson.html thanks for any help, mark

:facepalm:

I knew I was forgetting something.

The 1988 has a much larger range of adjustment for the front suspension. Caster was set at 3 degrees for 14" wheels and 5 degrees for 15". Of course the lower the number , the lighter the steering. The upper control arm bolts went into 2 slots for adjustment. Longer slots could provide a more custom setup for you.

I had 225/50/15 on the front of mine with 5 degrees. I was heavy when parking but not to bad otherwise. 205's and 3 degrees is much lighter, that's what my V8 had when I bought it.

Early cars, 84-87, had a steering stabilizer that should be replaced if it's still the original. On my 85 it was causing drag rather than damping. Car steered smoother too with the new one from Moog.

Gearhead, I appreciate that input. That's encouraging.

However if I locate the right 88 Mera I'll likely opt for the 2000 Camaro power rack conversion. It's pricey, but should make low speed driving a lot less tiresome.

Bringing this back from the dead. I saw one at a Ford employee car show yesterday (probably the same one Angry mentioned on page 1) I was surprised at how good it looked. Approaching from the rear it had me fooled until about 50' away. It is/was a cool car. If they had made it less obviously a Ferrari fake it could have been a great car. It looked much nicer than any other Fiero based 'kit' (I konw it wasn't a kit car) I've seen. The fit and finish were excellent and better than yout average 80's car.

I worked at a Pontiac dealership for a moment back in 1989. One Saturday morning, one of the guys said, "There's a Ferrari upstairs in the shop." I went up and took a look. Because it was indoors, it was hard to judge the proportions and I was completely fooled by the exterior, although it had noticeably crappy wheels. It wasn't until I looked inside the driver's window and saw the unmodified Fiero interior that I realized that it was a Mera.

Well this thread answered a question I've had for a while. For several days many months ago, I would get passed by a car while driving to work that looked like a real 308, but could not have been. It was way too cruddy and something just did not look right. I'm pretty sure it was one of these.

The sail panels are the dead giveaway on almost 90% of 308 replica's. True Mera's have to be 87 or 88's.

Also the lack of the transmission sticking out of the back and the upper roof. Most manual 88's have a sunroof as well.

The Mera panels were splashed so many times I believe that a huge percentage of 308 replicas are effectivly off the molds. There are a few 288 molds that were pulled off real cars that were around the texas area a few years back.

I saw this car at the Ferrari Challenge at Lime Rock last month. The wheels looked so E36 M3ty, I thought it was kit car. I don't have a photo of the whole car, but you're not missing anything.