Turning...

what does this pile weigh?

backpad, door panels, carpet, floor tar, door glass and mechs, fresh air/heat system, fuel tank expansion tank, interior pad trims.

Any other easy stuff?


KT

well, any plywood hanging off the front of the car would be an obvious choice....



















sorry -- it was too easy!

you could lose 50 lbs of interior/ventilation/etc. and keep your windows. glass and lifter mechanisms etc. ain't light, but seeing that you store your car outside, that might not be an option.

dark

What street drivability, if any, are you trying to retain?

I did all of that plus a few other things - lexan rear window, muffler heat shield (it was broken anyway), rear lid spring, engine lid spring and extra bracing, 'skin' targa top, Odessey 680 dry battery.

I will probably go "stage II" this winter (LOL - that's the next 3 weeks or so) and do glass lids, cable/GT headlight kit, and start drillin' and cuttin' excess metal. I need to weigh the car first to see where I'm at now.

For now, full.

I like to drive out to the track or through the valley now and then.
Way less than I used too, that's for sure.

i store the car outside, but under a cover and tarp. I alway have the windows down anyway...so.

Plywood out front, . Killing me, here.



KT

Another 50-100 hp is another option.

Randal what your car weigh, now? ( going to weigh, rather )

KT

On my '75 I can't ditch the expansion tank. It and the filler neck are one unit.

I plan on cutting out one half of each stiffening rib in the decklids.

And cut off two cylinders.

Right now it is lighter than Paul's car.....

good answer.

Lose the pop-up headlights and go with a one-piece f/g or carbon front deck lid. Use a light wt. set of "driving lights" as headlights for accasional driving after dark.

This doesn't apply to you JP. How about the driver's gut. I'm packing an extra 30 lbs. Free unless you buy a gym membership..

This is from my August 2, 2006 entry in my blog ....

This question has been asked several times recently so I thought I would post all the things you could do so I can just cut/paste when it is asked again. biggrin.gif

First you need to realize that making some of thse changes will change what clas you run in at your local autocross. And if it is a street car, these will effect the safety of the car. Steel saves lives- fiberglass saves weight.

1. Change the hoods, bumpers, and valances to fiberglass.
2. Switch to a lightweight fiberglass targa top.
3. Change the glass to polycarbonate
4. Remove the carpet, backpad, pass. seat, sun visors, console,
5. Remove the sound pad from the engine compartment
6. When you change the hood to f/g remove the springs and hardware.
7. Remove the fresh air fan from under the front hood.
8. Replace the heater boxes with a header.
9. Remove the windshield washer system
10. Remove the headlight motors and assocated stuff
11. Remove the arm rests from the door panels
12. Change to early doors w/o the steel beam
13. Remove the door windows and cranks.
14. Remove the heat shield which is over the muffler
15. Remove the sound deading material and any undercoating
16. Remove the seam sealer that cover the welds in the trunks
17. Some think f/g rocker panels save weight over the stock ones. It is true they are lighter but not by much.
18. Aluminum wheels.
19. Racing slicks are at least half the weight of a street tire.
20. Install a racing battery. Saves 15-20 pounds easy.
21. About half the wiring can be cut out.
22. Remove the cover plates from the back side of the brake rotors.
23. Grind/cut off all the brackets/bolts/tabs/ etc that are everywhere on the car.
24. Remove glove box and door.
25. Install f/g door skins

Trek, HP is good to a certain degree. In auto-x the lighter you can make the car with out effecting structure, the better it will do. It is a transitional thing. And you are atleast 180 lbs. heavier than anything Randal does because of your engine choices. My suggestion for auto-x is loose the weight, any place you can.

JP is right floor tar is cheap, I thought you got rid of some of it all ready. I pulled 24 pounds worth of tar out of my car so far. Somebody at the factory decided I needed three layers of that carp in places Doors are easy, if you have late models. Drop the lifts and use a strap, ala 356 lightweights. You can drill the living _____ out of your door frames, ala Peter Gregg style. Or go the Brant route and take every part weight it, and remove an ounce here a pound there. And he is still going. I think I heard the rumblings of aluminum rocker covers.

I am taking all these approaches to the degree of making the car still semi-streetable. Something my wife would not worry about riding in to a social event, etc..... Balance is a hard thing to do, it is killing me right now. Oh and DN is correct, I got a good 50 lbs I can take off my frame.... But that seems a lot harder than dropping weight out of a car. But I do need to do it.

This sure is fun.

Oh come on Dave! That is sprung weight.

There are lighter brake setups. Many of us have to run factory brake setups due to class rules, though.

Instead of removing seam sealer in the rear trunk, how 'bout just cutting out the entire floor?

Have you taken the front trunk springs out yet? You can use a 1x2 piece of lumber from Home Depot to prop open the trunk. You can do the same with the rear trunk rods. The lower pad on the dash weighs more than you would think and it is easy to unbolt. If you dont care about stock ventalation the intake box, motor, etc add up to some poundage. Muffler shield is heavy. I'm working on my spare targa top to make a race only lid.

Can you say fiberglass bumpers and hoods?

grant, we can get busy in my garage while the engine's out. just an idea. you'd be surprised how much that window stuff weighs....

I'll give you a call tomorrow. Can you PM me the best number to call?

Stock seat (even your custom one) = 30+ lbs
Racing seat = 15-18lbs
x2 = up to 15lbs off
However, this could be expensive

If you do a dash bar in the cage, and tie it in right, you could gut most of the dash. Then you could build your own custom dash/gauge pods out of fiberglass or aluminum sheets. One of those pics looked like the cage dash bar was the mounting point for the gauge pods (?).

If it was my picture, then it is the down tube thad has the mounting point for a set of 3 gauges.

Actually we are going to move that mounting as we decided it wasn't the best place with all the hand action going on.

Good points about the dash and glovebox. I have to keep a stock "appearing" dash for my POC class, but I interpret that to mean it just has to resemble stock, not actually be 100% stock.

Hi Trekkor,

My vote is for you to turn to the dark side by keeping all the windows/glass for driving on the street (since that's what you want to do and why not?...you get to play with your car more often than I do with a trailer queen!).

Since it's power to weight and you're already decently light, I'd save up and put in a bigger motor. Base it on a 3.0 liter case, either 3.0 or short stroke 3.2. I've got a full quote from Supertec in SoCal that does nice motors for the vintage air cooled crowd. If the Beast gets a retro motor versus a newer one this would be one option. And this is for a motor with no core, just order and have it delivered.

And since you have excellent hound dog skills, I'm betting you could find a 3.0 liter or equivalent type motor for a price you would be happy with. You could offset some of your new motor by selling your old motor. And with 275 reliable HP you will be under 2:10's at Thill. Even on 205's, so you don't need to hassle with flares, although Bontempi pieces like I had are decently priced and you could then fit some meats under there.

Your MSX 901 should work fine with this type of motor. And you can still drive on the street and you don't lose your windows. Lighter is faster, but you're pretty light now. Do the math on a bigger motor minus the sale of your existing motor compared to the cost of going f/g, gutting, etc. The motor will be more expensive up front probably, but I bet it's closer in cost than you think. And in the straights you can go 130MPH+, which really helps make up for any missed apex's....

Let me know if you want to see the quote on the motor. You'll see the parts involved and then can go looking for a good deal on a used one.

And don't worry about what class the motor throws you in. With any weight mods or an engine mod you will go up in class same as me (I'm maxed out in points save for 5, which is worth "chipping" the engine. I don't want to do that yet until I decide what I'm going to do). I'm sure we can find a third driver to call our own class with and you and I and the third guy can go run together. If we bump up into TT7 we run against guys turning 2:05's. Tough to do with little put puts.

Hey Greg Braun (race914)...what are you turning at THill CCW? I bet we are all close together in time and since you're TT5 where you go up against Turbo's and the like, why don't you join us and we start our own class? All we need is 3 people.

We'd have a 914-4, a 914-6 and a Boxster. Anyone else want in?

Bill P.

It is all so tempting.

I really liked the fact that trailering home with the threat of rain was OK as I had the windows rolled up.

An enclosed trailer...Hmmm.

My other option is to build a higher HP 2.0 and only take a 30pt hit due to increasing compression ratio above 1.0 over stock ( 10.5:1 )

I could quite possibly end up with 40 more hp and not move up a class.

the big motor does sound good, though.

this side is darker than I realized.


KT