Weight shaving: The things you dont think about.
 

The idea spawned from a thread over on the truck forum. We all know lighter is better. We all know about the obvious stuff like fiberglass body parts. We all know if you worry about the ounces the pounds will come off. And, lastly, we all know we are too lazy to put ourselves on a diet so the car has to.

What about the non-obvious stuff... Like draining your windshield washer reservoir. Or removing redundant bolts..

What is your little trick for dropping ounces?

weight reduction takes some sacrificing and creativity. start with what you don't want or need and go from there, you have to have a plan or a goal to keep your car in check

im debating whether or not to remove all that extra thick rubbery sound deadening padding under the carpet when i put my new carpet in.....supposedly it takes a LONG time and a lot of patience, which i dont have much of so. so i probably wont. so far i have a CF hood, rear seat delete, no spare tire and a set of sparco torinos going in. However, i also have an amp and a box with 2 12s in the trunk.....kinda balances itself out.


oh yeah....i removed 6 cats too....haha, jk

There is alot of things you can take out but you will start to loose the comfortability and streetability. Some of the stuff you can remove that's not so obvious but not good for a street car would be:

Front bumper support
Winshield wipers, resevoir, and motor
A/C compressor (15lbs) and condensor (?lbs)
airbags
heater core
Smog pump

TJ- I think even if you removed all the sound deadening I think it's only lik 5-7lbs. Remove all the weight you can from the front first then work you way back. -Mark

I remove all the simple stuff first.. Passenger seat, rear seat, spare, jack, tire tool, front swaybar, Light weight rims and drag tires, aluminum flywheel & drive shaft.. By doing just that I have taken out 250lbs out of the car..

I just like to add more power. It comes alot easier than weight reduction and
I still get to drive around with a full trim interior. :)

yeah definately not worth the aggravation it takes to get that crap off the floor.

if adding power was as easy for my car as it is for your car i would tend to agree, and at the power level it doesnt seem to matter so much. but some of us street guys that have been getting beat up here and there weight is definately going to play a nice part in getting us faster.

I agree anybody can take crap out of there car to make them go faster, but it takes more skill and knowledge to build it to go faster.

Weight shaving improves breaking, handling, and acceleration.
More power improves .... acceleration.

Here is a technical write up on a car that they dropped 1.9 seconds off the ET with ONLY weight shaving. LINK

Brake and suspension upgrades improve braking and handeling. Gutting your car is fine if its a drag only car but why go through the trouble of taking small things out trying to lose weight when it takes -100lbs = -.1. But I do see it as a cheap way to improve your ET so I will help.

http://users.adelphia.net/~mustang-9...0Reduction.htm