Weight loss for your car

NYSpeed Automotive
1

Some of these I don’t recommend for those of you who daily drive your car, haven’t yet payed your car off, or are very accident prone. Do so at your own leisure. Do all of them and you could easily shave 200-300lbs off of your ride. These tips are beyond the obvious spare tire, jack etc…

  1. Scrape all of the undercoating off (scummy weekend job, oven cleaner works good, gasket remover too. Again if you drive your car in the winter, you may not want to do this) -20 lbs
  2. Remove your carpet and all sound deadening. You can put the carpet back in and leave the deadening out if you want. -30lbs.
  3. Buy a lighter battery. Those 900 cold cranking amp batteries can weigh nearly 75lbs. The ones you guys run for your stereos can go even heavier. Maybe pick up an el-cheapo one for your runs at the track? -15/30lbs depending
  4. Remove your non-drive wheel sway bar. You AWD cars are SOL here -15lbs
  5. OBD-1 compliant cars Gut the cat(s). Pick up a few HP while your at it -5lbs
  6. Remove your bumpers. This is a serious weekend job. 500 bolts, clips and brackets later and they are off. REMEMBER-a 10 mph tiny fender bender now becomes a radiator into the front of the motor accident now-due so at your own risk! -40/70lbs
  7. Remove your A/C compressor, condensor etc…you’ll have to buy the corresponding belt for your application -50lbs
  8. Remove all stereo stuff, power antenna, head unit, speakers, wiring the works. Gives you an excuse to buy more guages to fill the head unit hole too -20lbs
  9. Fair weather cars–Remove wipers, motor, wiring–put some rain-x on your windshield to be safe -25lbs

The ones below require cash, but are worth it.(I should’ve put the battery one here, oh well)

  1. Header(s) -15/30lbs
  2. Racing seats -20/50lbs
  3. Fiberglass hood/carbon fiber hood -25/50lbs
  4. New wheels -20/50lbs

There are tons of more things you can buy to shave weight, but basically anything that replaces steel with aluminum or along those lines will work.

2

look into which Carbon Fiber the hoods/body panels are made of. Dry-laid CF is MUCH lighter than wet-laid, but it’s more expensive. And if you’re getting the CF hood to save weight, don’t get the kind that uses the stock latches. Use pins. :wink:

3

obviously some of these are track only, and would be bad on a street car … but for track day thats diff …

replace your power windows with manual

replace you MANUAL windows with simple pins

remove your wipers

run only a few gallons of gas while at the track … even if this means borrowing all your friends gas jugs to keep enough gas in your car

drain your antifreez rez. to the minimum

drain all the washer fluid

ducttape all the body gaps that u want to loose

pull that spoiler that doesnt do anything

remove the rear wiper arm and motor, tape the hole

remove all brackets that mount accessories your car doesnt have

if you arent gonna take any passangers down the track, pull the pass seat

pull the rear seats

pull the airbags (follow proper procedure and check w/ people who know your car to see if removing / reinstalling will trip srs codes)

if your car has a high end FACTORY stereo, pull the 8" sub and its amp from the trunk … pull the amps for the other speakers as well

if u need 2 seats, replace the power pass side seat track w/ a manual unit

flat rear window ? PLEXIGLASS !

4

Speaking of a lighter hood and trunk, I plan on a DIY job as soon as I can get my hands on an extra hood, and extra trunk to experiment with, I hope to save about 15-20lbs on each.

I shall post pics when it’s finished in the Write-ups section.

And good post!

5

http://www.sr20forum.com/showthread.php?t=42824&page=1&pp=20&highlight=weight+reduction

~500 + pounds out of a 2400 pound car…

6

Removing a sway bar for anything but a drag car is a dumb idea. They are there for a reason. If you plan to remove a swaybar, you had better have stiffer springs on that end to compensate, and there will still be side effects.

For fair weather cars that also happen to be convertables: remove the roof. Completely. :wink:

7

I have the front sway bar removed on my car. Yes the handling sucks, but the front end will climb much higher/faster now on a launch. I’m into drag racing, not handling. This could be a TRACK ONLY removal for others if so desired. If you remove your convertible top you will not be allowed to run at ANY track. This will be useful only on the street. I have no idea what a convertible top weighs anyway. If you want a light car, a convertible should be your last choice, they always run much heavier due to extra chassis stiffening and such.

8

Did somebody say weight reduction. :snky:

9

If by saying “track”, you actually mean “drag strip” then yes. I can tell you for a fact that I could run with no top at The Glen, Beaver Run, Nelson Ledges, etc. A convertible top doesn’t really provide any measure of safety so I never understand why they make a big deal about it at a drag strip. Especially since I have a roll bar, a helmet and a six point harness.

Not all convertibles are heavy, either. The ones that are heavy are ones that were not designed to be a convertible from inception. Cars that were never designed to have a fixed roof can still be very light. Mine only weighs about 2300 lbs.