Weight Reduction

Kev70

Registered User
Has anyone tried to reduce the weight of their SC? You could get rid a lot of weight that way it seems. Take out your front seats, replace them with a pair of Recaro or something. You could remove your back seat and do a two seater conversion like the ones on www.3si.org. They dont require alot of work, just some wood and fabric. You could also remove all of the amps and stuff from the factory and some of the speakers. Lightweight battery and some fiberglass body panels should help too. The drive shaft could be replaced with an aluminum one-along with the flywheel. There has got to be more that you can get rid of to lose some weight off of this thing. I know that this is like putting Anna Nicole on a diet but it seems like some of this is free HP on the most part. Has anyone else thought about this? Is ther anything else that could be removed without sacrificing the car? How much can you gut out of the interior?
 
It is said there is 200 pounds of sound insulation beneath the carpet of the interior & trunk. This is in the form of a glue, and a few people have obtained favorable results by scraping it off. It is apparently a lot of work, however, and your car will obviously be more noisy. Another factor is probably an obvious one, the rims and tires of your vehicle. There are very large rims that can be had weighing as little as 14 pounds. These are usually constructed of forged aluminum. Combine an 18 inch rim with a very low profile tire and I wouldn't doubt the loss of 50 to 100 pounds. You could also go into replacing sheet metal, starting with the hood, maybe the trunk lid, even the doors and QPs, if you could find parts made from an alternative material. There was talk of a carbon fiber hood being made not too long ago, it would be interesting to know what happened with it.
 
weight

Well more wieght than you can emagine.

first there is the ac and condensor and cooler container and lines. close to 50 there.

Also that schroud that's hooked onto the radiator to ic. Cut that off and just use sheet metal to direct air.

First and mainly don't over do the exhaust. If you are going from two to one stay at one and you will also get a better sounded car as well. No wonder it's hard to get them to not sound like ricers
no cats or extra mufflers.

get rid of that brace upder the exhaust close to the back of the stock res.

Aslo that heavy brace for the drive shaft. Improvice there. may with some close hangers dounble or trippled up.

Under the back seat there is a v brace that is supposed to searve no noan perpuse.

Radiator get a all aluminum one that's lighter or have one that's made.

move power steering pump to where ac is to loose weight there.

Get march to make you some aluminum UD pulleys. You will need a group buy but worth it.

take engine out and start working on rerouting stuff and lines and mainly that stupip power steering setup.

taking out power windows and locks. ( what's this car for racing or mainly street you decide) All the radio and speakers. take out the abs system and ride control system and all other parts related.

start shaving weight off anywhere you know it's doesn't make a difference on handling. I mean taking a dremel or rotor zip and shaving off the crossmembor parts where you know for sure it doesn't matter or any where else on the car.

Well I could go on and on but it starts getting into some money.

aluminum driveshaft, aluminum pumkin , 9 inch converter ( must be a high stall )

Give me more time I will come up with more.
I beleave you could get it to at least 3300 pounds

Raymond
 
So we all agree that we are looking for around 500 or so lbs. These cars weigh what about 3800 lbs? Dropping 500lbs would put a stock quarter mile time down by how much? A second? Has anyone put much time into this? It seems a much cheaper way to gain speed than building power at 10 dollars per HP through any aftermarket provider...
 
alright

Think of it this way.

For every 100 pounds it about 10 horsepower. Give or take 3 horses.

So if you loose 500 well that looks to be arround 35- 50 horses.

Aslo I forgot to meantion the main thing to change but would cost some money. The cross membor frame that holds the engine. If you could get one made out of aluminum you would loose maybe over 100 pounds since it weighs 250 stock.

Raymond
 
weight loss

How about the big steel beam that lives under the front facia. Do we really need that thing? It's gotta weigh about 40lbs.
 
obviously, you guys bought an s/c for all the wrong reasons, go buy a ricer and sell the s/c to someone who appreciates luxury and some perfomance.
 
Well, if I remember correctly, the doors don't actually weight the same (at least in the early SC models). Ford had the ability to manufacturer the doors using a lighter process, but do to a union deal or something like that they could only do one door that way. Sorry to be so sketchy, but I'm trying to remember something I was told over 10 years ago.

How much do our stock wheels way?

Also, how much is the hood? I don't care for the way the aftermarkets look, but might be interested if I could get a very slightly raised stock looking hood.

Paul
 
weight reduction

Hey Dan that bar I do beleave is for the stabilization when cornering. i took it off when I had to do some work on the old oil pump and drove the car and when I tried to put it back it I couldn't because the front of out of wack because it wasn't there. I had to jack the car up and put pressure on one side to get it almost back inline. i didn't and had to use a small bolt.

Well the one I am talking about is the one that hits the radiator hose and has a bend in it. Is that what you are talking about.

BARTHWY59 are you afraid of change?

Don't forget that we might like the look of these cars and you don't loose that much luxery when doing this as well unless you take it to the extreme like me. There are so many reasons we loves these cars even though they give us problems they are still worth it. We are also out to prove that they can be faster than the almighty mustang.

Raymond
 
Well said. Narrow-mindedness will only get us so far. If we were on Corral.net or anywhere else this idea would be praised. The fastest car that we have is only in the elevens, and look what it took to get there. Why not take that same car and figure out some way to reduce weight and help out traction issues to get us down into the tens or maybe nines. We also agree that we have more time than money (or else we'd be building a Viper instead) so why not experiment with unbolting things we don't need? I don't need a little screen to tell me when to change the oil, six speakers, or a factory amp that is a POS (come on guys I even have a little computer that moves the rear view mirror by itself) . There has got to be some way around this weight, and a happy medium for those that drive their car everyday. For the record this is NOT my everyday driver. I have a Stealth for that. Which brings me to my next point-nine second Stealth/3000GTs exist because of the benefit of weight reduction and they weigh in about the same as the SC.
 
There has got to be some way around this weight

Yeah - Buy a Geo Metro :D . You must understand, the SC was never meant to participate in the F1 circuit. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not busting your chops. I understand it's YOUR car, and you may do with it as you wish. It's just that some of us love our SC's so much that we would never consider thrashing them just to gain one-hundredth of a second in the quarter-mile (or even one second, for that matter). I know of a (possibly) 10-second SC whose owner didn't have to obliterate the interior (or exterior) to accomplish that feat. So you see, it is possible to gain performance without defacing our cars. If you bought an SC hoping to turn it into a mach-busting, Ferrari-eating, Stealth-fighting machine, you're in for a surprise, and removing the VMM isn't going to help much :p .
Carbon fiber, aluminum, composite body panels?? Have you any idea how much this would cost (if they're available at all for our cars)? Personally, I'd rather spend $700 on getting my S/C ported, instead of a pretty, non-functional "Ram-Air" hood that weighs 5 pounds less than the stock one. Again, not intended toward anyone, just my two cents.
I'm not trying to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do with their car, just voicing my opinion. If you feel that you need to modify your car in search of higher performance, more power to you. Cause yeah, I admit it, having a 9-second SC in the club would be awesome.
 
NOTHING MUCH:D

unless you want to change the ride and comfort ...such as:
remove AC
" insulation
install plastic windows
" glass hood
gut interior

I dont think there is anything to reduce the weight without being too obvious, like removing the inner panels of every panel on the car, that should be a few hundred, but you'll need a full cage:D
 
Hey, I just noticed this, but why is E.T.'s finger glowing?? I wonder where it's been. Ah, never mind, I don't want to take it there :D .
 
i would also be intrested in reduce weight in these things people dont know these cars could be brutaly fast if they werent so fat. what about our stock seats kinda heavy also changeing the irs to solid diff.
 
seats

The seats do weigh some, and could you could probably improve comfort, weight, and features by replacing them. Remember that we are all automobile enthusiasts, and one thing all enthusiasts have in common is the love of an automobile's performance. And when a car exists that can perform the functions of a car exceptionally well, that car is obviously significantly above average cars. Now we all do different things to try and gain performace, some of us are satisfied with finding a nice performing car and leaving it stock; others crave endless capability and wish to continually improve a car they happen to like so that it can be even better. There are many ways to do this, and there is nothing wrong with any of them.
That being said, the stock SC no longer benefits from 'modern' technology as much as it did when new. Therefore, there are bound to be improvements that can be made, in all departments, which make no sacrifices to other features. That includes weight.
 
The seats arent heavy, average weight, 30 pounds each, the power tracks weigh about 30 each also, hard plastic buckets weigh about 15 each:rolleyes: , I would rather keep the 30 extra:D

Adding a solid diff might uspet the balance of these cars, plus you would probably lose the rear seats, you might have to chop up the drive-shaft tunnel to allow for suspension movement:D

ETs finger is glowing because he must of sho...:eek: ... I dont even want to think about that:(
 
Kev70 said:
I have a Stealth for that. Which brings me to my next point-nine second Stealth/3000GTs exist because of the benefit of weight reduction and they weigh in about the same as the SC.

I also own a stealth RT/TT and have yet to know of a daily driver that runs 9's. To my knowledge the fastest 3/S is 10.810 with NO2, and 10.889 w/o NO2.

You are correct that the cars have a similar weight, but you also forgot to mention that the car is AWD. That alone helps out tremendously in the 1/4. Decreases in 60ft times help out at the end of the 1/4.

The 3/S also start off with 300hp, 320hp for later models. stock, and doesnt take much to increase it. The SC is a much harder car, in my opinion, to get to the performance levels to run 10's as the 3/S's are.

The 3/S also will never be consider a luxury sports car, they are just known as sports cars. The SC can easily fit 5 adults, try get 4 in a 3/S, good luck.

Well the SC does have weight problems, but you will have to weight the luxury options you will be doing without in order to pick up those couple extra tenths of a second at the track.

I love both of these cars, but I know which one is the true sports car, and which one has the all around package.
 
It is rumoured that someone up here in the SCCoO has removed the large steel rebar that hides beneath the front bumper cover. Apparently that shaved some serious weight off the front of the car which seems to have had a positive effect on his launch. The car is not far from stock but has run 14.1's or 14.2's. It doesn't sound like a bad idea in so far as it wouldn't really affect aesthetics or comfort, but I am a little concerned about the safety factor. If this car ever takes a hit in the front end, I'm sure that I don't want to be in it at the time!

Cheers,

Sean
 
I was going to do that, but you have to reinstall some sort of filler, or the nose would collapse at speed:D .

Just get flat 3/16" plate aluminum the same shape as the original reinforcement and weld that to aluminum brackets, maybe 50-60 pounds or so from the front and rear reinforcement combined?:confused:
 
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