128racecar

Don't be so sure. Might be time for a heads up, pink slip for pink slip race. Car and Driver has the 2016 Subaru STi at 13.4/104 in the quarter mile and 159 top end.

Marc in Indy
72 Corvette coupe 350/auto survivor

Torqued Off

Its called power to weight ratio. Lighter a car, motorcycle or airplane, the less power required to move it......or the quicker it goes. Quicker is more fun.

If you drive a Corvette for fun, it matters. If you have a museum piece that sits in the garage all year long....it doesn't matter, nor do a lot of other things like reliability and performance.

Having a lighter Corvette with increased power is noticeable if you drive the car.

v2racing

I've done a bit to lighten up my 75 Vert also.

L88 hood. Stock 75 hoods are unbelievably heavy.
Aluminum heads.
Aluminum intake.
Aluminum water pump.
Aluminum pulleys.
Aluminum radiator.
Removed rear 5 mph crash bumper.
Removed front 5 mph crash bumper.
Tubular upper a-arms.
Glass rear spring.
Steeroids rack and pinion.
Removed air conditioner.
Removed spare tire and carrier.

I figure I removed between 350 to 400 pounds total.

Not a lot of places left to remove weight. I'm keeping the stock seats, I have new leather covers for them. Keeping the power windows also. I'm not removing the door crash beams like BJ did either. I'd like to go to Wilwood rotors, calipers and master cylinder, that would drop a few pounds.

Mike

Bigeddie

Nice! Do you have a build thread? That thing is gonna be a blast when it's running!


I took some pictures on the front reservoir removal, when I get time I'll upload them for you. I took the chicken way out: Sawzall. I cut the vacuum reservoir all the way at the end on either side (leaving the main frame supports on either side of the radiator support). And then I cut the brackets off of the reservoir and bolted them back which connected the radiator support with the front bumper support just like stock. It's solid as a rock, no structural rigidity lost from what I can tell. You can push down as hard as you want on the front bumper and the only thing that moves is suspension.


The cleaner way to do it is probably to remove the front bumper and supports, but I had just removed the rear bumper steel and was in no mood to do that same thing with the front bumper, so out came the sawzall. It worked really well! And I lost almost 40 pounds (scale verified) right off the front of the car.[/QUOTE]


Man i wish that i would have started a build thread since I've done so much to the car. yeah id love to get those three things(front bumper,back bumper, and reservoir) when i decide to update the cars exterior.Picturess would be awesome..

You know you could have lost some more weight while you were there taking off the reservoir tank cmon man lol. Just like in math what you do to one side you must do to the other.

v2racing

I started a build thread in the general section. It is called: "Pulled the body off my frame."

The vacuum tank is also the mount for the radiator core support which is a main support for the front of the body. I'd need to do some fab work to get rid of it. Maybe, we'll see.

Mike

cv67

My El camino weighed a just under 3500 lbs stock
All modded, all steel easily weighs over 200 lbs less now
Just wheels and tires alone lost 91 lbs;any part that could be tossed for aluminum was.
You can definitely feel the difference, used to be cars like that were considered heavy not any more. Physically big but feels small due to weight.. gets expensive losing it though.

Bloodzone

Dodge SRT weights 4450....fatty

mobird

Oh I'm quite sure. We were on a closed road in Mexico (local abandoned road) and the vette slowly but surely walks away from the STI. Keep in mind, my car is putting something like 300 hp to the tire (roughly 375 hp motor. Brodix aluminum heads, shim head gasket, Lunati 268 cam, performer RPM intake, 4-speed, plus all the weight loss mods) as opposed to his STI which is putting more like 250 to the tire; we have roughly the same weight so the outcome was a little inevitable.


Right after our drive he went home and ordered a new intake, BOV, and exhaust. He is determined to always have the faster car haha.


The car he just sold was a 2006 GTO with the 6.0 LS2, dynoed 402 hp, but weighs almost 4000 pounds. We did the exact same race and his car and the vette are dead even. We did our pull from 20-80 mph on both races.

mobird

Yep, simply physics!


And I agree, if all you care about is something that cruises around and looks nice, I wouldn't go through the effort of cutting all that weight either!

mobird

Sounds like you and I are on similar place/path in weight loss! Water pump is one I didn't really think about, I'll probably wait until mine starts causing trouble and then replace it with an aluminum one (just like the lightweight battery, just replace when needed).


Yeah I thought about doing the doors, and I still am. Not even as much for weight loss performance as for how much nicer it feels to shut a lighter door than a big heavy door.

mobird

do it! The nice thing about it is it's a free mod that (in total) removes 100ish pounds! Just takes a few hours and a lot of sweat and cursing, but it feels good to have it done!


Haha I know I know, Still thinking about doing some more behind the front bumper... thankfully all I have to do is remove the hood to access it now, it's crazy how much room is in front of the radiator with the vacuum tank stuff removed!


I'm planning on finally starting a build thread tonight sicne I have so many pictures and things I"ve done over the last year or so to the car, I'll shoot you a message when I have those pictures up so you can see where I cut the reservoir. You could definitely lost another 5 pounds or so by removing more of the side bracket, but it's like 2 or 3 more hours work to be able to remove 5 pounds... didn't seem worth it to me at the time haha.

Kacyc3

While it wont make your car lighter, lowering your gas tank will help with better center of gravity for cornering.

v2racing

I removed the big hunk of steel for front bumper off of the vacuum tank. Took some weight off and looks better.

Mike

jim2527

I'm on some what of a diet as well. I figured 18" wheels are wash, Fiero seats save less than 10 pounds each.

mobird

So I see you don't have the bracket on your vacuum tank that goes from the front bumper steel support to the vacuum tank. Did you just cut it off? Or did you somehow reattach it to the car or something?

v2racing

I cut it off and ground the area smooth before I had it blasted with the frame. It lightened it up a bit.

I just thought of another light piece I got for the car, a mini starter.

Also, even though I went to 3" exhaust, with headers it is still lighter than the cast manifold, cat and stock mufflers.

Mike

mobird

cool thanks for the info!


Also to anyone interested, I finally started my build thread and got the first year or so of ownership mods out of the way on the first page. Warning! It's picture heavy! I will have the build fully caught up by the weekend including the pics of the removal of the front and rear bumpers etc....


https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...ld-thread.html




P.S. can anyone see my build thread in my signature? My UserCP says it's in there, but I don't see my signature showing up on any posts.

NewbVetteGuy

My 79 L82 with all the options except for CB, rear window defroster, and power locks was 3,650... Here piggy, piggy, piggy!


Adam

pauldana

3400

v2racing

I see no signature on your posts. Are you checking the "Show your signature" box under the "Additional Options" under the posting window?

Mike