Milan454

As I am piecing my C3 jigsaw puzzle together I'm surprised at the weight of the headlamp assembly. Aside from fixed lamp options has anyone either made a lightweight option or tried lightening the factory units?
Thanks,
Milan

DUB

To the best of my knowledge....NO.

DUB

bazza77

mine snap up and down quickly and make a nice thump when they get to each end of the cycle . I wouldn't want anything thinner up there .

7T1vette

If removing weight is your most important criteria, remove the bucket mechanisms completely and just install "fixed" headlamps (like every racing car you've ever seen).

jim2527

They're not as heavy as you'd think.

Milan454

It's not high on my list of priorities just yet and this is my first "project" vette. It seems to me with all the weight loss comments from folks, someone would have come up with a lightweight option to these and the classic bug eyes. I will probably assemble these as they are and switch to fixed assemblies untill I work the gremlins out of this "kit".

DUB

Not that this matters...but I often get customers who have bought into the 'weight loss concern' that some peoepl feel is so important to the point where they want parts removed from their car.

Obviously dropping the curb weight is important for obvious reasons. But if a person begins to slice and dice up their car to drop the weight...hopefully they have enough common sense on what not to remove. Taking out your spare tire assembly is no big deal until you need it if you have a flat.

If they start to destroy theirs cars structural integrity or any safety features...then this action is rather ridiculous ( in my opinion) due to attacking the integrity of the a car for a few pounds that actually do what....not much.

Old rule of thumb: 100 pound loss in a cars weight will drop your 1/4 mile E.T. by 1/10th of a second. I have no clue on how much a person would see in fuel savings.

DUB

7T1vette

DUB, we're talking about Corvette anorexia... removing weight becomes an obsession, even though there is little actual benefit. For someone with a professional race team and lots of $$$$, that may make some sense. For the average C3 owner, not so much....

DUB

...which is why I am still amazed when people want to do it. I guess if they remove any amount of weight...they are making an improvement.

DUB

dmaxx3500

go on a diet,or just put aluminum heads/intake on it,,or put a real big block in it that makes 700-800hp,and forget about it

MCMLXIX

The headlights can be made lighter.
The simple answer is to replace steel with aluminum.
You will have to do it yourself.
It doesn’t take much money.
It does require effort, will and perseverance.
The up stops and support rods are a good place to start, are fairly easy to fabricate and will remove the most weight.
Aluminum weighs about 1/3 what steel does.
The plastic headlight surrounds are lighter than the aluminum ones.
Every pound you remove from the headlight and front bumper area also has the added benefit of moving 1/4 pound from the front axle to the rear axle.
It is possible to have a sub 3000 pound corvette without compromising safety or losing creature comforts.

Dynra Rockets

Milan454

Now we are getting somewhere. I like the lights in the grill. Any one ever hinge the doors in the front and have back flip down and expose the headlight? Love the ideas so far. Please keep the ideas coming.


FWIW I already built and intalled"real BB" in it, otherwise I wouldn't be wasting my time with this. Let's stay on topic

dmaxx3500

well then you didn't build enough HP into it or you wouldn't need to save 10-50lbs


id bet by the time you glassed-in the headlight openings,and added the grille fillers,and the grills,you would be just about the same weight as if you just left the stock set-ups in,,but they did look cool back in the day

things to loose weight fast
1.take everything out of the interior you don't need,pass seat,dash,a/c and heater core,radio,carpets,console
2.spare tire and mounts
3.anything under the hood you don't need,wipers and washer,a/c
4.door trim and windows,t-tops or conv top,front/rear bumpers
5.tube headers and turn-outs ,then loose the rest of the heavy exhaust

heck take off the hood,then you could use a taller intake


have fun

Milan454

I'm specifically interested to LEARN what the C3 veterans know about lightening headlights assemblies in this post. NOT ABOUT LIGHTENING THE CAR or BUILDING BETTER BIG BLOCKS... I have been building big block engines for over 35 years. My post and inquiry is specifically about headlights and headlights only. I'm always glad to LEARN new things about engine building and chassis engineering. This car is all about having practical fun. I had a LS7 spec engine in the shop and a few TH400 transmissions sitting around. The car came up for sale cheap locally and I I wanted to put together a fun SCCA autocross car for my wife. I figured while I was putting together pieces and parts I would like to learn about those items specifically. Thanks for your understanding and suggestions.

TCracingCA

After you lose weight!

Sonewhere on Pelican forum (Porsche world) is a super funny and fun thread on every creative way things were lightened on our beloved 911s! It was about 2-3 years ago, and really stimulates the imagination for guys like you! It is one of the coolest threads! Everything from door handles to license plate frames were drilled!

I am sure after you view through that, it will promote a very Phil Currin type Swiss cheese former Greenwood #99 racer type of thinking!

Ps get your drill bits from an industrial supply store and not cheapo ones from Home Depot!

Basically I think our beloved C3 cars have 20 pounds of vacuum hoses stock! I got rid of all of that!

switching the stock stuff for the plexiglass clear covers, aluminum sheet metal H4 housing nets just a little over 20 lbs!

Dynra Rockets

My personal car is the first and last picture. I purposely bought it this way so I would not be tempted to spend a ton of money to make it showroom perfect and it was also nostalgic for me as a buddy had one just like it in high school with the Ecklers C380 kit. (I previously had a numbers matching car that I was scared to drive because someone may ding it/hit it so a "driver" is what I wanted).

As stated the flush headlight kit was very popular back in the day. Ecklers had two versions, the round bulb C340 and the rectangle bulb C380.

There is roughly 20-25 lbs of parts replaced with a lightweight fiberglass headlight cover. Subsequently I have removed another ~125lbs from the front of the car with aluminum stuff replacing cast iron and steel stuff.

While I love my car and is exactly what I was looking for, I do get tired of people coming up and asking me what happened to the pop ups or why I "ruined" my car. I am thinking of getting some light grey decals made up of the outline where the headlights covers were so people at a glance will not notice. Something like this, 1/8" wide.

Milan454

I am fabricating some foam plug insert that will give the illusion of stock headlight doors. I will most likely go with Projector Beam or LED headlights in the grill area.

maj75

If you have state safety inspections, be careful. Many states regulate the mandatory height of the headlights and whether or not they can be covered by anything.

Alwyn678

True