2860lbs on a CAT Scale at my local truck stop.

1580lbs over front axle
1280lbs over rear axle

84 LS Swap, Iron LQ9 6.0 w/ LS3 top end, TKO 600 5spd manual trans. Car has been thoroughly gutted but still has door panels/pw/pl, dash, heater core and hvac controls/ducts to vent heat. All carpet, center console, under dash carpet/pads, most all of the trim, hatch struts, passenger seat, a/c compressor/condenser/evap box & fan are all gone. No radio, speakers, insulation tubs or stereo wiring left. I had a few more gallons of gas than I usually race with and a few misc items in the car. So I am guessing it would weigh a little less than 2850 on a drag strip scale.

I have weighed it a few times. With no stereo or speakers, almost no gas and a normal sized 41lb Optima battery it weighed 3140lbs. After removing rear carpet, passenger seat, a/c compressor/condenser/evap box & fan and using a 18.5lb Deka AGM battery it weighed 3000lbs.

 

I’m at 3000lbs. Still have carpet,radio, power windows. Hollow bumpers, no heater or air. Pinto rack and pinion, 5 gallons of gas, 36lb battery. Chrome moly 6point cage, kirkey seats and a 12 bolt rear

 

At my age I prefer to keep as comfortable as possible, but if I was young I would gut the heck out of it, put a roll cage in it and do some PA hill climb events.

 

Getting there! Still have stock glass in mine but I need to get it weighted again as I got more done. Here's a corner weigh awhile back with me and half a tank of gas in it (260 lbs?).

 

why the pinto rack and pinion?

i know thats a common swap for drag racers but its usually only done on older 60s type cars that had less advanced (and heavier) steering vs the c4 rack Nd pinion

just curious

 

My educated guess is less more lock to lock and thus less twitchy for passes?

 

One less accessory to run in the front of the motor, less drag, less weight for a strip only car.

 

Is that Pinto setup a Purchased Kit or a homemade fabricated setup?

 

oh yeah.. duh, i forgot its manual steering.

Thanks !

 

Must be nice that your cars weigh so little.

When I went from TPIS 1 3/4" headers to 1 7/8" ARH stepped headers, it added weight (ARH brags about how 'heavy' their flanges are, but its useless weight, The TPIS long tubes were notably lighter).

When I went from stock oil pan to canton road race oil pan - it no doubt added weight on the front end.

When I went from the stock 1993 vert front anti-roll bar (i think it may have been hollow) to the Z07 front anti-roll bar, that added weight.

And then, to pour salt in the wound, the self-contained D1-SC, with its bigger self-contained gearbox that Procharger brags so much about (its self-contained, so it must be great !) weighs more than the _P600b blower which has the much preferred oil nozzle/ drain hose setup.

Its that type of little crap that adds up that pi$$es me off.

One day Id like to go to a carbon fiber hood. Id even consider ditching the skid plate at the front (though not sure if that makes the car handle tighter by connecting the frame rails).

I wish someone made a kit for fixed headlights. But its all garbage lighting (according to Daniel Stern lighting even the 'spider eye' one from defunct RPP is also garbage lighting). It annoys me how great lightweight fixed headlights exist for C5 and EVEN THE C3 !! But not for C4 -the most heavily produced of those 3 gens.

Any ideas to drop weight on the front (other than alum ls3 swap), Id like to hear .

Already relocated battery to rear storage compt.

 

Here is a photo of my fixed headlights. I used truck bumper lights for low beams 100 watt and PIAA 85 watt for high beams. I made the housings out of fiber glass, the covers are plexiglass heated over the stock head light covers to form the compound hood curve. I cut the covers to fit the hood opening ,don't cut the hood.
With LED lights it should make them a lot lighter and brighter. I removed them back in late 2017 to install LED from truck lites
so much better. If you don't need high beams just install single LEDS.


Hope this helps
JOHN

 

You can buy new Pinto racks for drags but still requires some fabrication. It's definitely not for a street car. The steering is slow and builds up gorilla arms, even with skinnies.

 

that looks great.

i have to ask about the The low profile rectangular lights . How good is the lighting out of those?
daniel stern lighting hates the ones from the Pontiac grand prix gtp and camaro of the 1993-97? Era.

i have no experience with those, but thats what im told about them

the oval lights inboard of those - how good are those?
i think you said PIAA 85w ? Are they normally used as fogs/driving lights or are they meant as headlights?

you say you went to truck lite led? Do you mean you went back to the rotating bucket assemblies?

If so, I bet its amazing lighting

if you could somehow put jd speaker or trucklites (LED) in those fixed housing...

thank you for sharing.

 

I went back to stock headlights assembly to use LED lights. The truck bumper lights came with 55 Watt blubs, i just swapped them out for 100 watt blubs. The PIAA 85 watt bulbs are spot light assembly. They did give good light at night. Eckler's corvette
has Lemans style headlight system, they were not available when i made my light system up. A little pricey but its a plug and play system, that system was made by Breathless Performance and it came out after i made my system. Check Corvette mods for this light system about $600 part # 12548. If you do not this company do a search for C4 lemans lights.
Making your own fixed light system requires a lot of work searching for the right parts to build it
good luck
John

 

The best modification for headlights is to be sure they are getting full battery voltage when turned on. It amazes me when I measure the voltage at the light bulb socket and it is 10-11 volts versus the 14 volts the battery was at. The difference is getting full voltage is amazing when you see it at night. Speed Direct carries the harness and new bulbs. You just need the harness or make one yourself that allows full battery voltage at the headlights. It is not hard to make the harness but the one they sell is commercial compared to home made. It is made properly and expensively.

They claim on their web site that for every 10% drop in voltage you loose 30% more light output.

I don't know if cars ever used any 100 watt light bulbs. I tried 65 watt bulbs in my driving lights and it cracked the glass lens on my lights.

 

Pretty good!

It's interesting how HARD it is to remove weight from the front, but pretty easy from the rear. My Kart has similar front weight bias and I think about all kinds of ways to reduce the weight in the front;
Aluminum LS
Aluminum Buick/Rover V8
I've even day-dreamt about throwing a Merc Outboard power head in there!

 

Going aluminum ditches about 100lbs up front. I say dItch the distributor and push the engine and rad back as far as you can with an aluminum block. That should get the most out of it you can. From my firewall it appears I can go back 2 more inches before anything would touch.

Those supercharged v8 power heads are pretty light though. Then you can run a blender off the flywheel.

 

LOL.

Blender....I love it!

 

If I blow up this iron block LQ9 I will definitely get an aluminum block 6.2 to replace it.

 

Late model cars have aluminum p/s pumps, and a composite pulley. (Using this pump on my '69.)
A Denso mini alternator is about half the weight of the stock C4 alternator. (Using this on my '69 also.)

I've entertained moving the radiator to the rear of my car, strictly for better weight distribution. Still working out the packaging issues. Packaging shouldn't be an issue with a Kart, though.