Thread: dropping weight

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i had a 66 gto i got down to 2900 with a tall deck big block in it all steel but hood and stock front glass and rear some thing are easy to go at. there is a lot of weight in the front cowl and hole saw like said works good and like said use aluminum i would keep away from plex glass or poly carbon it is nice to roll down the windows and you will not drop to much here

thanks guys

Originally posted by shawnlee28
Its surprising how much weight can be removed after u remove all that stuff that has been talked about.Go get a cheap set of metal hole saws and u would be real surprized as to how much 1500 little round disks ranging from 1/2 to 1 1/2 add up to!!!

Hello Shawnlee, Yeah, I just recently saw a reprint of an article that I had seen when it originaly came out years ago. I believe it
was an Oldsmoble & almost the entire car had holes from a sawzall. The frame had so many holes in it that I'm suprised that the car didn't bend in half! hummm, may be it did? Anyway, I guess this was before 'our sport' figured out that a stiff chasis helped out??? Bill

Originally posted by 46yblock
billsbird, a couple questions on the plexiglass, as I have been thinking of replacing the door glass with such. What is the best way to cut it? Do you have satisfactory visibility through it? Seems like it would easily accumulate scratches. When I last looked at plexiglass stock, there were two grades as I recall. Which did you use? Thickness of .22 inches?
Mike

46yblock, It's been so long since I cut it that I don't remember what I used to cut it with but I believe it was my Makitta Grinder with a cut off wheel. I just used the glass window as a templet. I used the tented color. And yes it scratches easily. You can see through it just fine although if it did get scratched up it would be hard to see through {mine didn't scratch up}. I used Lexan which is the strongest. In fact you can't break. I believe it's what they make bullet proof glass out of. It's expensive though. Hummm, thickness? As I recall I used the 1/16" stuff which was thinner than was recommened to me, but then I never have followed direction well. There is a company that makes replacement windows out of Lexan, and I believe they use 1/8" for the sides. But what Pat said it true, it is nice to roll your windows up/down. To make a long story short the car that I did all this to I had NO intension of EVER selling it. Plus I had another car for daily transportion. Although I did drive this car daily, the point I'm trying to make is that I didn't HAVE to drive it. If I had a date, it was raining or whatever I drove another car. Although I live in Calif. where it never rains & it seems as if it rains more than I have dates.....This just reminded me of the time when I had wrinkle wall slicks {the real ones, illegal on the street}, I was 25 miles away from home and it started to RAIN! Whew, don't drive in the rain with wrinkle wall slicks!!! Oh, I believe that the NHRA requires Lexan and remember that Lexan is illegal for a windshield. I think T-tops are already Lexan??? Bill

...oh yeah, put the battery in the trunk.... bill

they make a hard face lexan and i have used a jig saw and i put a lot of 2 inch tape were the foot of the saw rode on when cutting them out .and i sand the edge with sand paper on a small hand block the last thing you want to do is to take off the paper on the lexan

Yeah ,but the body flex makes nice pictures!!!

weight removal will make you go faster the more hp you have the more difference it will make but be carefull on your floor board and firewall , these are what gives your car its strength . unless you have a chassis car .a pretty good rule is srip your car down to the bare minimum by unbolting ie doors fenders trunk lid ,without cutting anything and when you have a car there that wold still run . and a pile of parts next to it..... go after the parts and do what you can to lighten them up but remember you can spend thousands taking off weight ,when a few parts could cover that up with power... my car is a 800 hp 2400 lb 64 falcon...

im pretty much done stripping it down for now i got alot of stuff out and got my fuel pump shutoff switch mounted in the back, i think the only thing left for me body wise is probaly a new hood

One thing about lightening cars is, if you take too much weight out of the ass, then you are SOL and will be stuck making the passes with cinder blocks in what used to be your trunk. NO weight=no traction available. Something you acn do to rectify this is scooting the motor back. Saw it in an article entitled "Streetable Funny Cars".

Originally posted by shawnlee28
Yeah ,but the body flex makes nice pictures!!!

That's effin shweet!

Originally posted by RJ & CJ
One thing about lightening cars is, if you take too much weight out of the ass, then you are SOL and will be stuck making the passes with cinder blocks in what used to be your trunk. NO weight=no traction available. Something you acn do to rectify this is scooting the motor back. Saw it in an article entitled "Streetable Funny Cars".

Increasing the engine setback and good suspension with a lot of weight transfer will compensate for shedding the extra rear end weight....Motor weight is weight you have to have, might as well move it back a bit so the weight will work for you.

Originally posted by shawnlee28
Yeah ,but the body flex makes nice pictures!!!

Making the frame rigid enough that it doesn't twist like that pretzel would probably take a tenth off the time.....

Slid mine back about 4".

Mine's a bit more than 4" back, the dampner is behind the crossmember!!!! Sometimes I just get carried away, I guess!!!