tell me if this isnt weird my 91 Camaro hard top 3.1 tips the scales at 2955 with a 1/4 tank of gas
this cars only options are Auto and Ac
power nothing dosnt even have rear defrost

now my girlfreinds 92 Firebird t-top 3.1 is fully loaded and weighs in at 3361 and thats with the front bumper support removed
and the lighter 87 formula front clip
i couldnt believe the differance

 

anyone know how much the whole dash is?

 

Looking at the fiberglass body parts I wonder how much do the stock body parts weigh????

Are those fiberglass parts worth it.

 

For what it's worth, I have a 4cyl car with a 350 4-bolt swap and 700r4 tranny, no power options, not even tilt wheel, no AC, s10 steering box, no wiper resovour, excess electrical wires removed, and my car with me and a empty gas tank (had like 1 or 2 gallons) weighed in at a hefty 3270lbs. I weigh 150, so 3120 without me. I was pretty disappointed, but after reading this, I am really happy. I have full interior minus some trunk surrounding, and a headliner.

 

anybody know who makes a lexan rear hatch? i'm sure someone makes a light weight unit...it's so obvious! to ditch 100 un needed lbs...

 

It's needed for traction. I drove around without my hatch and spun the tires around every corner with a stock 305.

 

Some also move the battery from the front to the rear for better weight transfer - Less weight off of the front, and added traction weight in the rear....car weighs the same.

~Ed~

 

taking weight off will require you to balance the car's weight. take an equal weight off the front and then cut the springs to keep the ride height or lower the ride height. traction should be the same...hondas weight way under 3,000lbs and they don't spin out! must tune the whole car.

 

^ You have to remember tho, Honda's are FWD, so their engine is giving them traction. The only RWD you can truly compare a Honda to in terms of total weight vs. traction would be the Fiero, since the engine is in the back w/ RWD. Take a front-engine, RWD car like an F-Body, remove weight in the back, and you lose traction.

You are correct about tuning the whole car too tho.

 

you're right.....front vs rear wheel drive + engine location makes a major difference. tuning of the chassis is a must in either case! aftermarket torque arm, relocate the control arms: all will give you more hook-up, firebird! Oh...found out the fiberglass notchback weighs 40lbs! so, you could take more than half the weight of the rear hatch off....yea, i know it's ugly, And expensive! $ 700!

 

Looks are all opinion Some of the notchback cars look alright IMO, but not all of them.

A lot of the race shops (one that comes to mind is VFN, and there are plenty I don't know about yet) would probably have lexan hatches that look like the stock one, and you buy a fiberglass deck piece with it. Those set-ups would be cheaper than the notchback, too.

As for tuning FWD cars, one of the forums I'm on (non-car) a guy posted up pics of his race Civic (I know, I know... haha) and he actually had added some control arms similar to a 4-link rear. Lemme find the pics again...

Found em, I'm only gonna post the one that shows most of the control arm tho...



And yes, that IS a snapped axle shaft

 

Here's weight loss for you. I don't know what this car weighs yet but I know I can grab the front end and curl it.

 

this is a great thread... Way to bring it back from the dead. Lexan rear glass lots of options deletes and fiberglass hood are certainly in my future... Maybe a little aluminum block'll lighten up that front end some as well! **** i need to graduate already.

If this isnt a sticky it should be.

 

hey 1991 camarorslow...who's k-member are you using? looks good with the rack!!! you building a drag car or a road car? yea guys...weight is everything! any overall reduction we can make will make the car faster, more responsive, and generally a better driving vehicle!!!

 

That's a friends car, built by the former owner of Pro Fab, I have the exact K member but powder coated blue. It's built to be a street car and loooks absolutly insane. The car retains the torque arm style suspension (fully adjustable) and is trick from bumper to bumper. I'll get some more pictures as the car progresses. The owner plans to big block/powerglide combo it.

 

if possible try and get a pic of the front of the car from the side. that project looks extremely cool.

 

Ask and ye shall receive.

 

Is it my imagination or is that cage/chassis work MIG welded?

 

Appears to be...maybe this is a dumb question....but why shouldn't it be? I just did an 8pt cage in mine...it all is.

 

I believe it's a combination of mig and tig actually, I can ask next time I'm out there.

 

Hey, I have absolutely no problem with it, I seem to regularly get flack for being a big advocate of MIG welding _most_ things unless they are the kind of thing that HAS to be TIG welded to get acceptable detail or to deal with the materials being welded…

The reason that I ask is that I can for the life of me get a clear answer of what NHRA and IHRA rules are with chassis certified for 8.49 and faster. At one time I was under the impression that at that point you’re required to use 4130 and TIG (which I believe is more then a bit stupid and I’m fairly sure _used_ to be the case), but now I’m seeing chassis built for faster cars, especially 25.2 stuff that are MIG welded (and I’m assuming mild steel but rarely get a look at bare bars close enough to make a reasonably educated guess), and haven’t seen any clear definitions of what is legal and what is not.

 

Well, i dunno about NHRA rules...but IMCA only requires MIG, and that even goes for cars up to full blown sprint cars and outlaws (talkin dirt track here) But these cars are runnin 120+ in a circle, side by side. i know that really has no bearing on NHRA rules...but it's widely excepted in the dirt world to be simple mig welds.

 

Circle track, all the way up to the big boys in nascar really seems to have their act together with this kind of safety related stuff. In the case of roll cages you can only use mild steel (no chrome moly) and mig welding is fine. If the NHRA or IHRA had rules that made that much sense I wouldn’t bitch about them as much.

 

Good thread.
Anyone know the dif in weight between a '82-83 fiberglass Z28 hood and the latter metal ones?

 

I know it is huge the metal ones weigh a freaking ton and the others are easy for one person to wrangle.

 

since we're on the weight issue...does anyone know how much a 350 motor weighs and what a big block weighs? trying to figure out how much more weight on the front end when a big block is used....i guess both with iron heads...

 

I believe it's around 200 pounds. I googled it a while back and got my answer. I didn't think the HP gain for the engine I was looking at was worth the weight I was giving up.

 

200lbs. is a sizeable difference...i wonder why all those muscle car guys crave their 427's when a small block can now easily reach 400-500hp? so, was the base 350 around 600lbs. dry? or less?

 

My complete small block weighed in at 535lbs dry, with aluminum heads, lightweight electric water pump, flexplate, intake, and the headers on. The only things not there when weighed were the alternator, plug wires, power sterring pump, carb, and distributor.

Since we don't have the motor together at the shop we added up the weight of the big block parts to get a total of 687 lbs. That's with aluminum heads! Imagine if you had iron heads. Now add at least 3-4 more quarts of fluid. Puts you around 160. Now add a bigger alternator, and a much larger carburetor, bigger starteryour up to about 180 lbs. That's a 502 we have in pieces at the shop.

Considering you can buy an aftermarket small block and go bore and stroke it out to a 454, for less than you would pay for a big block I would much rather have the small block.


Here's a link to the spec on the 454 SCB from World Products
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/e..._crate_engine/

 

thanks faulball! great info! the aluminum heads really make a difference in the BBC! but you're right, the mouse cab really almost match the rat these days and with significant weight reduction too! i'm ready to drop a 355 with alum. vette heads in and i can't wait...

 

I haven't officially weighted my 82 fiberglass hood, but when I put it on it felt like about half the weight. The steel RS hood weighs 60 lbs.

 

i weighed my hood when it was off. It was 42lbs and i had the hood flappers on there.

If really concerned with weight some things i didn't see mentioned are.
get rid of the sound deadner, throw out the (rice) subs, amp. drop the stock gas tank, use a 5 gallon fuel cell. Install a smaller wiper motor.

and my favorite

Get rid of the seat rails. no one ever sits in the back, I custom welded fixed seat mounts out of alluminum. they weigh 4 onces each (1lb per seat) instead of 15+ lbs.

 

^ Oughta toss lightweight racing seat(s) onto the custom fixed mounts

 

42 vs. 60... wow looks like I'll be selling my 82 hood then. That's not even worth the effort. I know that the fiberglass counterparts only weigh around 20 lbs. The SMC hood does have a metal bar in the front that made it pretty nose heavy, thats probably the weight right there. I wish I had a scale to weigh out the non flapper type hood I have sitting in the garage.

 

Torque

 

This is for Marks mig/tig question. I recieved my NHRA rulebook a few days ago. Mild steel cages may be MIG welded or TIG welded. Chromoly tube cages must be tig welded. No grinding of the weld is allowed, and the weld must be free of porosity.
----------
cooltc- did you click the link 610HP at 6400 rpm and 584 ft/lbs of TORQUE That's just as much as a crate 502

 

Yea, it’s starting to look like they’re realizing that they’re idiots without actually admitting it. I noticed the latest rules allow for some of the 25.x cages to be mild steel now, where I believe that originally they had to be all 4130. Though I don’t expect things to swing the other way, like nascar (all mild steel, no 4130 allowed) unless we start seeing a string of major disasters/injuries/deaths.

 

I got a hold of a aluminum Camaro front bumper support. I weighed them with out the honeycomb pieces last night. The steel support off of my 92 weighed ~19 lbs. The aluminum support weighed ~11 lbs. The aluminum support doesn't have as much of a curve as the stock piece, so the honeycomb will need to modified to allow the nose to go back on.

 

Just got done installing an Odyssey PC-680 battery. Old battery (AC Delco 75-7YR) and mtg bracket/bolt weighed 36.24 lbs. New battery weighed 14.38 lbs plus 1.11 lbs for the aluminum bracket (part# HDB 680) and bolts. Total weight loss 20.75 lbs right off the front of the car. I bought the PC-680MJT battery which comes with a metal jacket around it, which is useless because the jacket has to be removed to fit the battery inside the mounting bracket.

This thing fits perfect inside the battery tray. I had to bend the front lip on the battery tray with my BFH a little to move the battery forward. I also had to trim about 1/4" off of the inboard side of the bracket so it would drop down nice in the tray.

 

Wow thats a great weight savings. I may have to go with one of those batteries once my interstate dies. Good price + Warrantee and all the other features.

 

Got to look at the big picture, look at the HP and Tq curve, notice how much less the torque is then the hp?

 

I just weighed my stock steel RS hood with hinges and got 68lbs.
So i think i'll be going with a after market fiberglass and hood pins

 

Good info,
As soon as I can I will weigh the non-functional flapper '82-83 camaro fiberglass hood.
-Andrew

 

Good info,

I just weighed my '82 glass hood without the functional flaps. No hinges attached either - came in at 45lbs on my digital scale.
So what do you figure the metal hinges weigh? - 2-3lbs max? (I don't have a set available to weigh individually)
What are some good numbers to work with to figure the difference - say 66lbs and 45lbs = aprox21lbs
Not too much but thats about 21lbs off the nose. Add aluminum heads, aluminum water pump, reloacte the battery (or get a smaller one)...It can all add up.
-Andrew
I don't know how I posted the previous message?, but I couldn't delete...Can an mod?

 

Just weighed one steel hinge and it came in at 4lbs!
And luckily Lt1s come with aluminum waterpumps and heads

 

Wow and this whole time i thought fiberglass hoods were almost 50 lbs lighter. Ive carried a factory fiberglass and i did think they were a lot lighter but not as much as i thought!

 

To add to the weighs thread as I know the wheel weights have been posted before
Stock '91/92 Aluminum rim without rubber - Fronts 21.5lbs, rear 17.14lbs, and The GTA cross lace without rubber 16.5lbs.
My bloody digital scale's battery just died, I will re-check my #'s and edit if necessary - darn 9V
-Andrew

 

Tim, have you run the car with it? Does it start OK? I’ve had a PC-625 sitting around for over a year, which has something like 25-505cca (depending on conditions) less and weighs 3lbs less. I haven’t put it in anything but it will probably go in the “new” TA. I measured it out and it will completely fit under the lip of the core support behind the headlight, leaving the battery box for a bigger air box/intake plumbing (I don't want to have to run a cutout switch).

My brother has run a similar sized, plain old lead acid lawnmower battery for years now in his rear mounted battery box without any starting issues.

 

I drove it yesterday and it started up fine.

 

When i sold the serp setup off my 91 RS the entire setup (A/C, tensioner, brackets, PS pump, belt, etc.) weighed in at 82lbs!