That is the question....
This is more or less a poll/opinion thread, I want to know what other people think is a good idea for me in my situation..
I have half my interior pulled apart, and while its overall in good shape there are little details that are messed up, like the big piece at the back of the trunk where it latches is cracked, some of the pieces don't clip together and stay in place very well, some of the screws just spin in place, the door sill on the driver side is cracked etc.

Basically it needs some tlc to be nice, but I tend to care more about performance than aesthetic, but I do care about aesthetics up to a point, I don't want to get into my car, and have my feet on bare metal for example, and not having a dashpad is quite an eyesore, esp with the rusted speaker baskets, and I'm not sure I would be keen on seeing the innards of my doors all the time. On the other hand this crap serves no functional purpose, all it does is make the interior more appealing, and well I kind of feel like I might as well go all out performance first because of all the little things that make this the type of car that isn't the most DD friendly, for example, my hood is full pin on, the car is extremely loud inside even with the interior because I have no hood insulation and a built engine with full aftermarket exhaust, and on top of all that my hood has vents....cruising down the highway isn't exactly lexus quiet....I've already sacrificed some practicality and can't help but feel its somewhat pointless if I don't go all the way with it, I would like to compromise, but well, there is a reason that gm sells a cadilac cts v AND corvette zr-1, performance and luxury can coexist, but not without sacrifices to both....and last but not least it is a camaro, so its not as though even if the interior were in great shape it would be luxurious in any way...it does on the other hand have great potential to be a street/strip car biased toward the latter...
So I see 3 options...
1. cut and gut
2. restore (will take time and money, both of which are in short supply)
3. compromise, what I have thought about doing is something along this line.....I figure it like this, if I'm in the car I'm driving it, if I'm driving it I'm not really gonna see anything behind me most of the time and lets face it, I already took out the back seats so is there really any point to having trim or carpet back there? What I am thinking of doing is cutting the carpet, right behind the front seats just straight across, and leaving out all the plastic trim pieces that are behind the front seats, but I wonder if having half an interior would look even sillier than no interior....but its not like the rear half of the car is used for anything other than occasionally shopping bags.
In the end I'll probably do what I want to do, but with things like these it just helps sometimes to gain an outside perspective.

 

I would personally restore the interior but that's just me. I like the inside of my car to look just and clean and sharp as the outside. While performance upgrades would be nice, I think it's smart to get a car looking better before making it go faster.

 

Well, I do want the outside to look great, and plan to get it some fresh paint as soon as I fix the mechanical issues it has atm, but strangely I don't care nearly as much about how the interior looks, I mean I don't care if someone is walking by it sees I have no carpet and thinks thats ugly, however when I'm walking out to my car in a parking lot, I want to think "damn that thing looks good"
I mean its kind of hard to explain how I feel about it, I think the rear wouldn't bother me much cause I won't be seeing it all the time, but if it is something I spend a good chunk of time looking at, it eventually will bug me, my dashpad does(was cracked to hell, pulled it) fortunately I have a solution for the dash...eventually I am getting a fiberglass or ABS(can't recall which it was) which basically replaces the whole dash, not just the pad, where the gauges go and everything, all one piece and only weighs 4 lbs and won't crack.

 

Oh, and I thought about lining it in like felt or something really thin and light, I don't care if it has padding, in fact no matter what I do I am pulling the matting thats under the carpet, but I think felt or something of that nature that I could just line all the places the carpet and trim covered might be a good idea, it would look a lot better than bare metal, but wouldn't weigh near as much as the other crap I think.

 

Actually, you'd be surprised at how little the matting under the carpet weighs. If it's not moldy, I'd keep it, mostly due to the fact that it doesn't just add padding under the carpet, but it also acts as a sound barrier and insulator. If you were to beef up the engine and get the exhaust a little hotter, you wouldn't want a passenger's feet getting roasted, would you? The carpet, with its rubber backing, weighs the most out of anything in the interior with the exception of the seats (and the dash assembly when assembled).

 

I figured it did act as a sound barrier, but honestly the car is already loud as hell, and most of the time it doesn't bother me, even if I'm on the highway if it starts getting to me I will just put music on to drown it out, and there is a heat shield under neath the passenger side floor pan, and its going to be extremely rare that I even have a passenger,lol, I have actually thought about removing that seat as well, but I will eventually need/want it, so I don't plan to.

 

You won't be able to drown the music out when you take the sound deadening material out from under the carpet... trust me cause I said the exact same thing you did.

 

Not to mention if you drive during cold weather... The insulation also keeps heat IN the car (from soaking into the C O L D metal).

Seriously, though. All of the insulation in the car, with the exception of what's behind the dash (that has a backing on it), might weigh about 3 pounds. Compared to the carpet that weighs a TON more.

 

Well I'm pretty sure I am either going to strip the back half of the interior and or line it with felt or some other thinner lightweight material just to cover up the bare metal. I know it would have poor heat retention but I'm not that worried about it.

Also zraffz, I have aftermarket 6x9s and headunit, trust me it could compete with the exhaust at highway rpms, now if I were flooring it from a stand still, would be a good contest,lol.

 

well a couple of questions I have for you. Does this car have a big motor? Where do you spend the most time with this car street or drag strip? Personally I would restore it, if you have a pretty well stock drive train I would definitely restore the interior. But if you plan on racing the car at the strip all the time then I would gut it. If you are looking at lighter weight carpeting why not get some cheap carpeting on ebay or wherever, from what I have heard the cheaper aftermarket stuff does not have the insulation and stuff but it is molded for the 3rd gen interior so it would be a lot easier to install than felt and would look a ton better.

 

Yeah but it wouldn't cover the areas where I removed the plastic trim, and define big...as far as gen1 60/6s go it is,lol, but eventually this is going to be an autocross car, it will see drag strips as well, in the meanwhile its my dd till I find a decent job and can start really modding it and get another car to dd. As it stands now its probably about as quick as a 305 tpi once I get it going again that is...fuel pump died on me, I think..

 

The interior is where you spend most of your time. I'd say restore and enjoy. Pulling the carpet padding will not make your car faster. If you want to lose weight try fiberglass doors, fenders, hatch, hood.

You want the padding to absorb/reflect sound and comfort.

 

I already have a glass hood, doors are far more impractical than no carpet, and I do plan to get lexan rear window and glass hatch, fenders are negligible and might actually be heavier in fiberglass if I recall.
And nobody has said what they think of just gutting the rear portion, because I'm leaning towards that the most, its not like I care if my trunk is a nice place to be, I'm not exactly going to spend much time there...

 

I think gutting just the rear portion would be by far the junkiest looking thing you could do to the interior.

Personally I hate gutted interiors, and IMO, nothing screams junker/beater/thrashed/ragged car like one with a gutted interior. Extra LOLs if the car isn't anything but a truly dedicated, scary fast drag car; in other words, weight reduction should probably be the dead last thing someone tackles, only after every single other thing under the sun has been done performance-wise, so I'd expect an absolute monster under the hood and in the suspension. Fact of the matter is, usually the driver is the one who could shed a few pounds.

You spend 100% of your time in the interior, you should make it as comfortable and nice as possible.

The cost/benefit ratio of gutting the interior is probably one of the worst in terms of performance gain compared to anything else you can do to the car. You sacrifice a LOT to gain so, so, so little. That tiny gain is completely mitigated if the car is a daily or anything but an offroad race car.

Just my .02.

 

I agree, I can't understand why people gut their interior, except for 100% race cars. It just makes the car look like crap and won't make you go any faster. Why not strip the paint off the car while you are at it? Did you rip out all the drywall and carpet in your house? How is that any different than stripping a car interior?

Sorry to sound like a jerk, but please help me understand the motivation.

 

First off, every 100 lbs of weight dropped is worth about 10 hp or .1s in a 1/4, and when you have a v6 you work with what you have, and yes it does make you go faster, the benefits of weight reduction are huge, it doesn't just make you faster in a straight line, it makes you stop quicker, it makes you handle better, it raises your mpg, it puts less strain on suspension and drivetrain, and on and on.

And I live in my house, that is its sole purpose, tearing out the carpet and drywall in my house would be defeating the purpose. Camaros are meant to go fast, and ideally I want to find a compromise between a heavy full interior and a gutted one, because I want it to look good if I can have both, but I certainly don't want the weight of a fully dressed interior when the fact of the matter is I only use the portion I sit in....think of it like this do you care how nice your closet looks? No, because you hardly ever see it, you do however care how bedroom and living room look, hence my contemplating stripping the rear portion of the car.

 

my take would be to restore the interior at a minimum - actually more of a fan of improving what GM did by adding more sound deadening and electric seats etc!

Just agree with the gain/pain logic above. Totally get weight as being a killer for performance - but for a DD you'll gain so little by gutting the car and lose so much (of the already little) comfort. I was kinda in your place a few years ago (I'm guessing early 20's?) but it just seemed so much effort for so little gain > for street use anyway

I don't know, the way I see it is right now you're saying your car is around 305tpi territory. With all respect, that means most of today's cars are faster & are more comfortable.

Save the interior, spend that time and initiative under the hood and on the chassis - and when its ***** out and you're scratching your head for the next tenth, start thinking about shedding the interior

all IMO

 

If you strip the entire interior, I bet you barely hit 100lb. Thats including taking out all 3 "extra" seats. I've had the interior out of my car, its not that heavy. Is it really worth removing all the comfort in your car just to pick up 10hp?

 

It sounds like the OP has more or less made up his mind, but I guess the way I'm reading it is this, correct me if I'm wrong--

You're thinking of gutting the interior not so much for the performance aspect, but because the interior currently in it is in rough shape, and I suppose it's easier/cheaper to just gut what's left rather than to restore it.

Would this be correct?

Or alternatively, would you even be considering it if you had a pristine interior?

A gutted interior with a V6 under the hood and daily driver status just doesn't make sense, IMO.

Also, some of us do care how our closets look.

 

I have more or less made up my mind, but no one has really voiced their opinions on a compromise of some type, and yeah, sure 100 lbs might not seem like much, but how bout 500? I'm also going to get aluminum heads, I removed the AC components, I removed my rear seats(which btw I def am keeping out of the car, and did a while back) spare tire and jack weren't in the car when I bought it, but would've removed them just the same, so it saved me the trouble, going to get a lexan rear hatch glass and fiberglass decklid, I already have a fully pinned on fiberglass hood.
And no, I am not wanting to do it because it needs tlc, that just makes it a little more appealing than it already was. And like I've said a couple times, this car is only dd temporarily,so sooner or later it WILL get gutted, so I guess it makes more sense to me to do it now since half the work is done already(checking condition of body, and putting in a fuel pump access door) than to put money into restoring it, only to eventually pull it all out again.

 

I voiced my oponion; maybe not what you wanted to hear, but an opinion nonetheless.

I would either restore it completely or gut it completely.

 

Personally I get what your saying and Ive been thinking about going the compromise route myself. Now to me the compromise means that I dont want to sacrifice functionality but there are opportunities to shave weight without sacrificing. Things like the seats for example. I want all my seats in place and the rear foam ones weigh like nothing so I would leave those alone. However the front ones are pretty heavy. Replacing them with a set of quality racing seats will shave weight and the good ones are even more comfortable. The door panels they are kinda heavy for just being door panels not to mention many of them are warped as they are only made of cardboard. Ive been looking into replacing the cardboard with something like a sheet of fiberglass. It could be wrapped with the factory door panel skin in place of the cardboard so youde never know the difference by looking at it but it would be lighter and more durable. The factory pedals are made of thick pieces of steel. Not the gas pedal but the brake and clutch pedal if its stick shift and these could be replaced with aluminum pedals. These are the sorts of things like this I would change. Cuts weight but doesn't sacrifice. Is it worth it? From an economics standpoint, not in the slightest but if your trying to get everything you can out of your car and just want the challenge of seeing what you can do it may be worth it to you on a personal level.

 

There is no way you are getting 500lbs out of the interior. Also, heads and A/C are under the hood not in the interior. I thought we were talking about interior.

We all learn life lessons. In many cases its better to learn them on your own than take someones word for it. Be sure to post up pics after you have it gutted. And let us know what you think of it in about 6 months.

You have my opinion. Have fun.

 

I didn't say I would get 500 out of the interior, I was making the point that it all adds up.

 

why dont you just focus on putting a v8 in it if you want to go fast? no amount of weight reduction will make a third gen camaro with a 60 degree 6 fast it'll just look rice.