I was jsut wondering what everyone has taken out of there cars for weight reduction. I was thinking about taking off the front and rear covers and taking off the actual bumpers. I have heard that its heavy and helps. I know that it should'nt be done on a street car but i harldy drive on the street. Is it really worth it ?

 

I took the front bumper off of my second gen camaro and it was about 90lbs with all of the bracketry. I don't remeber exactly how much I picked up ,but I remeber it being .1-.2 I then took off the back bumper and lost ET do to less traction.The third gens bumpers are much lighter and would probably be less of an improvement in ET.Third gens are also much flimsier than 2nd gens so I would definetly want at least frame connectors before removing the front bumper.

 

Front bumper weighs around 30-35 lbs.

 

The honeycomb crash bumpers behind the plastic covers on a third gen are heavy enough to make a difference. Although you can remove them, you'll give up a lot of street safety.

How much you want to take off depends on how "track" it is or how "street" it has to be. As far as I'm concerned, for track only, if it's not required for speed or track safety, get rid of it.

My car is an extremely stripped down race car. It could never be made street legal again. With a 12 point cage, BBC and me in it going down the track, I'm under 3000 pounds. I'd like to have a race weight closer to 2800 pounds. There's not much more I can remove to reduce weight. Some fiberglass doors would help if I could ever afford them. My steel doors have been stripped down as much as possible and they're still heavy.

You can look at my web pages to see just how much has been done to it.

Keeping it street legal, you can't rip out as much and have comfort or street safety equipement.

 

My 1992 RS weighs 3,280 with me in it stripped. I have an 8 point bar and 9" rear. Still have bumper and door bars, nothing else. I am going to aluminum head shortly which should drop it to 3,250.

 

82 and 83 cars with the 4cyl had an alum front bumper.. they weigh about half of what the steel bumpers weigh.
you can always compromise and swap one of those in... thats what i did.
i painted it GM satin black, and you cant tell it isnt the stock bumper.


an all alum motor is a great way to shave weight off the car.
lightweight carpet with no padding on the back..
fiberglass hood
lightweight battery
removeable flanged muffler... good for 20+lb weightloss at the track.


theres all kinds of great ideas on this board... search a little, and you'll have more ideas then you will probly ever do.

 

ok guys i took off the bumper cover and drilled out the rivets holding on the honeycomb looking peice. theres no way that is 30-35 pounds, did you also take off the actualy bar that the honeycomb peice was rivited to. if so how did you attach the bottom of the cover back on. that bar has holes in it for those plastic rivet things that holds the cover on. without those plactic rivets wouldnt it flap in the wind, seems to me it would vibrate like hell.

 

yes, we take the actual bumper off.



no offence, but if you cant figure out how to make a support for the nose when the bumper is gone, you shouldnt be taking it out...

i'll give you a hint... lowes, homedepot, and your local metal supply store, all sell strips of aluminum....

 

i have already made up some brackest for the front end along with a smoothed firewall, 10 pt. cage fuel cell box so i am sure it wont be a problem but i was just asking to make sure before i did anything

 

just in case anyone was wondering or didnt know how much the front bumper and honeycomb weigh, they weigh 24 pounds

 

I would leave the rear bumper on, if you take it off you might lose traction because not enough weight in rear

 

traction should not be dependant upon the weight of the car.
on a drag car, its better to remove all the weight you can, relocate the weight you cant remove, and then have the chassis setup to transfer/hook off the line.

on a drag car, the rear bumper is dead weight.

 

Be sure when fabbing up a bumper support to make a nose brace to keep it from collapsing at speed, if you ever get to use all that 600hp then you'll be hitting enough mph to flatten the nose if not supported....watch some 3rd gen outlaw cars from the finish line and you'll see what i mean.

That 24lbs you save removing it might be a wash due to aero drag since the front end will be flat. I was going to do this mod, but figured effort was not worth it...just build a bigger motor and keep it street legal

 

Both my bumpers are gone. I made a tubular support to hold the nose in position. It probably added about half the weight back but I have a lot more access room now.

Removing the rear bumber does take some weight off the rear wheels but I've also changed the very heavy rear glass and deck lid to Lexan and a sheet of aluminum. That's worth at least 70-100 pounds. It now makes my car nose heavy with a weight ratio of 60/40 but my race weight is also under 3000 pounds now. With a properly set up suspension, I just needed more weight transfer.