87CIZ

iTrader: (8)

well as far as weight no a camaro doesn't weigh 3 tons it weighs somewhere in the 3000 lb range. so a ton and a half. i think most people roll around 3500 lbs fully loaded and no lightening with a v8. A fiberglass hood will drop 20 - 40 lbs depending on how thick the fiberglass is, and will help even up the front to rear weight distribution especially in a v6. Also your comparing a 20 year old car to a new car technology advanced alot in the middle to late 90's. So theoretically if you used the same year engine from a camaro or firebird in your car against the car your running civic or what not most likely the civic will get spanked. Hence why the lt1 and lsx swaps are so popular

vorgath

There's a weight reduction thread somewhere on this forum. Read that one.
Once again

AlkyIROC

Since third gens are a rear wheel drive unibody car, there's a lot of multiple layers of sheet metal to make the body. As mentioned above, there are lots of threads on weight reduction. It really depends on how far you want to go. There are no real nonessentials that can be removed if you want to keep it street legal and street safe.

Options are to replace heavy factory parts with lightweight aftermarket parts. A fiberglass hood is a good start. Aluminum heads and intake can cut a lot of weight on and give the engine a good performance boost. Although race seats can cut off a lot of weight, they're not something you want to sit on for long periods of time.

LT1FUN

My 4th gen Firebird currently weighs 2960lbs with 1/4 tank of gas. After the Strange Engineering racing brackes are installed front and back, pwer window/mirror motors are ditched and the Mad Man Racing manual rack and pinion are installed, that should bring the weight down to 2800 and change. Should be fun.

There are a lot of things you can do to reduce weight but it's a trade off as some of the parts might not be worth removing if you actually want/need them.

Here are some of the things to consider.

Things that cost money:

- Tubular Kmember.
- Aftermarket A-arms.
- Light-weight brakes
- Racing seats
- Fibreglass hood
- Manual rack and pinion
- Plexi-glass windows
- Aluminum drive shaft
- MT/ET streets out back
- Skinny's up front
- smaller (aka 15/16" wheels)


Free weight reductions:

remove:

- A/C and all it's parts
- Heater core
- Air bags
- Windshild washer fluid resavoir and all it's parts
- Front/rear impact absorbers
- sound system
- insulation
- back seat/passenger seat
- Spare tire
- Fuel injection ( I got rid of close to 40lbs by removing the ECM and all the wiring that goes with it, - you'd be surprised at how much all that stuff weights)
- ABS delete
- Ditch the exhaust and run dump's right off the headers

The general rule is, you'll lose 1/10 of a second for every 100lbs you take off your car. Unless you're going all out and building a superfast street/strip car, don't focus too much on weight savings as a lot of the parts I mentioned above, probably wouldn't be worth removing as they are very beneficial in day to day driving (example, your A/C and back seat, insulation etc.)

Just thow more power at it and keep all your creature comforts....

vorgath

Remember also, do you want a fast noisy shaky car ? Or a slightly slower but comfortably street version ?

I was thinking about this as well, removed the back seats, next will probably be the AC. However I intend to keep it all power and hey sound insulation does weigh some

sogabe

hey, I didnt know its been mentioned many time..
Ill go search, thanks though.

as for 20-40lbs of saving in fiberglass hood..
hmmm if it was for only weight reduction it
wouldnt be worht the price would it?

and yeah my camaro is a v6 and a daily driver,
so I do have my AC(newly replaced 2)
and I do want to keep it comfortable as my
gf isnt too into cars anyways and im sure she wants comfortability..so

I meant 3000lbs, sorry im from Japan and we use kg and not lb, so I confused my self, 3000lb = 3ton.. i was wrong.

thanks guys

AlkyIROC

Long ton, short ton and metric ton are all within a few hundred pounds. 3 metric tons is still close to 3 short tons which is still the weight of 2 cars.

Shagwell

mine weighs(weighed) 4001lbs w/o me in it, just over 1/4 tank of fuel. Still ran 11.7's all motor...import what?

vorgath

Not many things cause a drastic weight reduction, unless you have an all iron engine with AC and power steering, and then replace it with an all aluminum LS1 engine, no AC and manual steering from a S10.

My hood probably weighs more than the stock one right now, since it's a mockup version, tons of fiberglass and bondo on it, once I'm done with the final design, I'll make a fiberglass one.

Heck the Nascar teams worry about saving ounces not pounds, but ounces here and there, including light weight gauges

Shagwell

Uni-body = heavy. There's soo much stamped tin to make everyting strong enough. Brace here, double thickness there....it all adds up to a heavy car. That's why I finally said, screw it. I'm cutting out all uni-body structure, including the floor, fire-wall, strut towers, internal door crap, etc and starting over. Full frame, and basically just re-using the skin. It's a street car, so I don't want to give up my power windows, a/c, stereo, etc, but I'm shooting for 3k with it. What I'm not removing I'm, shifting.

askulte

Sorry for moving only the top post to the fabrication forum, as requested by another mod. I thought it would move all of it. Anyways - if you guys don't mind, I'll leave this here since there is a decent discussion going...

Anyways - cutting out the structural parts of the unibody (think strut tower area, and rear spring/shock perch areas as well as the floorpan which is fairly thick, and rocker rails) will add quite a bit of flex back to the chassis that you've got to get rid of with more weight - a roll cage and subframe connectors. You'll get a stiffer car, but probably not much lighter. A lot of the non-structural heavy parts like the hood, rear glass, and doors can be substituted with fiberglass & plexi, dropping the weight, and not adding flex. It all depends on how far you want to go, and what the budget is. It's time for me to find a fiberglass hood, or better yet, make my own. Got to get some more 'glass experience...