so how much weight do you think i could loose if i cf'ed an entire fb except for the driver door (which means pretty much stripping out interior, carbon passenger door, carbon hood, front fenders, front bumper, rear bumper and rear hatch)

Also with lexan side windows and front window and rear window

u think i could get down to under 2k lbs?
what is the lightest fb here?
anyone ever put their fb on a scale yet?


on another note, how come fb guys call their front bumpers air dams?

 

Well an empty shell weighs about 200lbs believe it ot not. Why not gut the driver door too? The doors are heavy, especially the impact beam. You wont gain much on the bumper covers as they are pretty light, same with the fenders, but the hood is heavy, so is the sunroof if yours has one. Dash is also heavy, like 35lbs with all the wiring, which I suggest you gut the wiring too and just re wire the car with the basics. Stripping out the tar is also worth about 50lbs.

Under 2k? easy money.

I think its cause the factory air dam is incorporated in the bumper cover itself.

 

Mine wieghs 2080 lbs right now, and i still have the dash intact.......wieghed it at a fab shop when i was having them take measurements for a rollcage..

 

The airdam is usually the piece under the front bumper. It is also removable for replacement of only the airdam instead of the whole bumper cover.

I don't know much about weight reduction, but if you do all that, I would guess that you could easily get your car under 2K. I acutally know more about the functional ways to add weight to a vehicle. For example, a killer stereo system.

 

wow, 50 lbs of tar??? also thanks for the info on the airdam, i never knew it was not apart of the front bumper. (only seen 2 fb's on the road and have yet to see one in person parked) i have see about 15 FD's though so i guess fb's are more rare then fd's are even here in hawaii

 

ps. CFing the car out will cost you more money then buying a 3rd gen.....Unless you know the cf fairy.... good luck.

 

hehe but i am a CF fairy

wait wait wait i aint a fairy but i know how to lay cf hahahaha, i do not enjoy taking it in the rear

 

Clearification needed: I've read in most places that taking out the sound deading matreal,"tar", saves only less than 15lbs. I remember a thread with a guy that actually weighed his collection of chips and he said it wasn't really worth all the work on an everyday car.

 

I weighed mine too. Im in the process of doing another car and am saving the chips, Ill snap a pic for all the non believers.

 

I'm with Carl. I saved about less than 50% of my tar and it was 15 pounds. Of course, that was for all the tar. If you use a heat gun and a scraper, you won't get it all out. Dry Ice works wonders. Let it sit on the tar, move the dry ice when you see snow on the undercarriage of the car, and whack the crap out of the tar. Eventually you'll get talented/lucky and it will come off in big chunks.

There's a lot of tar in there, too. Maybe this 15 pounds wasn't the whole transmission tunnel surround or the whole rear deck or something.

I've also heard that if you live in an area with day laborers that you can get one of them to do the work for about $50-100. If you didn't want to do it yourself, this would be quite a good deal. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm poor and need something to do, I'd pay somebody to do it on my next car.

 

well it looks like im not going to get a FB, idk how the hell you guys put up with it (note: im comming from a fd which was boosting 13.5psi but is now at a measly 10psi). in anycase, today i test drove it and it was fricken scary to drive, the doors would not open on it cuz they were rusted shut, brakes were horrible, although ebrake was stronger then my fd's were. Interior was wet cuz of all the rain comming thru the sunroof/rust holes. the tranny was ok but power from the engine was... at best lacking. I mean i drove my brothers 1982 desiel n/a 50hp desiel benz auto and it did 24 secs in the 1/4 mile with me driving and it was much faster then the fb was! idk man, unless i get in to a 200-250rwhp fb, i dont think ill ever gain respect for them again. Personnaly i though that a FB was super light adn that could have helped it out a lot but apparently i was wayyyy off!

 

dunno what was wrong with that fb? maybe it sensed a piston around

 

Uhh, you said it yourself buddy your drove a POS FB. What if the only FD you ever drove was a huge rusted POS and you had never even seen one parked before. and only 2 others on the road.

 

i have driven crashed fd's before and they were 100X better hehe, perhpas something was really off with hte one i test drove today. idk, it seem like it ran how it was suppose to

 

DP

 

Well then in that case the 1st gen forum must be filled a fuckload of guys that just love peices of crap. I mean it's only common sence right? :] There is either soemthign wrong with you or the FB I have heard people that owned a FB and FC/FD's if it came down to it they would keep the FB and ditch the other. Of course majority of peopel probalby dont even feel that way but jsut the fact soem some people do should be enough for like soemthing i forgot my point im going to bed

 

LMFAO!!! haha...
I think i know the point... You obviously drove the wrong FB... because if every FB was like that... well there probably wouldn't be a 1rst gen forum cuz no one would drive an FB.
Truth is, i have driven some shitty *** FB's and some bad *** FB's. Because these cars are 20 years old, you are gonna get a lotta bad apples as teh years go by without oil changes... fuel filter replacements... spark plug replacements... clutch.... etc...
So just because you drove one FB that sucked doesn't mean that every FB sucks because if they did, i wouldn't have one.

Zachstylez

 

yea.. what he said.

 

yea seriously, just because one is bad doesn't mean the others are too

 

I owned an FD for almost 7 years and just sold it several months ago... I havent missed it at all. Before I bought my first FB about two years ago I thought I'd never sell the FD... I thought I'd keep it for a long, long time. But after having the FB for a while and modifying it a little hear and there, I came to realize that FB's are pretty damm cool...especially concidering the low cost of them. My FB is still no where near as fast as my FD was...I had it up to 368 rwhp at one point.... but FB are just so fun to drive and so easy to work on they make up for their shortcomings in ways you only feel once you've owned one.

It sounds like you drove a POS car... don't give up hope yet.

 

do all FB's have manual racks? how fast do most FB's go stock? are they usually fairly peppy? do you mean fun to drive as in fun in the corners? perhaps a V8 swap with 5speed trans. would be the answer for me...

 

some had power steering, which feels like ****. They're zippy over 30 mph, under that they don't have enough torque to really do much of anything. Stock the numbers are good for the early 80's but laughable by todays standards. Most of us like them for handling, at least I do. Take the V8 and throw it in a pond, get a 13bt if you need more power.

 

I dont know what power steering in an FB feels like, but I do know what manual and PS with no boost feels like. Personally, since it's basically all I know, I think it's pretty awesome. Turning radius is fan-*******-tabulous, at least compared to the Mustang convertible I drove a couple weekends ago. I can usually U-turn on a narrow street in the 7, and the damn Mustang took like a 3-point turn to hook a u-ie.

 

yea thats a good point, unless your on a super narrow road you can just turn and be going the other way. I'll be interested to see how rack and pinion feels after I do that.

 

There is PS, but its fairly rare. I've driven both, and can say that PS is better. It still allows you to feel the road because its only power assist, not full power. If I had PS though, I'd keep the box but ditch the pump. These cars are light though; they really don't need PS.

Honestly FB's are pretty slow stock. 17's for the 12A, 16's for the 13B in the quarter. Go figure, 100-130 Hp @ the flywheel isn't much by today's standard. They are light though, so it doesn't take much to make them feel good.

They were built to handle more than accelerate. That is, of course, if they aren't in need of new tires, struts, springs, and shocks. I find that most FBs out there are in need of some TLC in this department, so I can only bet what that POS you test drove felt like. FBs should have a go-cart like quality, they feel light and zippy.

As far as the V8 goes... I'm not a fan of the swap, but it is easy power. I prefer the 13BT if you can't tell from my avatar. I'm looking at around 300 hp in my FB, and can say it's a blast . A bit scary though, I need better tires, and brakes. Which reminds me, the drum brakes aren't self adjusting, so thats probably why they felt so bad on your test drive.