well guys ive sold my turboII and i have an 86 base model sitting outside the owner wants $400 for it base model full interior gunmetal grey and runs.... so im gonna strip the interior clean up all the wires take out the stuff i dont need any ideas for weigh reduction??? i know thats a big thing on track cars all i can think of is throw out the whole interior take out the a/c and throw out the air pump any other ideas????


let me explain tho this car is not going to be a 100% track car it will be on the track only but oviously im not gonna put like $3000 in suspension and another $5000 in roll cage and motor and blah blah this is gonna be a care between 2 friends to eat **** in at the track and still becareful with safety were tired of putting our more expensive cars ( friend drives a 05 wrx and crashed into a wall while making a turn)
he had to fix it and said he just wanted to do the track car with me... like i say again i know this takes alot of time and effort i got all the tools imaginable and the knowledge i need a basic idea with the weight reduction and suspension ideas..

i also know about stitch welding the chassis plan to do that also ( got my own welding machine and know how to weld) so any ideas how to exactly go with this or???

thanks again
TwEaK

by the way dont pay attention to puncuation lol hate it ;D

 

stiching the chasis? sounds interesting, care to go into a little bit of detail on that? but yea, just make sure you remove all the sound dedening tar. Have you ever pick up the door off from our cars? crazy heavy, try to find a way to get rid of some of that weight. maybe cut out the reinforcments and weld in your own? other than that get some good tires, and tokico blue's are pretty cheap for struts.
dom

 

you know from factory the car is welded by machines??? well the machines weld it like just shooting out a number every 5 to 6 inches well you if you can do a solid beam i think that would be good but then instead of it being every 5 to 6 inches you do it like every inch and it takes away stress and reinforces the frame....i also heard of putting that foam stuff
TwEaK

 

yea i've filled squirted expanding insulating foam in most holes i can find j/k but i have done it to the frame rails, and the cross members that run under the storage bins and a few other spots. But yea, like i said the doors! they are f-ing heavy!
dom

 

i forgot in another thread there was a question about hole saw let me search and it i will show you
TwEaK

 

well crap i cant find it but some guy got like a hole saw to the door and started cutting holes in it to remove weigh big difference supposebly...
TwEaK

 

Stitch welding the chassis is only for those cars who cannot run big roll cages.
Really, if you can put a good roll cage in the car, stitch welding the seams is a royal waste of time.
To stitch weld all the seams, you need to knock off all the paint before welding - that takes up a lot of time. :P

Stuff a good roll cage in the car, and skip the stitch welding part.

I dunno how light you want to go, but we were able to get an S5 chassis down to 2500# (no driver) pretty damn easy.
Extensive lightening can probably drop the car down to the 2000# to 2100# level - we're talking Lexan "glass" though.


-Ted

 

You can put in a lexan widshield and side windows. Pull off the hatch and replace that with lexan. It will probably have to be 3 pieces of lexan, though. That will save you like 40 pounds. Lexan is cheap too. Having lexan windows will make the track happier with you, those guys hate picking up glass on the track, That and draining our the radiator, and flushing it of course, and filling it with water. You will have to top it off every single session, but its water and its free.

Depending on how the car runs and how long your track sessions are, you can remove the alternator, and buy a $30 battery charger that you use before each race. There is like 4 pounds right there. Lets see, you can pull out the headlight assembly, and replace it with a small aquar of sheet metal. Headlight motors will sell well on Ebay. Put all of your interior on Ebay, that crap is hard to find cheap.

If you put in a roll cage I recomend 1 3/4 inch 0.095 thinkness and using a simple 6 point set up. Plans are availible online every where. If you do that you can cut out the entire door and just weld the exterior door skin to the car, thats what Im doing with my circle track Honda. I took an angle grinder and cutting the exterior door skin away from the rest of the door, but on the inside, and just welding them to the car, and getting in dukes of hazard style. then it will DEFINITELY not be street legal, I dont know if you want it that way or not.

If you aren't getting a light weight hood, take your stock hood, and get an angle grinder w/ a cut-off wheel, and cutu and remove the bracing on the underside of the hood. Leave the part that hinges, and cut off the latch and use 2 hood pins, or remove the hinges and use 4 (or 5 with one in the middle of the front- a good idea) Remove that crap on the bottom of the hood will save you like 50 pounds.

I havent done this to a 7 but I have done this, so you can pm me with any more questions, about street car to race car conversion.

 

wow sounds good question i have tho is how can i mold the lexan if i do lexal on the side windows and rear hatch how can i mold it to form the old hatch so it looks stock???? masao youve given me alot of ideas any others you got in your head??? ill prolly get everything throw it in a bucket and weigh the bucket and see how much i took off the car =)
TwEaK

 

There are pre-molded Lexan Windows available if you want to spend the money. Windshield runs a bit of $450 I think. Hatch about $150 more. If track only, you could completely forget the side windows and get rid of the tracks and regulators then. I think I saw Lexan Windows on Mazdaspeed.

 

that was my thread about the holesawing idea it was in an old skyline r32 i have all the info on it if you want it

 

fcdrifter yea if you could give me some info on that i would appreciate it ... the front windshield im gonna leave oringal the rear hatch i wanna do lexan the side windows well i dont want the inside getting filled with water so ill leave those there =)
TwEaK

 

well the reason I posted that topic was to see if it would effect strucual ridgity. I did not get a solid answer to this question. My freind just did this with his CRX but it didnt seem to hurt anything. The pic of the R32 also has some kind of panel on the door kinda looks like a plastic. What I think they did was gut the door holesaw the door and add the piece of plastic for ridgity. Buy hey that is just a guess. It also seems like it would work. Not sure but heres a pic.


Also a site that sells lightwieght body parts and undertrays.
http://www.rotorsportsracing.com/per...g/exterior.htm

I cant find my link to the place that sells lexan back glass.

 

thanks fc any idea how they did that or was it exactly that a hole saw and just start making holes???
TwEaK

 

man to me it looks like they went to lowes and got a hole saw kit and just planed were they wanted the holes to be. You can tell they took in the though of strength because they stayed away from the edges and the door latch. I am pretty sure that the black piece ther id for strength. I would ask aroud and visit there site i cant find the page but i know it exists.

 

Do a search with the term "Adding lightness". I've posted some things that I've found during construction of an E Prod FC. There is a lot of weight to lose before its worth getting out the hole saw. If you do attack the car and do a "swiss" job on it keep to the flat metal. When you have a bend in metal its to add rigidity or to clear something or both. If you want to save a bunch of weight over the nose, PM me. We have a mold to make a hood that also fills in the headlight cover area. The piece ways less than 15 lbs compared to about 37 lbs for a stock steel hood plus the weight of all the light mechanicals (another 10-12lbs?)

 

You can remove the sunroof and use the panel to fill the hole as I did (see Link). Some people just replace the roof with a non-sunroof roof from another car.

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...hlight=sunroof

 

jgrewe how much would that cost??? and i think i still need headlights for autocrossing and scca not 100% shure on that??? 37FC3S ive seen that before very impressed but im think of removing the motor and track and just welding around it on the bottom side so it looks flush from the top but is actually non usable get me?? this is a budget car =)
TwEaK

 

Tweak, I've never sold one yet! We just build them for ourselves(two FC EP cars in the shop!). I'll figure out what it costs to make one a let you know. Since you're in Miami you could save a bundle and come pick the piece up in St Pete or meet us a Sebring or something. It depends on the class if you need the lights or not, I think anything beyond street prepared you don't need them. On your sunroof, we have a mold to make a fiberglass one for that too. I just took a roof panel from a non-sunroof car and welded it to my shell. A lot of body work later and you can't tell it ever had a hole in the roof. Our other car is a convertible.
We are all about budget car building, we just have 10's of thousands of dollars of tools laying around to do it with!

 

There would be a small gap around the hole if you don't flatten the edges of the panel and that would leak unless you use some sealant. A fiberglass panel would work good.

 

lol well i dont have that many tools but i have the basics welding machine/grinder/huge compressor stuff like that i would love to make my own roll cage or something like that =) ill keep my lights incase i decided to register the car and drive it one day on the street to go to a meet or something lol but i think im gonna have to look for a turboII hood cheap unless you guys make one out of fiberglass so that i can still keep my llights?
TwEaK

 

bump? let me know

 

Do a search in the race car section for "weight" or "lexan". It's been discussed it a lot, and there is some good info.

 

The hood mold has the outline of the headlight doors in it. You would just have to cut along those lines to keep your lights. I can't get to the shop today but I'll have a price for you this evening. This is a race part so you will need to hold it on with hood pins. The finish quality is good though.

 

Tweak, 'glass hood for $250. Shipping would be added on if these gas prices keep going up and you don't want to drive. Probably still cheaper to pick it up at our shop in St.Pete or we'll be at Sebring in mid Oct.