Im thinking about striping the dash in my car. i am very concernd about weight saving and think this might be a good idea but i was wondering it im wrong. What draw backs are their to stiping out the dashboard and leaving it as a shell, what is there to strip out? I heard this isnt the easyest job but if anyone has some insight on this that would also be appriciated. Thank you in advance

 

Well, if you want to save weight, the dash isn't the best nor the first option you should go for. I mean replacing your 60lbs seat with a fibre-glass one, removing spare tyre, some of the sound proofing and stuff like that.

Without the dash, anything that's in front of you will no longer have a place to mount. This includes your gauges, radio, logicon, etc. Unless you're making it into an actual racecar, I'd say leave it in.

 

wen i took my dash out, i took out all the plastic pipes for the heat/ac crap out. also the heater blower, heater core etc. but i would start wit da sound tar. drops easy weight. TIP- if u put dry ice on top of tar n let it sit it jus breaks off.

 

If you're "very concerned" about weight, the place to start is replacing the steel hatch with carbon fiber and all the glass (hatch, doors and windshield) with Lexan.
All of the power accessories then must go and the entire wiring harness gets gutted.
P/S and AC are gone.
The stock seats (which don't weigh near 60lbs. BTW, w0ppe) are history and only the driver side gets replaced.
No cheap and heavy wheels.

For starters.

 

Ok i was planing on doing the lexan/carbon hatch( heard about it on another thread) but does anyone know where i could find these parts? I was reading i could just make my own lexan glass but i need to find the hatch rim
also just out of curiousity about how much do the seats weigh?

And i was also looking at Enkei RP F1s for my rims

 

Here are some pics of a Sport with the dash removed. The stock instrument cluster is simply zip-tied to the steering column. The passenger side has an added SPA dual gauge and Wolf EMS.

 

Ya won't be able to mount the speedo if ya take the dash out.
But there is some guy sellin Fiberglass dashes on forum..

 

See above pictures.

 

im not talking about removing the dash just taking eveything behind it out

 

What does your car weigh now?

 

That would be the heater core, fan, and plastic AC ducting. What's that, maybe 10 lbs? Sounds like a glorious waste of effort to me.

 

The carpet and jute underneath weigh a hell of a lot more. Remove that and go thin rubber or nothing at all.

 

Go on a diet, problem solved.

 

Ok well there is no motor in the car at this moment in time so i havent weighed it yet but i removed all of the carpeting and isolation/ sound deadening so far and thats all i have realy done so far and im looking for other cheap(free) things to do.
But i was under the impression the stuff weighed alittle more then 10 lbs under their

 

Removing all the climate control system might net 25-30lbs.
Basically, four gallons of gas.
What is the point of all this weight reduction?

 

Ah, memories. I remember riding in the front seat of that car once and feeling weird how much space there was in front of me.

To the OP, for a street driven car, there is virtually no point. There's many other things that could gain way more weight savings than stripping (not striping, I thought you wanted to paint it after reading the thread title) the dash. I'm with clokker, what is the point of all this weight savings? Competition purposes? Or something else?

 

Competition mostly...... i realy want my car to make 200 hp to the wheels (optimistic) and weigh about 2500 lbs with me in it(very optimistic). The car will be my daily but i want to take it to the track and race it when ever i can, and then drive it home.

 

Does not compute dude.

Well, unless you plan on changing tires and brakes to race and switching back to go home.

 

well i could change the tires easily but why the brakes. im just talking about going to atco or maybe ocasionaly milvill or e-town (maybe for alittle drifting) and driving it home nothing to serious....

 

Easy answer.

Brake fade. Streetable brake pads just won't work on the track reliably. Racing pads won't stop worth a **** on the street because they aren't hot enough.

 

hmm.... i was unaware of that but i know alot of people drive there street cars at atco (drag strip) and Club loose or other grass-root drift events like stuff at etown but i guesss i dont realy know anyone who races their street cars at E-town or Millvill but i know people do it

 

I think you're approaching this backwards.
Where did this target weight and HP come from?
What's the current weight and horsepower?

Gutting/stripping the dash would be one of the last things you would do- after you'd already gone for the big stuff.
The couple of pounds you're going to save will just ruin the streetability of the car and matter not a tinker's damn at the track.

 

That car may be at DGRR this year, depending on whether the new engine goes in it or the blue S5. He also now has Jim Bonsey's old hill climb engine, but I'm not sure if there are any plans to actually run that monster.

He was just confused because the trouble that you are going through is usually only performed on serious track cars. Were that your case, you would want a spare set of wheels, brake pads, and rotors. However, it sounds to me like you would be OK with simply installing some dual-use brake pads like EBC Yellowstuff.

 

heres when i "striped" the dash, most stuff behnd it is gne, only defroster is left on a toggle switch (must have in WA). the dash was peeling on the edes so i peeled it all off then got the glue residue off also.

would i ever do this again to another car? no... but ill keep this one gutted lol

 

ok the car curently has no motor but i should make about 190 when i get it in there and these numbers came from calculations on Rx7.com(13.51 @103mph) and what i know is posible. ive heard of people with 2500lbs (or close to it) and ive heard of close to 200 hp but honestly its seems like only a few people have done it (on a N/a 6 port) so it would be cool to have. over all i just want the car to be a nice, quick N/A fc, which it will be eather way.....