Weight reduction

[Crunkz0r]

I was wondering how much quicker i could get my wagon to go without doing any engine mods yet. I'm just curious as to how far one can go with weight reduction legality wise. Like are you allowed to take the doortrims off or take the spare tyre out, the front passenger seat or back seat or take carpet out... stuff like that, im just curious how much one can take off without making the car unroadworthy or something.

Please post if anybody knows, cheers

[R0d]

lol ive had door trims, rear windows out, rear seat out spare tyre, all boot lining and it didnt feel any quicker than normal

[nicko]

unless u start hacking away at metal bits your not going to notice the difference around the streets, maybe .01 on the drag strip but not much on the street

[Crunkz0r]

Ahhh true... well i notice my car goes slower when theres passengers, i was thinkin if i take out some of the stuff equal or more than the weight of a passenger, that might help it go a bit quicker yeah? but maby there isnt stuff that heavy in the car tho is there?

[V85000i]

all the underlay under the carpet weighs a bit, remove that.

[UNKNOWN]

Why bother, your not gonna notice it...

[r_i_d_a_h]

did a search and i dug this up from an old thread, old, but funny.

VWvortex Forums: How to get your econobox into the 14's-A must read.

[Crunkz0r]

So a Pod filter with a custom intake would be more beneficial then? i saw a falcon with a cut out in the bonnet with half of the pod filter sticking out one time lol... i have always wondered whether that would actually help or not... when i think about it though something that diverts air from a wider area that narrows it down into the pod filter sounds better.

[VSIIISU]

did a search and i dug this up from an old thread, old, but funny.

VWvortex Forums: How to get your econobox into the 14's-A must read.

That link has got a few dead links to pictures, try this one it works for me:
How to get your econobox into the 14's-A must read.

[r_i_d_a_h]

oh krud, your right, thanks for the new link

[vlv8vic]

Wouldn't notice a huge difference buddy. If you have 2 adult passengers you are looking at 150-180kg's and with 4 passengers well you're looking at something like 300+ kilos which could be about a quarter of your cars weight again (not sure what a wagon weighs).
You'd be hard pushed to find 300kg let alone 100kg worth of stuff to take out.
If one passenger (say 80-90kg) is making a noticeable difference to performance then something must be amiss with your car.

(one passenger doesn't affect my 1.8ltr camry...but 3 i notice).

[Morton]

Well, I reduced my 0-100 gtech time from 7.5 to 7.2 on weight saving alone. With a number of other small mods, my car now runs under 7 sec, around 6.8 - without the weight saving, I'd still be around in the low 7s.

Complete tow bar assembly = 25kg
ALL sound deadning and floor mats = 25kg
Spare and jack = 15kg
Removed front reo bar = 5kg


75kg already. That's the same as having a passenger - and you NOTICE when you have a passenger in the car. It's a LOT slower.

and then if you want to get serious and remove the air-con compressor, condensor and accumulator, there's another 15kg.
replace the bonnet and boot with carbon-fibre numbers. 15kg
replace the front seats with racing seats. 15kg

etc

[vlv8vic]

that's pretty serious though. You'd wanna have it on the track often to make it worth taking those things out.

I personally wouldn't be getting around without a spare, and use a towbar a lot!

I'm surprised you notice a 75kg mass missing. It is a tiny mass by comparison to the car. Or is that the g-tech telling you that?

[Pav]

How do you know that the sound deadener is 25kg? That seems pretty heavy don't you think? By the way, did you notice if it is noisier in the car without it?

[azkwazere]

that's pretty serious though. You'd wanna have it on the track often to make it worth taking those things out.

I personally wouldn't be getting around without a spare, and use a towbar a lot!

I'm surprised you notice a 75kg mass missing. It is a tiny mass by comparison to the car. Or is that the g-tech telling you that?

Its a simple philosophy....

Less weight + same power = faster car.

the more weight you reduce, the faster the car will go. Obviously the more the better but 75kg is heaps! Thats a whole person....

you wont feel a 0.3second drop, so naturally the g-tech told him that...

aZk.

[VSIIISU]

Yup, the yanks had it first
They first built big cars and big blocks to go racing, until they realised that if they put that big block into small car the potential is enormous.

Street Machine featured a car awhile ago, 5.7l V8 shoehorned into Datsun 1800 and the owner was thinking about putting a turbo on it.

Same pretty much goes for weight loss.

[Morton]

that's pretty serious though. You'd wanna have it on the track often to make it worth taking those things out.

I personally wouldn't be getting around without a spare, and use a towbar a lot!

I'm surprised you notice a 75kg mass missing. It is a tiny mass by comparison to the car. Or is that the g-tech telling you that?

The G-Tech told me the exact times. I used to run back up and down the Eastern at 4am to get an average of five or six runs. But I could physically feel the difference too. I notice the engine revving more easily, and the car feels happier in the mid range.

How do you know that the sound deadener is 25kg? That seems pretty heavy don't you think? By the way, did you notice if it is noisier in the car without it?

Far out man, the car is WAY nosier without it. I can hear every creak from the gearbox, and every whimper in the engine bay. I feel much more in tune with the car now, to be completely honest.

There's much more referred heat coming in from the gearbox too. I imagine the 1cm thick ashphalt around the trans tunnel was to keep out heat aswell as sound

25kg is an estimate. I kept most of it over the 2months I spent slowly hacking it out - and threw it all in a big cardboard box with the thick floor mats. Weighed in at a little over 20kg on the household scales (21 to 23? I didn't take THAT much notice. I just went "woah! over 20!"), but a fair bit of the stuff went missing over time, so I say 25.

you wont feel a 0.3second drop, so naturally the g-tech told him that...
aZk.

I gotta say, I didn't think you would feel it either - but you can. When a 75kg passenger sits in my car, I can physically feel the difference. I can feel the difference in weight shifting as I fly through the hills, under load and under braking, and I can feel the car work harder to pull up to speed.

I think using a GTech on a regular basis conditions you to the feel of speed, too. I would have done EASILY over 50-60 GTech runs in the last year and a half, and I can feel when the car is going to run a good time in the sixes, and I can feel when I'm going to botch it and run a high 7. And I'm right every time.

Ask greenfoam, he'll tell you what it's like

[greenfoam]

I'll tell you what it's like with no deadner, it's like being alive!: ), It's like the 1970's all over again. But you want to make sure the car sounds good because if it's bad it will be 15 times louder bad :P

[Steery]

you are so right greenfoam, my old ke70 was stripped with a locker. that diff whine drove me absolutely insane. so did the terrible note coming from the 2inch exhaust.

got sideways nicely though