ST Project update: Can you lightweight?

[jpnovak]

I knew you could.

One of the goals of my project was to shave some weight off the car. This was accomplished by using fiberglass panels instead of steel, substituting Al parts where noted (cross member, trailing arms), sparten interior and the other usual methods of shaving pounds off the car. this was no South Beach Diet but a carefully executed method.

Last night I was finishing up the suspension setup that I started a week ago.

ST project update: How low can you go?!

When I got home from work there was a nice big box that said Deco Precision Tools on it. That's right the wheel load checker arrived. In my haste to remove it from the living room I quickly opened the pocket knife and started opening the box on the way to the garage. It took two seconds to assemble and I was ready to do my first crude check at corner balance. (I say crude here because I had not yet set the car level, installed ballast weight in the driver seat, nor had I inserted the proper paper feeler guage for accurate measurement.)

It has been posted in the past that this method of checking corner balance is fairly accurate. It will be more than enough to keep me inside the confidence limits of a home track car.

I checked the four corners and found that each front wheel had 240 # and the rear was 640# and 660# (driver, pass resp.) What is my point to all this babbling?

The car is still missing the lights, door panels, carpet and one seat and only has about 2 gallons of gas. Otherwise, it is farily complete with all other fluds, full cage and even spare tire. I estimate the remaining parts to be less than 100# of excess bagage.

This means the total projected weight for my car is about 1880 Pounds! (1780 measured + misc items).

I am so stoked! My goal was to be under 2K# and I have a safe margin to work with.

With the carb'd 3.0 this car will absolutely FLY!

I just wanted to share my joy!

[Shuie]

Nice work Jamie! WOW! 1880lbs is SWB featherweight territory isn't it? Was the R even that lite?

[thrown_hammer]

Amazing! I am shooting for sub 2,200. Very nice.

[jpnovak]

Sherman, I think the R was near that weight. I don't remember exactly. It still less than I was expecting. I think the 912R that was in Excellence last year was less than 1800 and it was all steel! Maybe I need to find a SWB car next.

Of course, The weights could be all wrong. Teh only thing that really counts is that I can repeatably measure the 4 corners on the same scale for comparison.

[304065]

911R = 1835 pounds, 210 HP = 8.73 lb/hp

'98 993 Turbo = 8.27 lb/ hp
SC/RS 8.67 lb/ hp

Heh heh heh.

[CJFusco]

this is exactly the kind of performance modification people SHOULD be doing.

[Luke Hudson]

Blimey 854kgs?????

You’re going to need to add some tie-downs to each corner to strap the car down in a strong wind!!!

Congrats!!! You have the Kate Moss of Porches!!!

(Just in case Kate Moss didn’t make it to the States, she was a very beautiful, very very skinny super model)

[jpnovak]

Luke that is pretty funny. yes I know who Kate Moss is. Maybe with the kate Moss of Porsche and the skills of Stirling Moss I could make some decent times around the track. Time will tell.

John, I guess I have something to shoot for. Quick guess using 200Hp gives me about 9.4:1. Anything near 9:1 is pretty darn good. I guess I need to install those 98mm RSR pistons and some hot cams ASAP. Of course, Lighter is better. Besides, I need to learn to drive this beast before I add more power.

[jpnovak]

Gratuitous bump for the afternoon crowd