Light weight interior??????

Gumba11 · 03-31-2005, 11:26 PM

Hey all,

I am curious where I can find a light weight interior for my car. I have RSA door panels and am interested in doing the early 70s style rubber runners from front to back in the left and right floor pans. Out side of that rubber is a very tight knit almost felt like material that covers everything else including the unused seat wells in the back of the car.

Any help here???

Thanks in advance...............................C 77 930 with all the goodies! (But interior) LOL

Porschekid962 · Porschekid962's Garage

You mean the perlon felt interior kits that are made by Appbiz and sold by our host? What rubber are you talking about?

sidenote: have you gotten rid of your AC, big battery for a lightweight one, huge washer bottle and replaced it with the camelback bladder type? Those are the big easy ones then you have FG bumpers, that huge and heavy rear package tray with tons of heavy sound deadening underneath that is pretty easy to remove. Then lightweight seats, ton of weight there, stereo, that doesnt make the car faster but adds weight chuck that too!

How much weight do you want to shave, what comforts can you give up, how much do you want to spend?

andyjboy · 04-01-2005, 12:55 AM

The felt-type material is called Perlon.

RS LWT carpet sets are available from a number of Porsche trim suppliers including Bob Breshears @ Appbiz :

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7965065754&category=33697

Incidentally these carpet sets are available from our host.

Tim Hancock · 04-01-2005, 03:35 AM

The PLUSH RS carpet kits are very light also (at least the ones from Original Fit Interiors are, I assume Appbiz are the same). Much thinner, lighter than the original carpet that came in my SC.

Fishcop · Fishcop's Garage

Heaviest interior items are your seats... Consider replacing them with light-weight racing versions for a significant reduction.

Tspringer · 04-01-2005, 05:25 AM

On my '69 911S hotrod, I went with RS door panels, the perlon felt carpet kit and Corbeau GT8 seats. The door panels weigh about 3lb together. The entire carpet kit is about 3-4lb and each seat is 17lb. I also totally stripped out all of the undercoating and sound deadening materials from the entire interior area. BIG job, very nasty. But the giant black trashbag full of that crud weighed at least 50lb!

I figure my overall interior now including seats weighs in at about 50lb. The original interior including sound insulation crap was probably 185lb or so.

The perlon RS felt carpet kit also looks really great in the car! It is just "right". I also find that the interior noise without the engine sound pad nor any of the sound insulation is not horrible and I have a twin outlet sport muffler. It just sounds GOOD.

Of course my wife feels differently, and she pretty much refuses to ride in the car. Im not sure if thats the sound or the fact that the one time she rode in it on the track she almost puked!

Gumba11 · 04-01-2005, 07:12 AM

"sidenote: have you gotten rid of your AC, big battery for a lightweight one, huge washer bottle and replaced it with the camelback bladder type? Those are the big easy ones then you have FG bumpers, that huge and heavy rear package tray with tons of heavy sound deadening underneath that is pretty easy to remove. Then lightweight seats, ton of weight there, stereo, that doesnt make the car faster but adds weight chuck that too!"

Already have done all this and more including all lexan windows but the front windshield. Trying to think of more weight savings still.

Thanks for the info guys!!!

.................................................C

Porschekid962 · Porschekid962's Garage

Oh you want to save some more weight? Well then have you checked out all the lightweight threads that have gone on within the forum? If not you really should do a search and take a look, some pretty cool stuff. Other items that come to mind would be R lights, plastic door handles, sunroof in FG if you have one, front hoood, fenders, the driver(hey losing a few pounds is never a bad thing unless youve got 6% body fat already). After all that then you really get into the nitty gritty stuff. Good luck and one thing on the perlon carpet kit, if you go with black I would suggest having a rear package tray/parcel shelf made and covered with vinyl, the carpet fades to a grey/yellow in the sun after a while and looks pretty ugly. My dads package tray is simply to pieces of 8th inch ply backed with the aluminized heat padding then one thin layer of foam on top covered with black vinyl, cant weigh more than two pounds and it looks sharp.

randywebb · 04-01-2005, 10:23 AM

As several have suggested, this is more cosmetic than a big wt. saver... Check out the "Interior" section of my wt. compilation on Thom's web site - rennlight.com

It includes such arcana as the lower wt. and mass density of the Boxster mats vs. the early 911 ones....

There are more ideas there and in the thousands of posts on this topic. Take a look at the articles cited in my Model Comparisons doc - also on Thom's page and at Rgruppe.org - for more ideas. Jim Calzia has set the standard. Grant G's car is another well developed approach. If you did both types of things, your car could become even lighter than either. Excl. published a short letter I wrote on this in one issue, but as I recall it wasn't real specific.

This may make sense considering where your car is now interms of things done. Pay special attention to the top and the rear of the car.

There are also things that would make a lot of sense but that no one has done. One is to make the engine carrier out of something strong but light, so far people have only drilled holes in it - that lets in dirt.

AND! if you have new ideas or new and accurate wt. measurements, be sure to post them for everyone else's benefit.