Quote:
Originally Posted by ADDvanced
Nah man, do whatever you want.
It's all compromises. For a track build, I totally get it, but for a street car? Hrm. I mean, are you gutting the interior? No carpet? Polycarb windows? Aluminum race seats with no padding? No heater/blower/defrost? **** it, take out the wipers too.
At a certain point, you have the comforts of a race car with the performance of not a race car at all. I'm a fan of OEM+. Not a purist, but I definitely have noticed diminishing returns in some of my previous builds.
Drilling out the doors will save you what.... maybe 3lbs per door? I doubt you'll notice 6lbs. Again, build it how you want, but it looks like even if you didn't change anything and you still have a ton of work ahead. I'd want to get it out on the road asap. :P
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i get it. i really do.
i will be running pretty much a complete interior, RS carpet and all. one day, i'll strip the interior to bare metal and paint it nicely. at that point, i'd be more inclined to do away with carpet...but no promises. the HVAC system has been pared back to almost nil. backdated heat with the only controls being the lever that controls the heaterboxes. i'll be plumbing the heat up to the windscreen with the option to split it to the footwells. but that's it.
factory early sport seats. not the most spartan of seating arrangements, but they're decently light and should be very comfortable for long hours in the seat.
it is getting polycarb for 4 of the triangle windows in the doors and the rear quarters. ironically, not for weight, but for the ability to modify them. more on that later.
ha! i thought about the wipers after picking up the wiper trans/motor assembly. but i've had a car without washers before and that was terrible. not enough Rain-X in all of North America for me to put up with that again. especially as i intend to drive the car across two countries.
here's the thing tho. the things i will not compromise on (wipers, washers, and moving windows to start) all come with their own (however slight) weight penalties. so if i can offset those penalties with 1, 2, or 6 pound savings elsewhere, it helps me feel better about adding the weight back in. it's worth mentioning the state of my car right now. none of this stuff is in there. so it feels like i'm adding weight installing ANYTHING at all. i can assure you, if the car was a complete driver, i'd be less motivated to pull it apart to try to save a few ounces here and there. Once it's together and i can drive it to work, i will not want to take it apart. i'll only want to drive it. we all know that weight savings is a game of grams/ounces. there comes a point where you're after a few grams here and there knowing that they all add up [eventually] to pounds. sure there are some low-hanging fruit that i've skipped. but those are easy to do later. bumpers and hoods and decklids can be changed in an evening after work. now is my opportunity to do the tedious, labor-intensive weight reductions and know that they'll be a part of a bigger package once the FG panels start finding their way onto the car.