Just removed ALL the asphalt in a 67 - all in all that was 23 kg. including the garbage bag.

Best rgs
BB

I don't know how much weight it saved, but I chopped out most of the inside of my doors - just left the handle area and the edge of the big hole to strengthen it. You'd never know if I'd fitted doorcards!
Phil's also used aluminium and titanium bolts on his car, and has race weight wings!

So if you do like them and take it ALL THE WAY how light will your pan car be?

 

Maybe he can share with us what he has done to get the weight down so far. Tekken`s pan split race car was 595 kg last year with a "heavy" turbo engine and autocraft gearbox. I do believe that is about how far you can go with a pan car.

BB

If I remember correctly the SSB was 1400lbs when it did the 11.03/122 mph run?

Oh dear I could spend some serious time on this thread!  But in brief mine is 1300lbs 590KG.  I've not drilled the main body or pan - except the jacking points which I felt were not useful as so old, and also were a wind resistance..  Everything that bolts on or removes in any way has been removed or drilled or replaced with lighter.  Just apply it to everything on the car.  Bought different handles to find the lightest, use nasty tinware as thinner, drill the ignition key/door strikers, obviously all the nuts, bolts and washers.  356 generator is the lightest - hope to sheath it in ally and ball mill the case like Porsche 550.  Cut the tops off the shocks, buy ally shocks, ally trans mounts, ally traction bar, drilled linkage/arms.  Anything you can see that comes off - remove and drill.  I love swarf!  Incidentally ally floorpan bolts save 324grams.  Drilled my headrest and seat bases.  Still looking to have the rear axle nuts made in titanium.  Also the rocker adjustment nuts.  Even bought two differing sets of front lights to choose the lightest chrome surrounds.  There's loads more but I'll be here forever and I need my pillar drill time.  Overall the car still looks roughly stock and not cut out at all.  Oh and I must mention aircraft wiring, much lighter.

Cheers ben.  By the way do you have any Scat stickers at SSP - small 2 inch?

Good thread

I lightened up the metal behind the rear side panels, just fit one up and you can see there is a lot of metal that can be removed. Put the panel back on, and no one is the wiser
Remove the center rear seat belt thing that is welded to the underside of the parcel shelf. Heavy.
Every last thing associated with the heater.
Use fiberglass, plexiglass, and aluminium liberally.

The goal for my '67 is to have it down to 1500lbs (682kg) with me in it, race weight... and NOT have it look like it has been gutted like a fish.

this is a good post.
Weren't the original cal-look cars stripped of any superfulous fat? Huh Sarge? HUH?
I see the cars that grace magazines as cal-look cars as being too complex and too fat. I think guys building cars here in the States need to work on not hanging so much "stuff" on their cars, and not yet even worry about gun-drilling and shaving weight here and there. My own car is too heavy in my opinion. I don't know what it weighs, but I have not paid enough attention to saving weight when modifying the car. Oil system alone on my car, between the big Berg sump (that I would run, no matter the weight, for engine's well being), the heavy cloth-covered-stainless braid AN-8 oil lines, the steel AN-8 fittings, the heavy Setrab cooler... I imagine it all adds 30-40lbs to the curb weight (dry). Heavy fake BRM's, heavy 205/65 tires, Berg traction bar, Berg intermediate mount, stock drums.... in an effort to make things stay put it's going to add weight. Unless I was to think before I just bolted parts on "out of the box"
If I were to re-do another hotrod approach on a Bug, I'd look for even the small places to save lbs. Take a look at Ferdinand Piech's campaign in the 1960's with the Porsche cars. Every piece of the racecars had a head engineer that was responsible to trim as much fat as they could, without jeopardizing durability. Look at a 1960's Porsche racecar.... holes everywhere. Even the ignition key. Piech demanded that the wiper switch on the dash of the 907 have its retaining nut machined down thickness wise to save 1/2 a gram or something. They resorted to beryllium for the brake rotors (ungodly expensive and dust was deadly poisonous).
Instead of impressing everybody with how much "stuff" can be hung on a car, why not impress everyone with how quickly the car goes, stops, corners, and how long your parts live?

As you have all obviously realised weight saving is certainly a way of making the most of your engine and gearbox combination, but you might just like to look at the cost benefits once you have done the obvious ditching interior, bumpers, glass and had some fun with some hole saws. Say your car weighs 1600lbs and you have 160hp that’s 10lbs per 1hp. 10lbs is easy to find when you're unbolting bumpers and the like but when your into one off fabrication of parts and exotic metals like mag, titanium, inconol and even ali its very easy to run up some nasty bills. Needless to say if you’re really going for it and budget is not an issue get stuck in to the hp chase and the weight loss program but I think there comes a point financially where you want to go back to the motor rather than the weight of the car.

Also one other thing weight loss is great for performance but its not so good for our little rear engine cars when your going through the traps at 110-120 mph on a breesy day so a bit of weight to keep the bloody things on the ground is not all bad in my book and that is coming from some one who has spent far to much money on reducing the weight of the car.

Like most things in life it’s about striking a balance, but don't let me dampen your enthusiasm with the hole saws!

Peter

I agree with you, that is why my car will have the trans raised slightly to get the car (and what little weight there is) down a little more... hopefully it will be stable enough for mid to high 11's...

On the plus side though as you add power the advantage then becomes that you can then put weight back in where you need it, mainly further forward and lower. Getting the weight out of the top of the car like the glass can only help top end stability. That said it would be a shame having bought all that titanium to bolt lead bars to the pan, drilled or not...

 

aluminium cylinders would certainly make for a lighter engine...


by the way, didn't some of the early short wheel base 911s have a  ballast in the nose for better weight distribution?

I think that's with the driver.

Mark told me that he spent some time at the auto parts store looking at headlights.  He found some that were 100% plastic.  Very difficult to find.  I've only found 1 plastic H4 over the years, and it was that odd French yellow.

Aluminium.

Saving weight has been a priority in my car too. I have only the bare necessities. It dose not looked cut up though. I left all original glass too. I did weight it all and came up with 130-140lbs I took out of it. Should be good for 2 tenths or so. We always talk about the "car" weight, well look at the beer drinkin' drivers!!! The car doesn’t go down the track by itself. I have been trying to lean down myself. Lost 20lb over a year or so. If you want your fast time slip, I vote John Rayburn as your driver!! Sorry John I couldn't resist. Casey