7t2vette
Well-known member
What about fiberglass: bumpers, wiper door, wiper door grille, side grilles, front grilles, headlight bezels, gas lid, and rear grilles!!! :thumbs:
Weight reduction: Running out of ideas.
- Thread starter 69427
- Start date
What about fiberglass: bumpers, wiper door, wiper door grille, side grilles, front grilles, headlight bezels, gas lid, and rear grilles!!! :thumbs:
vette427sbc
Well-known member
They make the wiper door (AIR piece), 68/69 need not worry about the side grilles :bounce:, front grilles for 68/69 are already feather light plastic parts :bounce:, Headlight bezels and brackets are not as heavy as everyone thinks (I just re-did all of my front end stuff)
If someone re-pro'd all the complex grilles in plastic that would be cool. Anyone with a 3D printer???
And 'glass bumpers would shed ALOT of weight too!
69427
The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
Well, I got a sudden bout of ambition, and thought I'd start into the bracket replacement work. First I needed to do some cleanup and painting on the brackets I picked up at the Kissimmee NCRS swap meet a few years ago. Problem, though. Where the eff are the brackets? Looked all over the garage multiple times, and no luck. I'll keep looking, but if I'm SOL finding them (after the move up from Florida) perhaps I can just delay the swap out until this winter and just fabricate an aluminum replacement for the cast iron piece. In the mean time I need to look at the weight thread again to see what the relative weights of these parts are.
69427
The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
I've been kicking around duplicating the front bumper in aluminum. It's not a terribly complex shape, and a bit of polishing might make it look like chrome.
MYBAD79
Moderator
Is that sheetmetal bumper really that heavy ?? I'm just wondering because that huge chrome bumper that I have on my VW (Karmann Ghia) is big but not heavy at all, it's just thin steel..... Aluminum would have to be at least twice as thick to be as "stiff" ....
But yes, it can be polished to look like chrome, get some "autosol" polish from Eastwood, I used that stuff on my bicycle when I was like 12 years old, still the best stuff money can buy.... Second in line is "satingloss" , it's not as abrasive as "autosol" but it leaves a protective wax coating on polished aluminum.....
phantomjock
Well-known member
Fiberglass with a "Chrome Wrap" from your local sign shop/wrap store?
7t9l82
Well-known member
1 inch hole saw every thing not structural. like the pontiac swiss cheese cars.
oh wait they cut the structure too
oh wait they cut the structure too
69427
The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
What's a Pontiac swiss cheese car?
Sam Cogley
Well-known member
Find a place that can do vacuum metalization and have plastic replicas of the bumpers chrome plated...
7t9l82
Well-known member
back in about 62 or 63 pontiac cut every ounce of weight out of their factory drag cars , big holes all the way front to back frame rails and all they were called by everyone the swiss cheese cars. there are pictures of them. I've seen at least one of the factory cars. wild!
7t9l82
Well-known member
JPhil
Huh?
Jeez, shitcan that radio and its components! That'll easily be 10 pounds. Just call it the "radio delete" option---a stock option. (Or, considering all the other work you're doing for a few ounces here & there, fab up a false front that looks like a radio with nothing behind it.) Get those speakers out while you have the dash open.
I too have to say, go dual mount fiberglass spring. 37 pounds there for the spring alone, I think it is. And any single mount spring should have a sway bar, the dual mount doesn't plus it's easily adjustable for spring rate.
I too have to say, go dual mount fiberglass spring. 37 pounds there for the spring alone, I think it is. And any single mount spring should have a sway bar, the dual mount doesn't plus it's easily adjustable for spring rate.
69427
The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
Speakers have been gone since I swapped the frame a few years ago. I have a spare Corvette radio that I got years ago to use as a project to swap later radio guts into the old housing. It's currently MIA from the last move, so that project has been on hold for a while.
I've got an '84 fiberglass spring in the rear, with a high rate so I don't currently need a rear bar. The front uses coilovers (very light), along with a tubular sway bar (4 pounds lighter than the previous bar).
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
I used to drag race Pontiacs in say '67-69 or so.....Swiss cheese Catalina....
had a '61 with rolled/pleated metal flake interior, fast back window, Caddy firemist RED, sold it to some outlaw chick in Texas, '70, she probably still running from the law with it.....:bump:
69427
The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
Non-tilt&telescope column weight?
Just trying to figure out a weight difference between an early C3 non-t&t column versus the t&t column (26# w/wheel) in my '69. Anyone have a non-t&t column laying around that could give me a weight number?
Thanks.
Just trying to figure out a weight difference between an early C3 non-t&t column versus the t&t column (26# w/wheel) in my '69. Anyone have a non-t&t column laying around that could give me a weight number?
Thanks.
mrvette
Phantom of the Opera
OK, digital scale, I weighed myself 224.8 lbs.....picked up the fixed column from my '72 with a upper/lower casting...bare....240 even.....
now that don't include any of the horn button/wheel...much less mounting ring for the wheel on to the stem....or ign sw....or any wiring/sw....course I could maybe blow 5 lbs of dust off it.....:devil::crutches:
best I can do man....
now that don't include any of the horn button/wheel...much less mounting ring for the wheel on to the stem....or ign sw....or any wiring/sw....course I could maybe blow 5 lbs of dust off it.....:devil::crutches:
best I can do man....
68/70Vette
Well-known member
First of all, Vette Brake Products used to offer a front composite spring...am I wrong? ......I think it's been discontinued.
About rear suspension sway bars. These sway bars do a great job of negating understeer, as I understand it. Good for track moto cross racing from what I've read. However, for street and freeway driving, understeering is your friend for a high performance car. If you're driving on street or freeway driving, and you light up the rear tires, you can easily get into an oversteer situation ...aka spin out.
My 70 project car, ...I keep putting money into it...maybe some day it'll be on the road with about 600 hp. Don't want any oversteer at all and the car will not have a rear sway bar...One reason is that the Tom's Differential offset trailing arms don't have provisions for the sway bar. (Their more recent offset trailing arms do.)
About oversteer with a lot of HP. In January of this year, leaving Edwards Air Force Base, I transitioned from west bound Rosemont Blvd to the south bound Antelope Valley Frwy. I was mentally disconnected and daydreaming and listening to my Sirius radio. I pulled onto the freeway behind a tractor trailer doing about 55 mph. The speed limit is 70 mph. I wanted to pass the tractor trailer, but a car was slowly approaching from behind in the passing lane. Being impatient, I did what was a normal and reasonable thing for my DD 97 Thunderbird. ...Day dreaming, I forgot that I was not driving the 97 Tbird. I floorboarded the gas pedal and made a hard left hand turn to pull into the lane to pass the tractor trailer...........BAD MISTAKE.. I was not driving the DD... I was driving my supercharged 08 C6!
I immediately began violently fishtailing from the oversteer effect, initially out of control yawing left and right. I came probably up to about 1 1/2 feet of colliding with the rear left had corner of the trailer...the trailer corner was heading right for my windshield.
I'm a big fan of suspension artifacts that add understeer to high performance street cars. For me, if you're planning on running a high performance, high HP, C3, get rid of the rear sway bar. You'll get all the oversteer effects you need from you engine HP alone. When I had the suspension set up on my 68 by Dick Guildstrand a few years ago, I re-iterated this litany. He had no objections to my rationale.
Sam Cogley
Well-known member
69427
The Artist formerly known as Turbo84
Was at a track day at Topeka yesterday. At tech inspection I wandered over to the scales to take advantage of the opportunity. Car was 2895#, with 1357# on the rear when I moved the front axles off the scale. Looks like I got a 53/47 percent f/r weight distribution. I realize there was minimal fuel in the tank, as I hadn't added any since the last autocross a few weeks ago, but I was surprised at that much difference in the f/r ratio. I put five gallons of fuel in the car for each session but that doesn't affect the ratio that much.
The car ran well. Tons of brake entering the corners, the high speed corners were very comfortable, with just a touch of understeer to keep things from getting scary, but the slow, sharp corners were very disappointing. I think I need to spend some time over the winter increasing the front camber gain. Last year I had changed the UCA pivot height to try to help keep the tires more upright to help the braking process, but I think that I may have lost more in corner exit speed than I gained in better braking into the corners. I think I'll modify the UCA mount over the winter to get back to the old height, and also allow a larger range of caster than I can presently get. I presently have two options in the mount for anti-dive, and I'll probably duplicate that also to have the future option of playing with that.
Still planning on welding up an aluminum trans crossmember this winter, and also swap the original four speed back in. That ought to take about 30 pounds off the car, but the location of these two items won't improve the f/r ratio noticeably. (It will raise the vehicle c/g a touch. :cussing: )
The car ran well. Tons of brake entering the corners, the high speed corners were very comfortable, with just a touch of understeer to keep things from getting scary, but the slow, sharp corners were very disappointing. I think I need to spend some time over the winter increasing the front camber gain. Last year I had changed the UCA pivot height to try to help keep the tires more upright to help the braking process, but I think that I may have lost more in corner exit speed than I gained in better braking into the corners. I think I'll modify the UCA mount over the winter to get back to the old height, and also allow a larger range of caster than I can presently get. I presently have two options in the mount for anti-dive, and I'll probably duplicate that also to have the future option of playing with that.
Still planning on welding up an aluminum trans crossmember this winter, and also swap the original four speed back in. That ought to take about 30 pounds off the car, but the location of these two items won't improve the f/r ratio noticeably. (It will raise the vehicle c/g a touch. :cussing: )
