Official Grand Am Weight Reduction Thread

[Ridenour]

Alright guys... I've decided to make an official weight reduction thread. I use to be into weight reduction hardcore back in the day, and sharing all that info to grandamdriver52 got me back into it. So lets think of items and it's weight that can come out of our babies. I'm going along with the general idea that we don't want our cars looking like gutted drag-cars, so I'm gonna stick with generally not effecting appearance too much, but feel free to post up anything that will save weight. Oh, and I'm only gonna be posting free weight reduction, because I'm a starving (soon-to-be) college student, obviously - So... let's "add some lightness"! I'll start:

steel plates in doors (2) - 4
intake resonator - 2
stock airbox / ramair shroud when upgrading intake - 6
childseat anchor plates (2) - 15
sound deadening - 20
tar mats / fiberglass blankets - 20
Spare tire (doughnut) - 30
Spare tire jack - 15
Rear floor mats (2) - 4
Front floor mats (2) - 6
A/C - 35
Back speakers (2) - 15
Front quarterpanel spkers. (2) - 10
Useless shit in trunk that you probably have in there - 10
Useless shit in console / glovebox that you never use - 5

Ok, so far that's roughly 135 pounds

[Hoags]

Hey Ride,

The one thing you forgot...Have the driver evacuate prior to getting in the car...HAHAHA.
Just kidding.

Thank you for the list I'm sure it will help a lot of people making the cheapest mods possible. In today's economy every penny saved will help with wirh the costly nods.

Thanks again,
Dan

[Forkliftguy]

Gotta add going to acrylic or lexan windowsI figured out I could shave almost 200lbs if I convert all my windows, we have a supplier at work that converts all are heavy equipment so I'm in the works of figuring out prices, so far I could probably have it done for under a 1000 bucks based on what we get charged. Real cool!!!

Marc

[frekey]

how bout the hood? Is there a replacement carbon fibre or fibreglass? And does anyone know how much they weigh?

[muzzy1maniac]

Spare tire around my waist - 35lbs

Wow that'd be pretty good!!

[mcbeefer]

so how much does the weight reduction reduce lets say the 0-60 times just rough guess, oh yeah the back seats remove and install really easy in my 99 if you dont plan on an passangers

[Ridenour]

Originally Posted by Hoags

Hey Ride,

The one thing you forgot...Have the driver evacuate prior to getting in the car...HAHAHADan

LOL So true - take a run to the bathroom, and don't wear any clothes or shoes - that's about 10 pounds right there!

Marc, you gotta keep us filled in on the windows - 200 pounds is great

Frekey, yeh there's a couple hoods available.

www.rsmracing.com
www.pfyc.com - i think has another carbon fiber
www.rksport.com - has a carbon fiber I'm pretty sure

most carbon fiber or fiberglass hoods will save you roughly 40 pounds over a stock hood

and here's an interesting site I found with a bunch of fiberglass parts - made for our cars for track cars - i think most of them could be made to work with ours; check it out

http://www.vfnfiberglass.com/0102grandam.htm

LoL muzzy maniac - yeh deffinately weight reduction can start with one's self - some people could easily save 100 pounds right there

wasn't there a post on here asking about racing seats and a different roof? I thought I saw it, but it seems to have been deleted. Well I was going to say, sparco and some other companies make great racing seats for our cars, and you'd be saving about 25 pounds each, for 50 pounds total. The only problem is that a set usually costs 400 to 600 $$. LoL. And as far as the roof, that link I put up above might work for that - you could get a fiberglass roof from them - and that's where it matters most - weight way up there can dramatically affect your handling.

Ok, so between the windows, the hood, and the racing seats, the back seats (20 pounds mcbeefer) that's another 310 pounds. Added to what I said earlier, that brings our grand total of lightness-adding up to 445 pounds! Keep it going

Oh yeh, and to answer your question Mcbeefer, I'll do my best. Ok, this is going to take a little bit of math. My car right now runs 15.5 1/4 mile @ 87 MPH , and 9.9 1/8 mile @ 71 MPH. Using the 0-60 calculator here http://www.sjdsm.com/tech/0_60_calc.htm, and timing it myself my car has ran almost exactly 7 seconds 0 to 60 every time.

So, if we say that removing 300 pounds from my vehicle as-is will bring my 1/4 mile time down to 15.2, (assuming that 100 pds is good for about .1 sec, general rule of thumb on cars our size), we can say that the ratio of my 1/8 mile time to my 1/4 mile time will stay the same. So 9.9 / 15.5 = 0.638. So keeping it proportionate, if my new 1/4 mile time with the 300 pound loss is 15.3, then my new 1/8 mile time would be roughly 9.76. These calculations are all very general obviously, as they don't account for such varying factors like different exponentially changing drag coefficients, different gear ratios, launch spin, air temperature, ect. There's just too many variables to make a precise calculation. So, using our new 1/8 mile time of 9.76 on my vehicle after the 300 pound loss, and plugging the numbers back in, we would find out that the 0 to 60 has gone from 7 seconds to roughly 6.25 seconds. So on our cars, with all the factors roughly considered, a 300 pound loss would decrease the 0 to 60 time by 0.75 seconds.

[Forkliftguy]

That same rule of thumb also states "every 100lbs shaved is the equivalent of gaining 10hp". So it would be like gaining 45HP! In theory it would be as if my little 2.4 was pumping 195hp! And yes I'll keep up to date on the windows.

Marc

[Knifeblade]

Sorry, guys, I just can't resist!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop driving the g/f around!!!!!!!!!

LMAO

[Forkliftguy]

HAHAHA! That's funny because I told my wife that I am no longer letting her friend tag along 'cause I lose 25hp and she upsets the balance of my car. That was really mean of me, but she's a bitch. So I don't feel to badly. Actually I have a harsher name for her but I'll refrain...

Side note: Usually I'm not this cruel and I know "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything", but this girl has done some awfull things, I keep telling my wife to dump her from the "friends" list, but my wife is just to damn kind. So please don't judge my character.

LOL Marc

[Ridenour]

LOL! OMG I totally hear you guys! I was giving one of my (girl)friends a ride in my car a few months ago, and then another one wanted to come too, so I let her sit in the back, but I told them "you know... you two are killin my power to weight ratio" and then they asked what that was and I had to give them a very basic rundown of the basics of physics - and I took them both for a ride none-the-less, and lemmee tell ya, with about 300 pounds extra of woman-flesh in my car, my acceleration sucked! LoL - that was a great line to use Marc. Next time anyone I don't like wants to ride with me, I'll just do the mental math of their weight, and tell them roughly how much HP I will be loosing because of them

[Forkliftguy]

It's true! It's like my car still accelerates pretty good when it's just me and my wife (she a thin girl), so I can handle that... But her friend weighs 250lbs. I tell ya if she had more friends like that and I had to give em all a ride, I'd have like.....0HP

This is turning into a bad thread....see what ya started Knifeblade . You took ride's perfectly innocent thread and turned in to this, eh, come on now...LOL


Marc

[muzzy1maniac]

Run on a 1/2 tank of gas or less. I know water runs roughly 8lbs per gallon so I figure gas should be pretty close behind. That should knock off say 40lbs...?

[Ridenour]

LOL yeh no kiddin tam, you bastard!

Yeh muzzy, gasoline does weigh a lot. It's actually 6.7 pounds / gallon, so a 1/2 tank in my car is roughly 50 pounds. I try to run it 1/4 to 1/8 tank if I know that I'll be racing, other then that, I try to never really fill above 3/4.

[Forkliftguy]

I track my fuel mileage so I have to fill it up otherwise I don't get an accurate reading. I currently average 11.61L/100KM, or 24.33M/IMPG (Canada). 20.26M/USG for you US guys. Damn I'm anal.

Marc