The 3000GT diet?

I love everything about the 3000gt and I cannot wait to drive one, but the one thing that worries me is the cars excessive weight. It comes in at almost 600lbs more than a supra! I know the AWD system adds some weight but not that much! What makes it so heavy, and what could I do to reduce that weight?

I love everything about the 3000gt and I cannot wait to drive one, but the one thing that worries me is the cars excessive weight. It comes in at almost 600lbs more than a supra! I know the AWD system adds some weight but not that much! What makes it so heavy, and what could I do to reduce that weight?

get rid of the A/C, rug, sound denting, all inerior panells, radio, passenger and back seat, gut the trunk, pull the glove box out, replace the glass with lexan and go on a diet yourself...there, that should lighten things up an bit. oh and when you are done dropping like 300 lbs off your car youll still only be like 2 tenths of a second faster. good luck.

That 300lbs would alow for more than 2/10 of a sec IMO
After this you could also look to remove the electric suspension and replace it with a light weight race spec type that'll save you another 20lbs or so across the car, then look to the drive train itself, lighten the prop, fly and pulley. Chop your drivers seat in for a lightweight bucket type that'll save over 30lbs itself! Bonnet for a carbon or plastic replacement.

If after all that you're still wanting to keep going take her to a professional race company have a 12 point ally roll cage and let thhem take the un needed panels and braces out with an angle grinder.
Now add the ladders and strut bars and back to the pro's again for another grinder diet.
Ditch ya wheels for some lighter weight ones and thats pretty much it mate

Point is is it worth it??

Throw 3 grand at her get:
* stainless hiflow manifolds
* stainless hiflow 3" elbows
* stainless hiflow 3" downpipe with decat
* stainless hiflow 3" mid and rear exhaust no additional boxes
* FMIC kit inc pipes
* Stock turbo's upgraded to Stg3(exchange)
* Upgrade fuel pump
* 550cc injectors
* Apexi SAFC
* Hiflow airfilter

Those little mods should sort out the worry of weight with the new concern for your life!!

I love everything about the 3000gt and I cannot wait to drive one, but the one thing that worries me is the cars excessive weight. It comes in at almost 600lbs more than a supra! I know the AWD system adds some weight but not that much! What makes it so heavy, and what could I do to reduce that weight?


wtf? i can see that you did your research. The vr-4 only weighs around 200 lbs more than the supra. With the extra weight, you get all wheel drive and a couple other toys. The spyders dont even weigh 600 lbs more than the supras.

wtf? i can see that you did your research. The vr-4 only weighs around 200 lbs more than the supra. With the extra weight, you get all wheel drive and a couple other toys. The spyders dont even weigh 600 lbs more than the supras.

I am talking about the Mk4s not the oldschool supras, the mk4s weighen in at 3200lbs the old jza80 powerd supras weighed 3500lbs.

I have heard that I the steel body it the source of alot of the 3000GTs weight is that true??

I am talking about the Mk4s not the oldschool supras, the mk4s weighen in at 3200lbs the old jza80 powerd supras weighed 3500lbs.

The JZA80 is the mkIV Supra!! The MA70, GA70 & 1GZ(1JZ) were all the MKIII!!!!

MkIV TT weighed in at 3564lbs

The JZA80 is the mkIV Supra!! The MA70, GA70 & 1GZ(1JZ) were all the MKIII!!!!

MkIV TT weighed in at 3564lbs

I thought the mk4 has the 2jz-GTE in it, or was that only on the Japanese virsions? Correct me if I am wrong. And the non turbo weighs in at 3200lbs the TT weighs in at 3400lbs according to Edmonds.com anyway. Well whatever the case I would still like to drop the weight a bit, so any advice would be useful.

my car wieghts around 3200. thats not as heavy as people make it out to be.

my vr4 is 3870 stock. With my subs/box I am well over 4000 lbs in my car, but still whoop up on anything that's tried to race me.

You have to include driver weight. Some people might be only 130lbs, and others are pushing 280+. Thats a big diffference, not to mention the fact that some people have excess stuff like gateway mentioned(subs, misc. crap). It all boils down to whether you want a track car or a street car. And even then, cars can be 4000lbs or more and still run really, really fast. Ask anyone who owns a 3S. These cars are damn heavy, but with the right mods and tuning, you'll be outrunning plenty of supra's.

And if you wanted to reduce the weight, I'd say dump the chassis and get a go-kart :p

Lightnings are fat pigs too and you dont hear people bitchin about there weight. Cobras are fatasses as well. The TT 3s doesnt weigh that much more than alot of its "enemys" even with its AWD.

there are 2 lightnings in my area. i dont even wanna talk bout it. easy put.. there quick

Yea the 93-98 supras had the 2jz-GE and 2jz-GTE engines in them, but the body style is called the jza80. sorry about the confusion. BTW I am not thinking of trying to make a vr4 into a dragster I want to lighten it up to where it can outcorner the supra. The late model 3000GTs corner at .90g and the MklV supra corners at .98g.

The gt will outdo the supra it all depends on the driver IMO

If thats all you want then do basic lightening and then turn your attention to the suspension system

well, definitely drop weight, but tighten things up a bit, rollcage, strut bars, upgraded roll bars... there's plenty of things to keep the cars planted... and the weight of the subs in my car kept the rear end planted better (I am driving a SOHC though)

MK4 Supra Curb Weight 3515 lbs
2nd Gen 3000GT Curb Weight 3760 lbs

MK4 Supra skid pad. 0.94
2nd Gen 3000GT skid pad 0.90

Words of advice for suspesion tuning - do as much reseach as possible. Just lowering your car or "tightening" it up can easily decrease performance or give the car undesirable handling characteristics by changing the geomerty of the suspension. Recently I have been helping/learning to design suspensions on a small formula style car, and its truly a black art. Also know that wieght never keeps u more planted (except for rear weight transfer when lauching on a RWD car, doesn't really apply for 3/s). Sticky tires are nice too.

Well, my rear end tends to slide out... maybe my alignment needs to be fixed, maybe I've just got bad suspension... maybe that's what I get for buying a car from a mechanic (lots of goodies from him too though)... I do have one tire that happens to be the wrong size... it's skinnier than all the rest....

The thing with weight and traction is they don't increase linearly. If you keep adding weight over a wheel traction increases but it begins to level off. For example if you have 200lbs over a tire and you add 50lbs the increase is greater than if you had 500lbs over a wheel and you add 50lbs. But the relationship between the conering force needed to hold traction and wieght is linear. So with increased wieght you need more conering force but your traction doesn't increase at the same rate.

I could see how the box might affect the under/oversteer balance, but overall its hurts ur conering performance. Plus there are far better ways to balance the handling than adding weight like adjusting the ARB stiffness is a good start. That skinny tire might not be good either. When I had my DOHC N/A 3k it always felt pretty nuetral with some understeer at the limit. Although one time i came in way too hot on an on ramp that quickly tightened up on me and i had the car sideways. Luckily it didn't end up in the guardrail.

True boost... I know that the overall weight of the vehicle will cause the performance to drop... as the box does drop my top end 20+mph... though that sucks... when do I ever have the car at 140 around a corner?... also my car is lighter than the DOHC... so that has saved a bit of weight... the manufacturer says the curb weight is 3076 lbs... still heavy as piss for the stock 164 hp... though lets be for real (w/o my system) I've dropped some weight, some there in the driveline itself, lightweight flywheel, dropped a/b 30 lbs from the overall weight (that's what Fidanza says, from a/b 45lb to 11)...
Also, to my understanding... you can put the front strut bar (~$100 off e-bay) and that'll tighten up the front end...

Recently I have been helping/learning to design suspensions on a small formula style car, and its truly a black art. Sticky tires are nice too.

True'ish, if you really want to setup properly you need a fully adjustable suspension, toe bars torsion and tension rods and lower arms, Pillow mounts front and rear, then......
start looking at the KPI angle, then your toe, caster and camber angles which are now fully adjustable due to the setup
Only at this pointwill you really be able to say you have sorted your suspension however it is expensive to do, I have already helped design a system for the 200sx S13's to allow for a good track setup, and believe me its not easy.

The parts that are out there for the GT's are pretty good and for the price work well together, that includes the sway bars and strut braces.

Struts braces are a good nonexpensive start after springs and or shocks and are a great for a start in racing. Once you hit the lines of ladder bars you really need to be thinking about pro setup as tightening them to far will produce a positive camber that will adversly affect the handling ie make it crap!

In short if you have the money get it set by the pro's if not then stick to anti roll bars, poly brushes, strut bars and sport suspensions, tbh for most peeps this will be enough

People pay wayyyyy too much attention to the weight issue. The whole power to weight ratio thing does matter but this gutting your car and making it lighter means making it faster crap got started by Civic drivers who had no other way of justifying why in the world they bought a 1.6 SOHC and boosted it. Thier only ressort was to say "well my car is lighter.
You gotta understand that power to weight dossent mean a thing unless the difference is great, as in a 500lbs difference. you start gutting your car you'l only pull off about 150 lbs. thats not even worth the difference in speed compared to how ugly your car will look.

look man take it from someone who has actually gutted a car. My old eclipse ran 14.8. that was a base model DOHC with a turbo conversion. I gutted the car's trunk, removed spare and all that stuff, Removed rear seat, A/C and heater (that includes compressor and all the lines) took off the rug and scrapped the sound denting off, removed ellectric seat belt motors and all the hardware for the seat belt slide and even took the pasenger seat off when I got to the track. all together I took out 230 lbs from the car. you wanna know how fast I ran? 14.6! big woop.
my car looked like it was out of a junk yard and for what?

as far as suspension goes, i've added front and rear sway bars (anti-roll bars) made by Addco (purchased from 3sxperformance.com). also i have a front strut tower bar...3-point design, which is a much better design than simply connecting the two strut towers (2-point design). add to that a LSD insert, and the car handles like a beauty.

i could care less about weight. i can now take my car thru the corners around 5-10mph faster. understeer is gone, perhaps just a bit oversteer. i can no longer throw the rear end out...the car just sticks adn hugs the turn. of course, every suspension setup on any car has its limits, and when you find those limits (i.e. go just beyond the handling capabilities of your car through a given turn), lets just hope you don't nail a curb/guardrail or screw it up.

good luck in modding, but as far as suspension goes, i would stiffen your ride before dropping weight.

I'm not at all suggesting that weight cutting is the solution to handling problems, all I said was adding weight doesn't make your car "stick" better, which is a common misconception I've seen people make before. Or when you hear guys just putting lowering springs in their car and now thier suspenion arms are pitched at an angle they were never designed to move through. But weight loss never hurt anyone.
That tenth of a second could be the difference in a close race.

But maybe I hate weight so much because when in a competition where power is restricted and regulated the only advantage you have over the other guy is less weight and a great set-up. One of my team mates was so excited he saved 2 lbs. on rod ends over last years car....2 lbs.

LOL^^^^^

But 2lbs in a restricted race as you say is huge really.

IMO before you light weight the GT's you gotta remember why you bought it, it wasn't just for the exterior look and power it was cos the interior is stunning and stupendously comfortable and lets face it the ladies love it.
So why woulkd you really want to rip it all out for the sake of a few 1/10's?? could you really live without the luxury????


I couldn't

First the MKIV weights 3400 ( I know this because my freind is the bigest supra distributer in the united states and UK, his name is Dusty Womack owns MVPMotorSports and has a MKIV with 1089HP the the wheels, you can see his car in many magazines like sport compact so dont argue that one with me) now depending on year the 3000gt varied in weight the 1st gen was the lightest version of the car. weighing in around 3600-3700lbs

now one of the best ways to loose alot of weight is to get light weight rims. I weighed my stock rims at 55 LBS A PEICE!!!!!! now I went and bought some Volks that weighed 18 lbs a peice (forged alum.) Thats a 145 lb drop on the car, not to mention the rotating mass...

the next thing you can do is get carbonfiber body parts, the makers of the 3000gt put alot of metal parts on this car... you can drop 70 lbs easy just from the hood.

and annother thing I did was gut the truck and pulled the cargo cover over it so no one could see... Im not into the panels in the front...

Then you can get sparco seats that have a massive weight drop over the stock seats...

IMO before you light weight the GT's you gotta remember why you bought it, it wasn't just for the exterior look and power it was cos the interior is stunning and stupendously comfortable and lets face it the ladies love it.
So why woulkd you really want to rip it all out for the sake of a few 1/10's?? could you really live without the luxury????
I couldn't

I bought it for power and power only and nothing else :P when I went to buy my car I had no idea what the interior looked like... all I could think about was "V6 Twin Turbo AWD" a car with power and great handling.
and it makes me mad because no one ever upgrades a VR4... I never see them in any magazines because no one ever even trys to go beyond exhuast and intake... So I thought I would be the one to do it... Once I get my brakes and suspension my freind is going make some calls to see if I can get some magazine coverage on my car, mabey that will influence some other 3/s owners to go beyond that.

First the MKIV weights 3400 ........

now one of the best ways to loose alot of weight is to get light weight rims. I weighed my stock rims at 55 LBS A PEICE!!!!!! now I went and bought some Volks that weighed 18 lbs a peice (forged alum.) Thats a 145 lb drop on the car, not to mention the rotating mass...


3400 pre 96', 3600 post 96'

You must have weighed your stock wheels with the tires on them. I shipped all 4 stock wheels, 2 per box, with all the packing and heavy duty boxes and the total weight of each of boxes was right around 65 lbs. 17 and 18" tires weight in between 28 and 36 lbs each for a street radial.

First the MKIV weights 3400 ( I know this because my freind is the bigest supra distributer in the united states and UK, his name is Dusty Womack owns MVPMotorSports and has a MKIV with 1089HP the the wheels, you can see his car in many magazines like sport compact so dont argue that one with me) now depending on year the 3000gt varied in weight the 1st gen was the lightest version of the car. weighing in around 3600-3700lbs

now one of the best ways to loose alot of weight is to get light weight rims. I weighed my stock rims at 55 LBS A PEICE!!!!!! now I went and bought some Volks that weighed 18 lbs a peice (forged alum.) Thats a 145 lb drop on the car, not to mention the rotating mass...

the next thing you can do is get carbonfiber body parts, the makers of the 3000gt put alot of metal parts on this car... you can drop 70 lbs easy just from the hood.

and annother thing I did was gut the truck and pulled the cargo cover over it so no one could see... Im not into the panels in the front...

Then you can get sparco seats that have a massive weight drop over the stock seats...

Its a known fact first gen 3s's were heavier than second gen 3/s's. Also as talskinyguy said the stock wheels dont weigh 55lbs. Maybe with the tire but not by themselves. The hood weighs 70lbs so you can drop about 50 with aftermarket, not 70 unless you run no hood.;) And by gutting your trunk you saved what 10 lbs?

92VR4Red might be embellishing, but reducing unsprung weight is one of the best ways to improve handling. Less energy spend moving parts up and down means more time in contact with the ground which mean better traction.

The other thing is removing mass from the outer edges of the car so they have less moment of enertia (think mid-engine car). Yanking stuff out of the truck and lightening the hood helps there are well.

I personally am not a big fan of messing with the passenger compartment and it really does not make a big difference from a handling perspective.

Those 2 changes will probably have one of the more positive affects on understeer/oversteer and your ability to compensating for it.

If you are just after straight G's on a corner the biggest effects are lowering the car, setting camber/toe-in and stiffening the spring rates. But you trade of ride quality and straight line traction (if you running lower profile tires the whole body of the car now has to move up and down which effectively makes more unsprung weight). Balancing that is what makes suspesion such a black art.

I did take the tire off :P
it was a demastration for the web site and we wanted to be as close as possible. though dif modles came with dif wheels... i think with tires they where 70lbs.

;) And by gutting your trunk you saved what 10 lbs?

hey every bit counts :P plus I gained alot of cargo space back there (my main reason for doing it)

Stock wheels are 35 lbs at most. The 18" chromies only weigh 29lbs.

Sorry I hate to say it but no... even said before that the stock wheels with tires are 65 lbs, the tires at most weigh 15 lbs... (but I say its 70lbs for the rim so dont get me wrong, plus it may varry from year to year model to model :P dont forget that) but on a 1992 VR4 the 17" rims weighed with out tire around 50 - 55 lbs. but let just stop argueing :S i hate it, let me stick with what i say and ill let you go with what you say :P.

17 and 18" tires weight in between 28 and 36 lbs each for a street radial.

Quoted for truth.

Heres a link with a weight database to further prove myself and talskiny correct.

https://home.comcast.net/~john.monnin/Weights102005.xls

Well, I've got the Stealth (don't know the difference as far as the rims) 15" rims on the car... I'd have to say my rims are 45-50 a piece... b/c I had this discussion at a body shop/performance shop... the owner was trying to sell me on a set of lightweight rims, he weighed them with tire a/b 55 lbs each... (without center cap)

^^oh, that 45-50 was w/ tire... b/c naturally, the shop owner pulled the rim right off the car to weigh it... so of course there was a tire mounted and pressurized...

Well using my "back" scale... I think it's 55 lbs with tires mounted.

Here's how the "back" scale works:

Each year I have to mount/unmount my winter tires. Now I would love to find out that the wheels+tires weight 70 lbs because it means that I am stronger then I think.

But unfortunately in real life, I would have probably thrown my back out by now trying to mount a 70 wheel and tire so that "back scale" says something closer to 55 lbs.

Next time I got one off... I'll weigh them... Don't know that I'll post the results... at least not until this issue comes up again... but it'll be nice to know for myself...

I bought it for power and power only and nothing else :P when I went to buy my car I had no idea what the interior looked like... all I could think about was "V6 Twin Turbo AWD" a car with power and great handling.
and it makes me mad because no one ever upgrades a VR4... I never see them in any magazines because no one ever even trys to go beyond exhuast and intake... So I thought I would be the one to do it... Once I get my brakes and suspension my freind is going make some calls to see if I can get some magazine coverage on my car, mabey that will influence some other 3/s owners to go beyond that.


I think you need to look in more magazines mate, I've seen quite a few and I'm in the UK!!

If you are to look at the majority of modified vehicles, (and owning a business myself I have) you would see that a majority of cars only have the basic engine modifications done, ie exhaust, intake, fuel pump, boost increase, quite commonly chipped, quite commonly larger or staged turbos added, and possbly an upgarde cooler. This is wat is called the "general populas", it is the rule of thumb for the modified world. After this point most people worry of the wear on their engine, anticipate the doom of the engine and move over to dress up and ICE. Not to mention that the TT is classed as a supercar as such has huge price tags on all after market performance parts which alot of people can't warrant spending.

As for the other people they are made up of either the Ricers (who we sharn't discuss) or the heavy weights in modifying whom do have the money and resources to modify the car.

Don't forget also that the car is not that common and was really a forgotten supercar of the nineties.

Anyway there are loads of extra mods to do from adding 1000cc injectors with a dual T3 setup, screamers, twin intakes and stroked out to 3.2 or 3.3ltrs to single turbo conversions or droppong a corvette V8.

As with all things it simply comes down to money, the TT's are fast and sexy cars, to most people that is enough

I agree, in the latest issue of Car Audio and Electronics there was a heavily modified 3000GT... the top was cut-off, and the trunk opens in the opposite direction, the trunk lid was reshaped to make the car look like a race car... try and pick up the mag somewhere... I think u'll be enthused a/b it as well

Let's not argue over specific weights or the aftermarket support or magazine coverage of our cars...everybody knows our wheels are heavy, our aftermarket is rather small and expensive, and that our cars show up few and far between in magazines. Let's get back to the original question, which if memory serves me correctly, was something to the effect of how to lighten up our cars.

Yes there are a billion things you can do, from gutting it, to swapping in lexan for glass, and cf panels for the stock body, etc.

But few do more than a few basic things along those lines. More popular, AND more beneficial, as mentioned before was reducing rotational mass along the drivetrain. Now before all the difference of opinions broke out, I believe the two main points were:

1) everybody over-estimates the weight of our cars, there are plenty of similiarly powered cars, and they don't really vary in weight all that much, despite what people make it out to be. The supra, the gto, the ws6, whatever, we aren't really all that heavier than any of them...and some may even be heavier than us...but if you are concerned with weight...

2) Reducing rotational mass, the 2 most popular routes to go are lightweight wheels and a cf driveshaft. Generally you are looking at about $1,000 for each of these options, maybe more depending on the wheels you want. So is it worth dropping 2 grand into reducing some weight and regaining some lost hp from parasitic losses...maybe, but 2 grand can also give you 100-200AWHP more...so which is really more beneficial?...that is up to the individual and their goals.

^ don't forget lightened flywheel, I mean it's not the same as rims or CF driveshaft, but it does allow you to rev alot quicker