Weight Reduction For 87 300zx

[RED TR]

I'm looking for suggestion to reduce weight on an 87 300zx. I read they typically weigh 3100 lbs. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Zgringo]

Torch the body off, only run 1 gal. of gas in the tank, remove both seats and sit on a box would lighten things. JK

Look for things you don't need or how to make things lighter and remove, change whatever to make it lighter. Example: Racing seats weigh 'bout 15lbs. Stock Z seats weigh 40+lbs.

[longlivetheZ]

Some things you can do -

"Swiss cheese" any non load bearing structure. Simply take a drill to any surface that isn't supporting the structure of the car...internal body panels and the like. You drill away 50% of a bunch of panels, you can lose a good bit of weight that way. VERY IMPORTANT: You must make sure it's NOT LOAD BEARING, THOUGH...you go and swiss cheese your firewall or something, you're gunna have a bad day...

Racing seats...you can save damn near 100 lbs like this. Kinda pricy though.

Take out any padding and/or sound insulation.

Don't drive around with a full tank of gas all the time...1 gallon of milk weighs 7 lbs...think about how much 1 gallon of gas weighs...now multiply that by our 16 gal tank's capacity...lot of weight.

Some people remove the A/C, vac hoses, etc...this may be a good option to you...it may not. It's up to you. You can save a lot of weight this way, though.

[DeleriousZ]

yes, if you don't mind not having ac, definitely take it out... saves ~50 lbs if it was uncharged and had no freon in it.. reduces drag on the engine as well.. i did it about a week ago and only hit 1 or 2 minor snags... easy to fix tho, not a problem.. if you need some help on that, i'd be happy to answer any questions

[longlivetheZ]

I never really liked the "removing the A/C idea"...I think a good performance car should still be comfortable and somewhat practical...not just barely street legal. However, recently it's begun to fit into my plan quite well:

I'm not going to be using the Z31T for a daily driver...so it doesn't really matter anyway.

It doesn't work right now anyway, so what's the difference?

It would save a good chunk of weight.

I'd even go as far as ripping ALL the climate control stuff out...heater core...vac hoses...A/C compressor...little controller module thing inside with the controls on it and everything...all of it. This would not only save even MORE weight (probably 100-150 lbs), but the absense of the control thing in the dash would give a PERFECT place to mount more important things...boost controller...turbo timer...stuff like that.

[DeleriousZ]

that's the spirit llz! i actually noticed quite the difference after removing all the stuff from the a/c.. the compressor, reservoir, all the lines and the a/c rad.. and it helps the cooling system out quite a bit because there's now a direct airflow to the main radiator... noticed the wheels were a bit easier to turn also... all in all, pretty good for a free mod! only problem i'm having is getting the pipe off of the connector that's right at the firewall... i wouldn't touch the heater or anything like that... not up here in the great white north.. i'd get frostbite on the way to work!