Who weighed their car at Rockingham?

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

So what makes the STi almost 200 lb heavier than a plain WRX? It's not all in the wing is it?

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:17 am

The Rockingham scales, you could almost read the display in the sunlight....

The '96 328i 4 door came in at 3115 with 1/2 tank of gas and the spare and jack removed. As for the weight, I'm thinking of adding about 200# in the tail end. Boy, I hate drifting....

Chris Landi · **Joined:** Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:31 pm **Posts:** 579

MikeWhitney wrote:

So what makes the STi almost 200 lb heavier than a plain WRX? It's not all in the wing is it?

Hey, you may be onto something here. Maybe I'll try turniing mine upside down to create lift...Hmmm...

Tom Hoppe · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 10:16 am **Posts:** 387

Slightly bigger motor, bigger tranny, bigger rear end, bigger axles

-Tom

Chris Brown · **Posted:** Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:17 am

my big fat pig 02 GTI 1.8T - 2920 w/o driver

PhilFausz · **Posted:** Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:51 pm

GS 1987 Honda CRX SI - 2300 with 1/4 tank of fuel, spare tire and related tools, a 160 lbs driver, and a 200 lbs passenger, so that puts me somewhere around 1950 lbs.

I don't think I can replace seats in GS, so that leaves me with getting lighter wheels (-16 lbs), buy lighter tires (-15 to -20 lbs) , remove spare tire and stereo equipment (10 lbs)... now we're down to around 1900... sheesh!

I think if I replaced the glass (again, not legal) with plexi-glass, that would produce the biggest weight reduction.

phil

Rick Butters · **Posted:** Tue Jun 15, 2004 10:39 pm

My 2002 Honda S2000 weighed in at 2910 with 170 pounds of driver and gas at about 1/3 of a tank.

The most obvious weight reduction program would include dumping the stock exhaust for a lightweight version - good for about 40 pounds, and JDM BBS wheels (if you could find them and afford them) and Hoosier tires - good for about 25 pounds. That would bring the car down to about 2675 without driver.

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

1990 Mustang 5.0 (ESP) - 3325 pounds without driver, with full tank of gas and spare tire, etc. in place. This year I'm subscribing to the old theory that traction exiting a turn trumps acceleration towards the end of a straight, hence I'm not trying to remove weight from the drive wheels which only carry 43% of the weight anyway. (ref: Car and Driver, July 1989, page 57) It works about as well as the opposite theory that I subscribed to last year

Things I could do to lighten the car (guesstimates, in pounds):

00020 - remove sunroof panel
00060 - remove roll bar
00079 - burn up 12 gallons of gas
00050 - remove spare tire, jack, tire iron, jumper cables
00008 - remove trailer hitch tongue/ball
00050 - lightweight front seats
00020 - retrofit to crank windows
00015 - lightweight battery
00005 - non-airbag steering wheel
00100 - run mini-spares on all 4 corners
00075 - carbon fiber hood... if Ryan can get away with it, so can I:)
12000 - suspend from Goodyear blimp "Spirit of America"
-------
12482 - total weight savings

Art

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

Aaron Buckley wrote:

I know I don't drive a Corvette, but weight is weight, and it takes force to accelerate it, and decelerate it. I know the FS and SS National guys aren't running with a spare in, or more gas to add 'balance'. They're stripping every bit of legal weight off they can, regardless of where it is.

I've seen Miles and others (not picking on Miles, this is just an observation) ask for people to ride along to 'balance' the car.

Any car with 200 more pounds in it will be slower than it was originally.

If you want your car to be balanced, take it to an alignment shop: pull everything out of it that isn't bolted down and legal for your particular class, have the least amount of gas in it that you can get away with, without fuel starving on course, and sit in the driver's seat and get it aligned to your 'specs'. Then when you are on course, the car in autocross trim is setup for you, and adding anything else to it will upset the balance.

Handling characteristics can be altered very easily with tire pressures and alignments, but adding unnecessary weight is not the answer. - AB

Aaron. Good points. The lighter the car the better. Regardless of how much torque and braking force you have. Not being lazy and removing the spare and probably dropping fuel to half a tank might shave a few hundredths off my time.

Now the part about carrying passengers to balance the car. Well I joke with Miles and Rob about using them as ballast to balance the other side of the car. But it is joking. I'll take folks like you with me 2 out of 4 runs to get feedback on my driving to try and learn more. Then 2 runs with no passenger to remove that dead weight :lol:

This is still a big learning process for me and I feel the feedback from better drivers is worth that extra weight. I may be wrong but that is my take on it so far.

The part about balance to me is important. Unloading too much weight from one end of the car makes it lighter but the cost is in stability. Vettes, Camaros, Firebirds, Mustangs all tend to be heavier in the front and they are all RWD cars. Shedding 100lbs from the rear and not being able to pull any from the front means the car will oversteer even easier and get more tail happy. Maybe on the Vette it isn't so painful since you pretty much sit by the rear axle so the driver adds more rear than front weight. Again I could be wrong.

Graham

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Wed Jun 16, 2004 7:37 am

Graham Jagger wrote:

Now the part about carrying passengers to balance the car. Well I joke with Miles and Rob about using them as ballast to balance the other side of the car. But it is joking. I'll take folks like you with me 2 out of 4 runs to get feedback on my driving to try and learn more. Then 2 runs with no passenger to remove that dead weight :lol:

This is still a big learning process for me and I feel the feedback from better drivers is worth that extra weight. I may be wrong but that is my take on it so far.

The part about balance to me is important. Unloading too much weight from one end of the car makes it lighter but the cost is in stability. Vettes, Camaros, Firebirds, Mustangs all tend to be heavier in the front and they are all RWD cars. Shedding 100lbs from the rear and not being able to pull any from the front means the car will oversteer even easier and get more tail happy. Maybe on the Vette it isn't so painful since you pretty much sit by the rear axle so the driver adds more rear than front weight. Again I could be wrong.

Graham

I still do not believe it is a good idea to toss 50% of your runs away. The car will behave differently on the final two runs. I feel someone observing your runs can provide you with the same feedback as someone riding along. The only advantage to having someone ride along is when that person is verbal and providing real time feedback when you are driving. If they are sitting there like a bump on the log, they are just dead weight

Toss them, along with all the other stuff.

I agree with Aaron 100% of getting rid of as much weight as legally possible in an autox car. Especially stuff that is easily removed. Then use the combination of good driving, shocks and tire pressure to deal with the handling. Notice what was listed first

The MR2 weighs in at 2540 in national level trim. I could drop another 150# by removing the PS, AC and the rear wing to bring it under 2400#. The rumor is that a couple of the MR2's are in the low 2400 or even 2300 range.

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:02 am

I typically have passengers for the majority of my runs. In Danville I took passengers for all of them, in Rockingham I had passengers for 3 of them.

Typically I offer the passenger seat so I can teach, less so I can be taught. I like to think that I have something to offer. I know I convinced Tonya and Jason that the lane change could be taken without lifting...

Oh, and about balancing the car, I think the car did do the lane change better with a passenger, the unloaded right front tire didn't spin wildly when Tonya was in the car, however, I was 0.5 seconds faster without her.

Scott

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:22 am

scottjohnson wrote:

Typically I offer the passenger seat so I can teach, less so I can be taught. I like to think that I have something to offer. I know I convinced Tonya and Jason that the lane change could be taken without lifting...

I wouldn't say that "convince" is the right word. Tonya came back rubbing it in that you took the lane change without lifting, so the ego wouldn't let me leave that one untried.

My fastest run was with Tonya in the car. All three of my last runs I dropped .2 seconds off each time. Maybe I could've taken more off without her in the car, but I think the benefit of seat time for her (as well as her feedback to me) isn't worth the extra tenth or so to kick her out of the car for every run.

Tom Hoppe · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 10:16 am **Posts:** 387

Quote:

Typically I offer the passenger seat so I can teach, less so I can be taught.

I'm the same kind of way, but sometimes its really nice to throw someone thats good in the car with you and have them tell you "Hey dumbass youre not being smooth enough" thanks Scott!!

Quote:

feel someone observing your runs can provide you with the same feedback as someone riding along.

Jim, to this I have to say, Are you Joking??? You can't provide much input from watching a car 100 yards away, while you can provide serious input from the passenger seat. If it was this way autocross schools would consist of instructors sitting in lounge chairs at the edge of the course

Quote:

I think the benefit of seat time for her isn't worth the extra tenth or so to kick her out of the car for every run.

I feel the same way about Miranda in the car with me. As long as the event allows it I'll take her in the car every run. The car might behave "slightly different" but its something I can drive around and the benefits of seat time even in the passenger seat far outweight the tenth or two you lose.

-Tom

Wes Eargle · **Joined:** Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:47 am **Posts:** 3683

I don't mind passengers at all. I'm really not good enough to notice a difference in the 180# that sits to the right of me, plus having someone critique me is an added bonus. Whenever I hear Scott say "That run was technically good" that means that the line was OK, but I drove it waaay too slow. Maybe that's why my faster runs have him in the car -- I don't want to hear about me driving like a wussy for the next week at work.

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Wed Jun 16, 2004 10:41 am

Tom Hoppe wrote:

Jim, to this I have to say, Are you Joking??? You can't provide much input from watching a car 100 yards away, while you can provide serious input from the passenger seat. If it was this way autocross schools would consist of instructors sitting in lounge chairs at the edge of the course

-Tom

I have yet to take a school where you only get four runs. All Evo schools consist of the instructor riding, driving and observing.

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