heavy 2nd gen

[Camaro_Dave]

ok straight up...how do i lose weight in my 74 camaro without fiberglassing anything?

its already tubbed
chromolly cage
one kirkey seat
aluminum heads (sbc)
but what else can i do to get this pig to lose a few hundred lbs??

[Monty Mikho]

Remove the door bars < about 50#'s
Removed all the extra stuff in the cowl area < about 100#'s depending what's there
Rack and pinion < about 40+ #'s
Lexan windows and remove the roll up/down window crap < about 60#'s

[Chris Uratchko]

Chome Moly front control arms
Coil over shocks in front
Figure out how to lighten the rear-end
--- Thinner axle tubes
--- Narrow the rearend, deep rear wheels
Ditch the floor mats :-D
Remove the back seat
Gut the steering column
Remove the stock radio???
Light weight brakes all around
Gut the reinforment metal in the trunk lid
Chrome Moly trans xmember
Aluminum Driveshaft
Chrome Moly ladder bars
Radiator??
Get rid of all reinforcements in front of radiator support....

etc etc etc etc....

[Zeke1]

First the bumpers if you haven't allready fiberglass with aluminum brackets that will take off about 250 lbs, then buy really good holesaws and start drill'n I don't know what you way now but I got mine down to 2950 no driver all steel and glass remember your handi caped from the get go the 74 is about the heaviest year going they are around 3900 stock, good luck

[Camaro_Dave]

monty- i have been wanting to remove the door bars but how the heck do you do that? and it has electric windows. i think lexan is the first on my list.

chris-awesome list. done a lot of that already, but still have a lot to do.

anyone else know about 2nd gens?????

[85Camaro]

Door bars are fun!!! best way I have seen it done is cut a whole in the door jam part of the door around where the door bar attaches and cut the other end of the door bar then slide it out and weld a peice back in the hole... it took us about 4-5 hrs to do one side of my freinds 2 gen the hard way cutting it up into pieces. Good luck

[Mousehouse]

If you change your front brakes to a set from wilwood, aerospace, etc should shave 40-50 pounds off of the front end.

[Monty Mikho]

Cut the door bar in two placed all the way threw. The middle section is the safest. I used an air grinder on the first one and it took a lonf time to do. On the second one I used an electric angle grinder with a 4" wheel and it cut like butter. After cutting and removing the center section, drill the spot welds in the door jams. I used a spot weld removal tool (Eastwood has some also Sears has them) and make sure you dont drill threw the door. Then rock the piece back and forth till ya get it out.. Oh yeah, you have to remove the windows and crank crap out first.. I also cout all the metal where the door panels screw to and made light weight brackets to bolt the window crank and door handle too. It removed about 40#'s from the doors but I still use factory glass and power windows.

[Camaro_Dave]

First the bumpers if you haven't allready fiberglass with aluminum brackets that will take off about 250 lbs, then buy really good holesaws and start drill'n I don't know what you way now but I got mine down to 2950 no driver all steel and glass remember your handi caped from the get go the 74 is about the heaviest year going they are around 3900 stock, good luck


who makes fiberglass bumpers for me car? i don't want to fiberglass anything...except bumpers, cause those aren't painted anyway.

man door bars are going to be a pain in the ass!

brakes are on the list of things to do. i had no idea it would shed that much weight! thats cool.

what about removing the floor and replacing it with aluminum? i heard that takes a lot off.???

[85Camaro]

VFN and Glasstech both make them I beleave

[Camaro_Dave]

sweet i'll check em out. thanks

[Camaro_Dave]

dang lots of cool stuff on VFN. i'll probably be ordering some bumpers soon :-D thats insane....3 pounds for bumpers!! ha ha ha thats sweet!

[85Camaro]

Yea you will be surprized how much weight that back bumper is My freind Lost 94# on his 76 camaro :shock:

[Camaro_Dave]

damn. thats a lot. my front is HUGE so it'll be more i think.

i mostly want the weight off the front end cause its already way un balanced

[Monty Mikho]

Go with VFN over Glasstec if possible. VFN makes a nicer fit and weighs 1/2 as much it seems..

[Camaro_Dave]

i'll probably go with VFN.

about windows. my electric motors are shot. i heard crank windows weigh about the same. what about the old seat belt hooked to the window deal, with lexan? its light but is it too trashy? and is it NHRA legal?

[Monty Mikho]

I used lexan windows but they were stationary. No roll up or down crap.. They were light as hell that way. The company I used to power windows was Electi-life or something like that. Summit carries them and they are a pretty light unit compared to the manual window.

[Zeke1]

You won't be abile to use a roll up lexan because you have no window frame like say a nova to hold it in place it will just blow out when racing, I used unlimited product's bumper's, use a old hockey stick with stainless carriage bolt's and fiberglass it in, then make bracket's with aluminum my hole bumper with bracket's weight's 8 lbs and I painted them with a stainless silver then painted the black strip on from 20 ft away you'd think they where stock so much so I keep finding people puting there feet on my bumper's or trying to push from them, the brake's are alot too, the best way is to weight every part and see what you can do sometime's what you think is a big heavy part is not and some little part's are alot, past hood, bumper's, brake's, seat's and removing stuff you don't need as fare as the chassis is concerned you'll need to work at it, drive line is another deal

[Camaro_Dave]

wait...so i can't use lexan in the side windows? i know nothing about it at this point so is there a way to do it?

ha ha ha i actually do have an old kockey stick!
so with mounting did you just find your own place to mount it or used the stock location?

[Zeke1]

The problem with the window is you can use lexan for stationary with a full perimiter frame but I don't think you can use it for a roll up nothing to hold it at the top or side's
I used the stock mounting hole's a 1/8" aluminum plate bolted to the bumper and a 1/8" plate at the stock hole's and a 1" square tube welded between the two worked great

[Camaro_Dave]

gotcha on the windows.

i guess the bumper won't be too bad. thought it would be worse then that.

thanks

[Camaro_Dave]

well i pulled the front bumper off. it weighs ~45 lbs
already pulled the sway bar but just barley weighed it. ~13 lbs
the two inner fenders weigh ~30 lbs
and some misc crap like radio and wiring etc is around 15 lbs.
total weight off my car since i last drove it...103lbs!!

more to come!!!


how much will i lose if i just do lexan on the front and rear window? that and bumpers is going to be in the mail soon i think.

[Zeke1]

remember if you put the lexan in the front you will need to put a brace in the middle to keep it from pushing in on the top end depending on what you plan to run, and the front bumper should have been alot more than that did you pull all the bracket's off right to the front frame, the bumper's are aluminum but the giant leaf spring set up behind it and the bracket's are the big stuff, and you said you wanted to the just do the front undue the rear and weight it you might want to do it to

[Camaro_Dave]

that weight was just the bumper itself. no hardware.
i was planning on running 3/16" lexan witout a brace. i plan on running 140 mph.

[Chris Uratchko]

Your stock carpeting weighs 15 pounds. Remove it and put cheap stuff in for carpet. Or buy some replacement carpet without the insulating on the back.

[Camaro_Dave]

thought about doing the carpet. but still debating on doing the aluminum floor. i dunno what to do, i want to do the floor but not....

so will i be ok with 3/16" lexan without a brace?

[Beyond]

Wal-Mart / Autozone sells the lightest weight carpet.. They have it on their shelves in like 10ft rolls. Doesn't wear very well though LOL

[Camaro_Dave]

i put that stuff on my trans tunnel already. doesn't look too bad

[Zeke1]

I'm not sure if you will need a brace for 140 or not but for the 20 or so pounds that you will loose you might want to keep the glass, you've got the sb tubed going with the 18's right is that NA or juice if it's with juice I think 150 to 160 would be a better guess for mph

[Camaro_Dave]

ya its got 18*'s now. it'll get a little bit of juice. like 100 or so, nothing too radical. the track i race at is 4200ft. but the DA is always over 7000, so i'm screwed ha ha ha. where i'm from n/a small blocks in the 10's are considered HAULIN ASS. our fastest street legal car in the state is a 32 coupe with a 14:1 632 all motor and its run a best of 8.7x. it weighs somewhere around 2600 lbs. people around here are scared to make a "street legal" car go fast. they think its cool to say " ya this baby isn't street legal, and it runs 10's" its stupid here.

so anyway i would be happy with a high 9 @ ~140 on the spray. at sea level i hope it would do that all motor. no reason why it shouldn't. but stuck in the good ol rocky mountains :-D

[Zeke1]

gotcha :-D

[craggar]

Here a good reference for the weights of different 2nd gen parts.
http://rcboat.com/Brian's%20stuff/camaro_database.htm

[Camaro_Dave]

thanks. that looks like a good one.