redtopz

With NASA nationals coming out West next year and the power to weight ratio dropping to 8.0:1, I need to get a little more serious about my car setup and cut some weight. My car is a 99 FRC with ACP aero kit and LS6 engine. It's heavy at 3250 lbs with driver even with carbon fiber hood, lexan glass, no headlights, and no wipers. Most of the weight I think is due to the robust cage and large dry sump reservoir in the passenger seat area:



The only things I can think of for removing weight are the dash and the roof B-pillar. I don't want to spend money on carbon fiber body parts. How much weight can I save by gutting these items?

Also, has anybody replaced their dash guages with an AIM MXL Pista in a C5? Thanks.

mountainbiker2

If you remove everything but the gauge cluster, I think it was around #30. What's under your dash right now?




Steve A.

JerryTX

Instead of adding lightness you could add HP.. might be cheaper??

rithsleeper

What about going ***** to the wall and eliminating the starter and move to super small battery. Push start it every time. Then think about how much weight the driver can loose? No offense... if your cage is good enough, start removing structure, gut those doors to the max, replace floor panels like behind driver seat with thin aluminum.

Then again you could prob just sell and move to an e30 and save yourself a lot of hassle. What are other guys running weight wise in a c5? Seems like i would want to get it down to 2800 bare min.
Bu im no c5 expert, but 3200 seems still a bit high.

Oh and get rid of the headlight reservoir... headlight fluid can be pretty heavy...

PushinTheLimit

I would assume you've already got lightweight wheels...

Gutted doors
Remove AC condenser
Remove emergency brake stuff
Remove all un-needed interior pieces
Remove clutch and replace with lightweight clutch (Quartermaster)
Lightweight battery

sperkins

You have to get real creative and make no compromises - everything that's not critical goes. I can't say for sure what mine weighs now, but I'd venture to say that there are only two C5's that I know of that are lighter than mine.

RX-Ben

The Pista should be relatively easy to wire in (though you will need to pull the signal from the sensors, and some are 1 wire, so you will likely need a pull-up resistor - AIM should be able to help with this). The problem will be the gas tanks. I think you will need to build a summing circuit for the signals from the two senders. I would be curious what has been done for this as I have seen some cars w/o the OEM gauges.

redtopz

Thanks Steve, that sounds reasonable.

That's the plan in addition to cutting weight.

Yes to all the above.

redtopz

Thanks. Maybe I'll just leave the stock guages and add the Pista in addition to them.

fatbillybob

What does the lightest C5 weigh?

brkntrxn

2800 empty with no ballast is easy to get to with the only exotic part being a QM clutch.

I would imagine Scott's and a couple of other C5s are bumping 2700lbs now, if not less.

yooper

Which wheels are the 2800lb C5's using?

brkntrxn

Stock C5Z06 wheels.

SteveDoten

why the large dry sump? how common is that setup?

drivinhard

I think Geerookie is probably at or near the top of the list for that but I don't know exactly where his sits now

redtopz

It was in the car when I bought it. I've never seen one like this before so I'm not sure if it's a custom setup. I think it's adding 50 lbs with the box and associated caging around it, but at least it's in a good location.

drivinhard

So'd you still be @ 3200 lb without it, which still seems really heavy for a gutted (no interior) car with all the light bits M. Smith mentioned that you said you already had.

Do you still have the dash and stuff behind the dash? something doesn't seem to add up

mountainbiker2

This is without any coolers, cage and aero. Still has glass windshield, wiper motor and headlights.


Steve A.

PushinTheLimit

Is 3250 your lightest weight (very little fuel in the car)? Mine with no aero pieces with no fuel was around 3240 (with driver) and that's with a stock clutch, stock hood, no lexan, accusump, most of the interior, and a heavy battery.

I'm with Mark on this one... something doesn't seem right.

drivinhard

a cage will push that to 2800+

before VIR I passed the 2600 lb threshold with the carbon ACP hood. It's ~2595 or so. The low hanging fruit at this point is the driver