Thread: Basic weight reduction in VE powered B13 (some pics)

I would leave the bars in the doors, that is your "protection" from a side impact. I dont think you can get too far below 2200lbs without cutting a decent amount of metal out. Go find a truck scale and get it weighed. If you unbolted everything you mentioned i would guess around the 2200 range.

Ok thanks. I would like to see how it does with the stereo/speakers removed and inner door panels. It feels soooo much peppier with the interior out, and like I said, less effort on the brake pedal, took a bit of getting used to. All interior is back in for now (except that tar of course) although it doesn't matter since the it hasn't left my garage in about 8 weeks. cabin fever....

door panels weight next to nothing. will be cutting the metal out behind and putting mine back on most likely

Yeah door panels dont weigh shit. But it feels like ur carrying around Thors hammer when u pickup the b13 belts.

Storm just google Smoothdaddyfig on the old forum. He got his down under 2k!

Not in the method that they do it, but yes I have used dimple dies on my 12 ton press before. This was for a-pillar roll cage bar reinforcement gussets






since yuo don't want to cut out metal and drill holes, dimple die it and weld it back in I was suggesting their hand held tool so you'd be able to get into tight spaces and not have to remove metal to dimple die it

Thanks for the info and ideas. I'll be sure to get my B13 on a strict diet.

Delete delete ! Haha.

Lol. I don't know if I'm ready to go that far just yet.

Anyone know how much the non-sunroof headliner weighs? If it's more than 20lbs I might remove it even though it's in the most perfect headliner I've ever seen since 1999.

We know that removing the front stock seats and replacing them with lightweight sparco's reduces weight- but unless you get them used it also costs a lot of $$$$ - and this thread I wanted to talk about FREE weight reduction. The weight reduction I've done in this thread has cost me at most about $12 in paint and primer. At the cost of the Sparco seats, it would just be cheaper to get a modded Q45 VE TB from Greg and actually gain HP on the dyno then just lose weight.

Sorry I missed this somehow - I removed both front and rear seats, and pulled the carpeting up and out to access it all easily.. For about HALF of the tar, I just used a big flathead screwdriver and a rubber mallet, hammering and scraping it out. This had varying results. In the front of the car, it came out quite easily, in large chunks/sheets about the size of an iPad in spots, especially the passenger side under the carpeting. In the rear it was more difficult and stuck harder to the chassis.

word of warning: by removing the under carpet tar you expose small holes where you can well, see the ground from inside, about the size of a dime. these holes will allow water to get up into the car if you drive it in the rain. it's very easy to fix this though, just grab those grey plastic tabs (we all have them laying around) and they kinda fit right into the spot, snugly - the ones that are sort of "ridged" if that makes sense)

anyways, what I missed the first time around was the tar in the trunk that located between the spare tire well and the backseats. it was a long strip and I updated this thread later.

I sanded, primered and painted the trunk a red color (not exactly a great match to the rest of the car but no biggie. in this photo you can see my recent painting AND you can see the tar that I missed the first time around, it's at the top left in this photo:



paint was still wet in this pic, I have since put a darker color on it (ford red) - but don't don't go too crazy with the paint because that will add weight too actually if you think about it I have since removed that tar and also sanded, primered and painted over it so it all matches. that tar was a real pain in the ass because of the angle it was at. The best way for this was a PHILLIPS head screwdriver just sort of rotated and shoved into it, creating strips and strips that eventually pulled out.

here it is, almost all removed:



You can see it's still got hundreds of little spots there. I found the best way to get rid of that remaining stuff was to use a 90-100 grit sandpaper and sand away, it pulls it all off and some little metal shavings, then get an old vacuum that isn't new and expensive (who knows) and just use the extension and pull all the stuff that's in there out. it gets wedged in the spare well quite easily and other spots so before painting you def need to vacuum. I have a picture of it all removed and painted somewhere. All in all, just speaking tar, I removed about 46 pounds total. If you add the thick carpeting under the visible carpeting (kinda looks like tons of lint) that's another 10 pounds. So about 56lbs total removed. And if you remove all the visible carpeting I think that's another 10lbs or so.