where to cut most weight?

[V]

Ok, i am considering building a twin turbo v6 firebird, stock internals though, but i want to lighten up the car a little. I know a lot of people here have do it so i wanna know what areas to focus on. I want to keep all seats thats my one requirement.

[ar0ck]

If your not worried about road noise, I gutted the sound padding in the trunk, and just left the plastic covers on.

Also remove as much emmision equipment as possible.

I took my 85 T/A down to 3300lbs which is pretty good IMO, still retaining driveability.
(with an engine swap)

James & Tim know more on this too.

[NJSPEEDER]

step 1: bring teh car to me
step 2: pick up the car a week later with about 400-500lbs taken out of it and it will look like the car was dead stock to any passer by

it is all a question of how far you want to take it and what you are willing to live with. i can get so much weight out of a stock fbody it will sit like a monster truck. hit me up on AIM (njspder)and we will talk about it.

later
tim

[j0n]

tim make sure you get that list from craig...it would be very benificial for smokinss i think

[foff667]

colonal on ls1 tech listed the weights of pretty much every part on an fbody...might be something to check out...but you start with the free stuff, padding, !a/c, !emissions crap, !airbags...**** like that, then work on stuff that costs money ie slicks on lightweight rims out back, skinnies up front, tubular kmember, tubular aarms, lightweight battery & relocate to trunk, remove the rear seats, replace the front seats with lightweight models, replace stock steering wheel with lightweight wheel, aluminum drums if it has drum brakes out back, aluminum driveshaft or chromoly, most aftermarket lca's weigh less then stock, aluminum radiator, headers always shed weight over manifolds but with a turbo setup you might not have that option i guess...shorten the exhaust system as best you can...ive seen turbo setups dump in front & behind the front tire ~3-4 feet of thin gauge metal after the turbo basically weigh weighs very little compared to the stock exhaust, catback or before.! speakers, !radio, lightweight carpet is available now, tim would say go as far as wherever there are 3 screws keep in one which in 99% of the place would be more then enough even in my opinion, fuel cell instead of the stock gas tank, or at least a later plastic tank...thats about all i can think of.

[Ian]

If you want to keep the back seats, gut them then put styrofoam(sp?) in them. Try to get a block of the hard white styrofoam and shape it to match the contours of the seat. Keeps the same shape as the original padding, but weighs next to nothing. Take all the crap out from behind the dashboard. Try to find the lightest chassis parts you can, then make them look beat up and paint them black so no one notices them. The front bumper support is massive, remove that and make one out of tubing. Removing the crash bars in the doors can save you some weight. The list goes on and on.