Pfffftt. Amateurs. Items I have removed from my car: Door panels both sides Inner door frame passenger side. (Left on drivers side so I can open the door from inside) Windows both sides Mad mouse seat belt tracks and ecu Passenger seat and seat belt Carpeting Sound deadening Headliner and rear bolster radio and speakers Wheel well liners/splash guards Top trunk liner Hvac ecu Dual can mufflers Stock wheels A/C compressor I have a few more things that need to come out. But the car as been on a serious diet. So yeah, I do understand about power to weight ratio. My car is lighter, and making more power. Last time I weighed my car it was at 3100/lbs, since then I have taken about another 100-ish/lbs out of it. So currently I'm in the 10:1 power to weight ratio with all the modifications. But for now I'm STILL all about getting this car to BREATH better.
Who you calling amateur Fool! Your talk is cheap. My 348 racecar was 2817 lbs WET with ME in it and with giant wing and 4" splitter! You don't need more horsepower. You need better application of horsepower and driver development. Damn! I miss my 348. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Then buy another one sucka. But this time let's try keeping the shiny side up. All that handling, sticky tires, splitter, ginormous wing, is only good if the tires are actually on the asphalt.
Love the look of your 348 racecar! Great job on the weight reduction program, 2817 lbs. wet with pilot is amazing. What is the rear wing made out of? Carbon Fiber? I completely agree about tires, tires, tires! With great rubber you can: 1) Accelerate quicker 2) Brake later 3) Utilize the horsepower efficiently 4) Push the car much further in handling/cornering SAFELY!
Sure people might learn from it. Mass wins in car to car contact. Light is right when no one touches you. There is everything right about light...period. But when I get "pit" maneuvered by a big butt, wide a$$ 928 panzer my 2800lbs spun like a top into dirt berm/wall and rolled over like a turtle. So since about 2005 I been racing SCCA T1 in corvette Z06 and now in T2 with the same corvette detuned and with ballast. I'm always looking to get back into a ferrari when one day I run across a cheap donor chassis. So if you see one let me know.
Sure, 3 months far away from chicken wings, hamburgers and donuts, and our cars will go like with a nitrous oxide system. My girlfriend and I already have put on a diet
It's not a bad idea, and relocating the rear battery to the front (early 348) we could rebalance the weight.
Great weight reduction even with a roll cage, and with the driver in the car it's a nice weight balance of both sides of the car. What did you move to get it? I'm agree, and this is the complicated part of weight loss, the balance. Thinking about all the above I had a dream I can imagine a modified 348 for the track with all the above, and carbon bumpers, a redesigned front hood and fenders into a unique piece of carbon fiber with headlights incluided under a clear plexiglass, and an airduct for creating downforce from the front bumper to the hood, as the F40 competizione style. A new racing fuel cell in the front for weight balance, and relocated battery and oil tank into the fuel tank original place (letting free place enough to service the timing Belt and water pump through the cockpit). Has anyone done something like this? expensive, but could it work well?
I agree with the idea of removing weight. I enjoy taking the car to the track, however, my plan is not to turn my 348 into a race car by removing all of the interior. I know there is a lot of weight that can be removed while maintaining reliability, safety and the looks of the car. I have listed a few things that I have done and/or am planning to do to remove some weight. Smaller steering wheel Current steering wheel is heavy, a smaller steering wheel makes the car feel more aggressive Aluminum Engine pulley Need to machine Aluminum pulley, and make steel trigger wheel Cam shaft end plates Make out of carbon fiber Ignition coil plate x 2 Machine out aluminum MAF screen Every this helps Exhaust air injection Replace all tubing with 8 plugs, and cleans engine compartment. Charcoal canister Convert to pp 70 of the 348 parts manual muffler + cat Lots of weight gain to be found here, also remove the EGT sensor/computer and brackets. Bell housing end plate Make out of CF Flywheel Keep same pressure plate and replace flywheel with one piece aluminum. transmission vent cover Carbon fiber Shifter Replace heavy shifter with Carbon fiber Brake ABS motor mount Machine the motor mounts to remove weight. Front springs Replace with 2.5" coilover springs, need to machine upper and lower spring perch. Back spring Replace with 2.5" coilover springs, need to machine upper and lower spring perch. Battery Lighter odyssey battery, also removed all the useless battery covers Alternator pulley Make out of aluminum and slightly larger to reduce engine load and minimize battery light coming ON at high RPM. Alternator tensioner Delete and machine alternator tentioner. Aside for removing weigh it also reduces parasitic engine load. AC removal Reduces weight and parasitic engine load. Under pan sheet metal replace steel and make out of Carbon fiber (also the front wheel well sheet metal is ridiculously heavy) Back lid screen & insulation Removes weight and improves engine cooling. seat replacement Lots of weight reduction here. mad mouse seatbelt Useless system Rear light grill Replace with CF Head light replacement Replace with flush mounted Replace air horn Find electric replacement Passenger foot plate This is ridiculously heavy, replace with Carbon fiber.
All carpets will have to go and rip of the anti corrosion stuff under the car Everything in steel must change to Carbon fibre, complete body (Allegerita nova) Carbon fibre wheels erase Pop-up lights and fit perpex lenses Door- and rear grill in the garbage bin Double turbo alá F40 (you will need a motor conversion, but my god, it will be light and fast) Then when you´re broke and can´t afford the gas, no one will by it, because it´s to extreme.
All the weight reductions is ok for a very small portion of us. I'm okay with it on my car, but many people should not start removing things from their 348s to lighten them up as much as possible. 348s that are in very nice condition, 100 point concorso cars, and spiders, for example, should not start getting rid of interior bits to save weight. Who would want to drive around in a gutted convertible? I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of 348 owners do not want to turn their cars into light weight track cars. No, they want to be able to still roll up their windows at the touch of a button, to turn on the a/c when it's hot, the heater when it's cold, and yes even listen to the radio. So, for them let's get back to the original topic of the thread, making more power. That way they can still drive around in comfort, and have some extra power so they don't get their ass handed to them by today's modern family cars.
Ernie, I was not serious. I went over the top because all this talk about losing weight is nonsense on a road car. If you want a really fast car, buy one.
I removed about everyting I felt was "right" in terms of weight, but not to Ernie's extreme. If I had Ernie's car, I would EXACTLY what he is doing - make it a street/track beast. As we have posted, finding gobs of extra HP in these engines is not easy and we are doing our best. However, finding extra performance by weight elimination IS easy so long as you are okay with the trade-offs. Personally, I am not going to strip my Serie Speciale, but I can do little weight saving's things. Plus, performance tires is, like Plugzit says, really where the rubber hits the road. The 348 is not a "momentum car" by any means, but compared to other modern cars, it might have to learn to be one. This means we rely on our cornering ability and handling over brute power. But, when you lighten things up, you need stickier tires to keep things down to partially offset the weight loss that might normally keep you planted at lower speeds. My 996TT was a great power car, but not too easy to make go around the corners. Given its acceleration, I wasn't too worried about losing some time in the corners. However, when you do put all the pieces together in a TT and drive the corner the way the car was designed, it's a Halleluja experience - too much work for me, though. Sometimes I wish I could put my car on a diet like Ernie's, but I do have another car for that and it is the exemplar of everything we would like our cars to be - except comfortable and street driveable. I am still wrestling with the idea of stripping the innards out of my bumpers since they are freaking heavy. The risk is that if the car gets hit things for the passengers can get worse fast. Explain that to the insurance company. "No really, sir, that's how they made 'em!" Heh.
marcov's right about that passenger foot plate. It really is seemingly made from cast iron. I guess if you're driving like a maniac it's built to take your passenger's panicked stomping of an imaginary brake pedal?
The passenger foot rest is a very easy part to make out of composite material. By using the original part as a template. I used three layers of carbon fiber with epoxy and it looks great. It is very sturdy and can washstand the most nerves of passengers. Aside from being considerably lighter, I can reinstall the original part if I wanted to. Best of all, the cost of the material for the DIY is less than $15.00 .. I do feel that there is a considerable amount of useless weight within our cars (like the passenger foot rest). Another part for example is the fresh air intake flapper in the front compartment. It is ridiculously heavy for its intended purpose The plastic pin between the servo motor and the flapper had broken (common problem). I made a replacement part out of Carbon fiber and ¼ aluminum rod. It has worked flawlessly for the last three years and is much lighter. The goal is to remove a few pounds here and a few ounces there, next thing you know you have removed 200lbs of the car. That equates to more driving fun on the twisty roads and an improvement of 0.2 seconds on the 0 to 60Mph acceleration .
