Scuderia Actual Weight, weight distribution and alignment

My friends at bbi AutoSport (Joey and Betim) did an amazing job with the alignment, corner weights and ride height.

We lowered the car 1/2", and set the corner weights (13mm lower). The U.S. Scuderia rides 15mm lower than the European standard F430. The U.S. F430 ride height is so high, that it needs to be measured in feet.

With 95 lbs of fuel, tools, fire extinguisher, stereo with subwoofer, the car hit the scales at 3,100 lbs even.

Corner Weights: LF: 669#, RF 664#, LR 878#, RR 889# (before alignment and corner weight adjustments)

Weight distribution: 43/57. Weight distribution with 180 lbs driver: 45/55. My old GT3 had an awkward 37/63 weight distribution, with my GT3 RS at 39/61.

I later took the weight of tools (10.5#), fire extinguisher (8.5#) and the subwoofer box (8 lbs). I assume the stereo head unit is at least 2 lbs. Interesting fact, the subwoofer box seems to have two speakers, but it only has one, the other one is a cover with the shape of a speaker, removing it makes the stereo sound even worse.

With no fuel, a base car (radio delete, no fire extinguisher, no tools) would hit the scales around 2,976 lbs. As a reference, my now gone 997 GT3 RS base weight with no fuel was 3,140 lbs, the same GT3 RS with PCCB (ceramic brakes) 3,100 lbs, the 997 GT2 3,160 lbs, the 997 GT3 3,185 lbs. All these Porsche numbers are actual (real) numbers for the U.S versions with no options and no fuel. The toolbox for all the Porsche GT3/GT2 cars weighs 8.5 lbs.

The Scuderia is almost 200 lbs lighter than a 997 GT2, and the GT2 is already light compared to the Viper ACR, ZR-1, GTR, LP560-4, etc.

The F430 Scuderia is very light. I think there is not a single production car with over 450 HP that hits the scales under 3,000 lbs.

There are some additional weight reduction items to be considered:

- Windshield liquid reservoir contains almost 15 lbs, I'm ok running this almost empty (although you get an annoying warning on the dashboard)
- The stock wheels are not that heavy, but not light either. 25 lbs front and 28 lbs rear.
- To pass sound regulations, the exhaust became bulky and heavy (over 40 lbs). It's quiet when you barely hit the throttle, regardless of RPM (nice feature), but once you get deeper on the gas, it opens the bypass flaps, and becomes loud, the sound is amazing inside, and even better outside.
- The stock battery weighs 46 lbs

Lighter wheels, battery, no windshield fluid, and a really light muffler can bring this car down to 2,850 lbs with a low fuel load.

By the way we put -3.5 degrees of camber front and -3.0 rear, some toe-out front and stock toe-in rear, the car feels much nicer on the road than stock, and it performs quite well on my next door canyon road. This alignment is not recommended for street driving, but given that these car don't get driven that many miles, I really don't care about replacing tires every 2,000 miles or 10 years (whichever comes first)

 

Nick,

Your car's weight is within specs. My car with a full tank of fuel would have been at 3,162 lbs. Your car has the alcantara package but no radio. Mine has the Alcantara package and radio, it is a 2009 so it comes with the carbon package (includes innner and outer door sills in CF). Removing the fuel from mine would take it down to 3,005 lbs. Removing the tools, radio and fire extinguisher, gets it down to 2,976 lbs. The alcantara option may be a little heavier than the standard (rather not pretty) fabric.

I use the 6.25 lbs per gallon of fuel because that is what I have measured with fuel containers several times running my Porsche on track days, whether it's pump gas or 100 octane race gas. The F430 has a 25.1 gallons fuel tank.

My GT3 RS user's manual reads 3,031 lbs, but the car was 110 lbs heavier than that with no fuel (3,140 lbs). Even after installing PCCB, it comes down to 3,100 lbs. The reality is that the 3,031 lbs weight is for the European GT3 RS with the CF bucket seats, Clubsport rollbar, no A/C, no radio, european bumpers and bumper frames, PCCB and no fuel, all these features can be added to a U.S. version GT3 RS at a cost close to $25k (including labor).

One of these days I'm going to write a comparison between the GT3 RS and the F430 Scuderia. I just need to put more miles on the F430.