ITA or ITB. Are there any cars out there with NO ballast in them?

[trhoppe]

Speaking to a few people at the ARRC got me thinking. I didn't see a single car at the ARRC that did not have some sort of form of ballast in their car. Whether it was weight in the floorboard, or a spare tire, or glass in their passenger door. (Pablo excluded, as they chose to be heavy with the enduro prep)

Is there actually anyone here that does NOT have any ballast in their car?

I think it would benefit ITA, and not sure about ITB, to for example remove 2% of weight from every car. That would be 50lbs for an Integra or 45lbs for a CRX.

That was we are all lighter, but the same speed. All benefiting from less wear on tires, brakes, etc.

Thoughts?

-Tom

[dickita15]

ITA Rx7s don’t run ballast, at least none I have seen. There have been various debates here about cars that cannot make weight mostly they are regarding tweeners or cars that some want moved down a class.

[erlrich]

Is there actually anyone here that does NOT have any ballast in their car? [/b] Yep - any 240SX hatchback driver, if he weighs much over 200lbs, is probably still looking for weight to shed. My car with a 180lb driver would be 50lbs overweight right now, and while you could probably still find that much, it wouldn't be the easy (or cheap) stuff.

[BlueStreak]

I'm overweight by 70lbs with a 250lb driver and no ballast.

[DavidM]

The reason everybody had weight is that we were all at minimum weight before the grand re-weighting and all had to add 100 lbs or more to be at the new weight. If you were building a new car you just wouldn't need to remove all that spray liner under the uni-body and remove every other extra ounce. Weight placement is limited so "ballasting" a car to gain performance is also limited (though could help).

Now, Andy is also going to tell you that 50 lbs is noise in the new process. My reply has always been that the weight should then be listed as +-50 lbs, but that doesn't seem to go over too well.

David

[Greg Amy]

Is there actually anyone here that does NOT have any ballast in their car?[/b]
::waving::

You did not see one ounce of lead (or otherwise) ballast in my case. None.

Why's that? 'Cause we designed all our components in such a way as to optimize weight placement as much as possible. Need to add weight? How about leaving the undercoating nice and low. Need rearward weight bias? A couple of nice rear roll cage tubes oughtta do nicely, thank you. and several other "ideas".

There's a lot more to making minimum weight than going to WalMart looking for barbells...

[chuck baader]

The only ballast in my ITA BMW was the 275# driver....10# over minimum...no gas. Chuck

[JLawton]

At 170lbs and 1/4 tank of gas, I'm 30lbs heavy........


No ballaast here!!

[Rabbit07]

At 225lbs (Cough, 230 lbs) I am about 24 lbs over min weight and there is no ballast in my car.

We did have to add lots of ballast to Fandozzi's Neon to make SCCA weight. His NASA Weight is 150lbs lighter.

[RacerBill]

I was about 40 lbs over with a full tank, 190 lb. driver, and no ballast. And I made not consious effort to shed weight. As fine tuning continues, I will have to start looking at adding weight as I find lighter wheels, etc. But as Greg said, I will 'X' the rear braces, etc. to put the weight were it will do the most good.

[mattbatson]

guess I can add to the long list of "no ballast" cars.

I'm about 230 and the car is about 100lbs overweight.

Undercoating is gone...

I guess there must have been a lot of 140lb guys racing at the ARRC :D

[924Guy]

I'm dragging an extra 40# of lead, and don't have a weight-optimized car... also finished the ARRC with a half-tank of gas, but that was a bit of over-cautious on my part! :wacko:

[trhoppe]

oooook then :)

Forget I said anything.

-Tom

[67ITB]

ITB VW Scirocco. NO ballast, except for the 245+ lbs of driver.

Car has undergone extensive weight removal, driver has not.

Matt Bal

[fiat124girl]

We have ballast in every car that we build including 240's and RX-7's.

[lateapex911]

How much ballast are you putting in the 1st gen RX-7s? I'm guessing 20 pounds or so.

[thedemoguy]

My VW Jetta ITB car is 100lbs over with me at 220 lbs.

[erlrich]

How much ballast are you putting in the 1st gen RX-7s? I'm guessing 20 pounds or so.
[/b] I'm also curious, but about the 240. And, if I may ask, what is the driver's weight with that ballast?

[cmaclean]

At 180 driver and no gas my car comes in right at 2260.

[manny]

i'll add myself also, its a 1987 ford mustang in ITB and driver is at 225 and car comes in 275lbs over, oh well :wacko:

[tom_sprecher]

How much ballast are you putting in the 1st gen RX-7s? I'm guessing 20 pounds or so.
[/b]

And how much does the driver weigh? Inquiring minds want to know. ;)

[fiat124girl]

I'm also curious, but about the 240. And, if I may ask, what is the driver's weight with that ballast?
[/b]

In the 240SX the driver weighs 170 and we have about 50 or so lbs of ballast, in the RX-7 I cannot remember how much we added but it was more than 20, if I remember it was somewhere around 50lbs.

Jude has a real knack for building light cars and prides himself on it. Our AS Camaro that we built last year was siginificantly under weight.

[dlg208]

My Pinto weighs 2260 lbs. (empty)
+ Me (150 lbs)
+ 90 lbs ballast

= 2500 lbs (that is 10 lbs over the min weight of 2490)

Not that you would want to race a Pinto :dead_horse:

[thedemoguy]

I wouldn&#39;t hit a clean Jetta in the ass with a pinto,....aaaa what a minute... :unsure:...never mind... <_<

[cchandler]

With 200 lb driver and 1/8 tank of fuel, car is 95 lbs heavy. Thinking about spending a year in Ethiopia to make weight. :lol: