Ballast mounting

[JamesB]

Ok, well at my school I rolled over the scales and came out 80lbs under min weight. Given that I am actually doing well at loosing my holiday weight and possibly a little more, I am preparing to mount ballast per the ITCS. So here is what I am looking to find out. per ITCS the ballast has to be mounted in the passanger footwell in front of the seat mount and before the bend to the firewall. Now reinforcment of this area is allowed if I interpet this correctly.

So the car is an 87 VW gti in ITB, its the original floorpan with a small patch for rush repair near the kick panel. Would your do any reinforcement of this area before mounting the weight? If so what would you suggest is the proper amount of legal reinforcement.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Originally posted by JamesB@Jan 11 2006, 09:51 AM
Ok, well at my school I rolled over the scales and came out 80lbs under min weight. Given that I am actually doing well at loosing my holiday weight and possibly a little more, I am preparing to mount ballast per the ITCS. So here is what I am looking to find out. per ITCS the ballast has to be mounted in the passanger footwell in front of the seat mount and before the bend to the firewall. Now reinforcment of this area is allowed if I interpet this correctly.

So the car is an 87 VW gti in ITB, its the original floorpan with a small patch for rush repair near the kick panel. Would your do any reinforcement of this area before mounting the weight? If so what would you suggest is the proper amount of legal reinforcement.

[snapback]70674[/snapback]

Hopefully Kirk or Bill (or insert VW expert) but I would suggest the following:

REPAIR the rust spot by the kickpanel. Do this using factory repair methods. I would think that you would want to place your ballast as far back as possible - so that would be snug up against your forward seat mount. Some like to also snug up against the tranny tunnel to minimize pendulum-type effects.

Reinforce as needed.

AB

[JamesB]

The rust has been repaired already and agreeable to the factory spec per the body shop manuals I have read through on the car. I am using 25lb round plates (cheaper then lead) and did plan to mount as you mentioned. my concern was mainly if the stock floorpan needs any additional reinforcement, how and where.

[JeffYoung]

At work with no GCR but I seem to recall the rules also require the use of Grade 8 hardware and TWO mounting bolts for the ballast.

[JamesB]

2. Each segment shall be fastened with a minimum of two
(2) one-half (1/2) inch bolts and positive lock nuts of
SAE Grade 5 or better, and shall utilize large-diameter,
load-distributing washers.

I plan on using 1/2 grade 8 hardware, nylock nuts and 2" washers, I am just wondering if I should weld in any braces, or another piece of sheet metal to strengthen the floor pan before I do the mounting.

[MMiskoe]

Hey Andy - Where does it say it has to be in front of the seat mount?

It says it must be forward of the seat in the footwell area. But what part of the seat? I've never seen anything that says it must be COMPLETELY in front of the seat, or that it has to be in front of ALL of the seat. Once the seat is removed, how do you define the footwell area?

The back of the headrest is pretty far back in many cases.........

I'm curious.

Matt

[JamesB]

Here is the ITCS rule in complete

l. Ballast may be used. All ballast shall be located in the
front passenger footwell area, aft of the firewall and any
footwell angle, and forward of the OEM front passenger seat
location.
1. It shall be in segments no heavier than fifty (50) pounds,
and shall be capable of being removed to be weighed
apart from the car.
2. Each segment shall be fastened with a minimum of two
(2) one-half (1/2) inch bolts and positive lock nuts of
SAE Grade 5 or better, and shall utilize large-diameter,
load-distributing washers.
3. Holes may be drilled in the front passenger footwell
floorpan for purposes of mounting the ballast (only), and
said floorpan may be reinforced as required for the same
purpose.

So location is all wrapped up, shoring it to the inside of the car sounds fine with me. I just want to know if anyone things I should beef up the floorboard in that area or just mount it like I would mount my harness and call it a day.

[gran racing]

James,

I ran into the same issue with my car. Start adding back some of the "junk" you took out. When you ran it across the scales, I'm assuming it is fairly front heavy. Add the stock spare tire. (If the car came with a small donut -it's lunch time - then you can't put a full sized spare) What else came stock with the car that you could put back there? Your racecar may no longer look "cool" but you could put the rear seat back in.

[JamesB]

I bought the car like this. so I have nothing to put back in but the space saver spare that came with it. Also I have no problem with placing the rest of the weight counter the driver (im only 165lbs and hope to be back to 155 by season.) but I still need another 70lbs ontop of the spare to make weight or a few pounds over at 1/4 tank of fuel left which should be where I should be fuel wise post race.

I plan to corner weight it afterwards anyway, so the ballast is little concern. Based off the corner weights ill see if I want to consider higher spring rates then the current 550# f and 350# rear on the car now.

plus with the cage design, I dont think I could get the stock seats back in, this car was built 2 years ago as an IT car and my bet is the car was close to the min weight with the old driver, I just happen to be shorter and lighter.

[x-ring]

Who says your space saver spare has to be full of air? J/K

I'd consider using a backing plate, maybe 1/8" thick, the same size as the ballast plates under the car.

BTW, install the bolts with the head down and the nut up so that you can get it out later if you need to. The threads will get beat up if you install them the other way.

[JamesB]

I was just going to do oversized washers. But you know if I build the backing plate the size of the 25lb weights (plan to stack them) I could actually built the plate and put a couple of tack welds on the bolt heads to make it easier to tighten.

Good idea, I actually have some 1/8" and 1/4" in the garage from the previous owner (I have no idea what he used it for.)

[ddewhurst]

***The back of the headrest is pretty far back in many cases.........***

***Who says your space saver spare has to be full of air? J/K***

James, the following is not aimed at you.

Golly, with reference to the above copied two posts I wonder why it's so easy to get rules CREEP/CHEATING threads started.

Oh crap, I forgot it&#39;s a winter thread. <_<

[JamesB]

Dave its ok. I kind of just looked past it as people messing with ideas. But the rules are pretty damn foward about official ballast location. I am happy I get to keep my spare tire, which allows me to add ~15lbs to the back of the car. If that means the remaining 75# end up front, I am ok with.

Unless someone sees a flaw in the idea of using some 1/8 cut to the same size of my ballast and bolts long enough for the 3 piece stack to be properly secured, then thats going to be my design and way to secure the weight and reinforce for the weight.

[Andy Bettencourt]

Originally posted by MMiskoe@Jan 11 2006, 12:37 PM
Hey Andy - Where does it say it has to be in front of the seat mount?

It says it must be forward of the seat in the footwell area. But what part of the seat? I&#39;ve never seen anything that says it must be COMPLETELY in front of the seat, or that it has to be in front of ALL of the seat. Once the seat is removed, how do you define the footwell area?

The back of the headrest is pretty far back in many cases.........

I&#39;m curious.

Matt

[snapback]70695[/snapback]

Matt,

As has been quoted:

l. Ballast may be used. All ballast shall be located in the
front passenger footwell area, aft of the firewall and any
footwell angle, and forward of the OEM front passenger seat
location.

Forward of the front seat mount and aft of the firewall kick-plate is the "front passenger footwell area[I]". Under the seat is not. I can define the footwell area by the front seat mount, no?

IIRC, Kip V. and James C. got booted from their podium spots at the ARRC for this technicality...but the rules are clear to me. FORWARD of the front passenger seat location means &#39;in front of&#39;.

AB

[JamesB]

Yeah and in a vw there is a big ridge for mounting the forward steat mount so the front well is well defined. I was just wondering with the experienced racers if they found they needed to add any additional reinforcement to avoid a failure of the mounting over time due to the g-loads or bumping around the cars get when fledgling drivers like me turn into temporary rally crossing.

[itracer]

Originally posted by JamesB@Jan 11 2006, 03:35 PM
I was just wondering with the experienced racers if they found they needed to add any additional reinforcement to avoid a failure of the mounting over time due to the g-loads or bumping around the cars get when fledgling drivers like me turn into temporary rally crossing.

[snapback]70719[/snapback]

I think your 1/8" will be fine. If you are going with 75# I (personally) would put in a couple extra bolts. I like your idea to tack weld the bolts to the plate under the car.

[JamesB]

I can go with 3-4 bolts. I think I will end up with 3 if you think thats enough. that way I dont have to loose too much more material. my current plan is to use a 1/8 the size of the plates, and a 1/8 2" wide band for the 3 bolts welded to the full size plate and the bolts tacked to that band. Inside the car I will have an identical band of either 1/8 or 1/4 on top of the plate so when all 3 bolts are tight if there anthing to jar the weight it will distrubute over all 3 bolts in any direction.

I would rather over engineer it then under engineer.

[x-ring]

Originally posted by ddewhurst@Jan 11 2006, 12:17 PM

***Who says your space saver spare has to be full of air? J/K***

James, the following is not aimed at you.

Golly, with reference to the above copied two posts I wonder why it&#39;s so easy to get rules CREEP/CHEATING threads started.

Oh crap, I forgot it&#39;s a winter thread. <_<

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Dave, you&#39;re aware that the J/K abbrevation means Just Kidding, right?

[JamesB]

yeah, but with all the winter whatifs floating around that has my head spinning, I wonder if he just wanted to squish that before it became and issue.

[ddewhurst]

***Dave, you&#39;re aware that the J/K abbrevation means Just Kidding, right?***

O-ya, sure, crap I knew that all along Ty.

The question is, is it better to be busted by a fellow poster or the original poster. Hmmmmmmmmmm <_<