Scirocco weight loss

[Campbell]

Wow! The good news is I can drop 140lbs the bad news is I can drop 140lbs.. how in the world can I do that? any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

[theenico]

Which Scirocco and in what class? I had to put that much weight back in my 83 8V for ITB to make the 2270# minimum back in 2001 and 2002.

Nevermind... I just read the Fastrack addendum thread and woohoo

Now I just need to track down my old car (logbook # 16-321)

[shwah]

Originally posted by Campbell@Jan 22 2006, 01:01 AM
Wow! The good news is I can drop 140lbs the bad news is I can drop 140lbs.. how in the world can I do that? any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

[snapback]71551[/snapback]

I dunno - if you have an A1 and can't get to weight, maybe there is some bad crash repair to your car.... They are pretty light shells, hell early Rabbits and Sciroccos were sometimes less than 2000# right off the showroom floor.

Chris

[Campbell]

My car is an 84 Scirocco - weight has been close to 2270, with me in it and at 1/2 tank of gas I might be 5 lbs light. I guess I could lose 25 or 30 lbs but still need to find another 110 lbs. Remove glass? maybe the inner bumpers? although I would hate to hit anything without them. I can't think of anything obvious but I may be missing something. thanks

[theenico]

I went woohoo because I ran 140#'s of ballast, with a full tank of gas, in my 83 ITB Scirocco. For reference, I weighed 145 at the time.

[JLawton]

The weight reduction was great news (says the guy who JUST sold his A1 GTi!!)!!

I'm sure you'll see the A1s a little more frequently now!

And yes, getting down to the weight may be tough. How much does window and door panel weigh compared to NASCAR bars? Probably about the same??

Start scraping the undercoating!!

[shwah]

Originally posted by Campbell@Jan 22 2006, 03:18 AM
My car is an 84 Scirocco - weight has been close to 2270, with me in it and at 1/2 tank of gas I might be 5 lbs light. I guess I could lose 25 or 30 lbs but still need to find another 110 lbs. Remove glass? maybe the inner bumpers? although I would hate to hit anything without them. I can't think of anything obvious but I may be missing something. thanks

[snapback]71568[/snapback]

Oh yeah. I forgot how heavy the stock S2 bumpers are. You can lose ~ 40 pounds installing euro bumpers, but that won't do you any good on an IT car.

[racer14itc]

Some other ideas:

Wheels - depending on what you have you could save 10-20 lbs of unsprung weight
Aluminum shocks/struts
Lighter Exhaust system - thin wall tubing can save 5-10 lbs - are you running a header? (Lighter weight).
Remove rear sway bar/replace with stiffer springs (the car won't know the difference). 15 lbs
Lighter seat - C/F or Kevlar seat
Fuel pickup system - use all the fuel to run it dry - save 20+ lbs of fuel
Remove handbrake (if you haven't already) and cables.
Remove gauges like Speedo (don't need it).
Single groove crank pulley w. same OD

MC

[Campbell]

Originally posted by racer14itc@Jan 22 2006, 03:41 PM
Some other ideas:

Wheels - depending on what you have you could save 10-20 lbs of unsprung weight
Aluminum shocks/struts
Lighter Exhaust system - thin wall tubing can save 5-10 lbs - are you running a header? (Lighter weight).
Remove rear sway bar/replace with stiffer springs (the car won't know the difference). 15 lbs
Lighter seat - C/F or Kevlar seat
Fuel pickup system - use all the fuel to run it dry - save 20+ lbs of fuel
Remove handbrake (if you haven't already) and cables.
Remove gauges like Speedo (don't need it).
Single groove crank pulley w. same OD

MC

[snapback]71595[/snapback]

I will look into the wheels and getting rid of the all the non essentials (including the undercoating). Does anyone run without the inner bumpers? I could run 2X4's instead and lose a lot a lbs I think. thanks

[67ITB]

Campbell,
You wont find any “heavy parts” left on a race car but you can find many places to remove 1,2 or even 3 lbs and it all adds up very fast. Well maybe not very fast but it does add up.
As far as the bumpers unfortunately you have to keep them, and I have found that they do come in handy at times

My 2 biggest weight loss items will be the spare tire securely mounted in the truck, and the spare tire hanging over my belt.

Matt bal

[shwah]

Originally posted by Campbell@Jan 22 2006, 09:52 PM
I will look into the wheels and getting rid of the all the non essentials (including the undercoating). Does anyone run without the inner bumpers? I could run 2X4's instead and lose a lot a lbs I think. thanks

[snapback]71596[/snapback]

Can't remove the bumper bars in IT. Which really sucks with your particular car. Them's boat anchors!

[JamesB]

You would not believe how much that undercoating weighs though. But with VW's it seems building the cage just right, keeping your personal balast to a minimum and removing all that undercoating is a sure way to get to min weight.

[Joe Camilleri]

Originally posted by JamesB@Jan 23 2006, 02:24 PM
You would not believe how much that undercoating weighs though. But with VW's it seems building the cage just right, keeping your personal balast to a minimum and removing all that undercoating is a sure way to get to min weight.

[snapback]71675[/snapback]

I didn't weigh it all, but my guess is that there was 25 -30 lbs of undercoating. It's not a fun job, I used a variety of knotted wire wheels on an angle grinder and a drill along with a variety of scrapers and blades including a wood chisle.

Since doing this, I have found out about the Snap-On Crud Thug which has the advantage of turning at a lower rpm and not melting the undercoating as you go along. With the angle grinder it was better doing the job in the winter when the car was cold. While not as powerful, the variable speed drill was helpful to get into some places and use a slower rpm.

[attachmentid=250][attachmentid=251]

[Bill Miller]

Originally posted by JLawton@Jan 22 2006, 10:22 AM
The weight reduction was great news (says the guy who JUST sold his A1 GTi!!)!!

I'm sure you'll see the A1s a little more frequently now!

And yes, getting down to the weight may be tough. How much does window and door panel weigh compared to NASCAR bars? Probably about the same??

Start scraping the undercoating!!

[snapback]71585[/snapback]

Sure is!

[burban]

when converting my scirocco from an IT car to production I stripped off all the undercoating everywhere wheel wells floor under the spare tire well and all the tar and every little bit of crud and tar in the interior the car was 48lbs. lighter. I got another 13 in various brackets and such although in IT you can't remove these.

another thing if your can has been repainted several times you can shave alot of weight by stripping and having only one coat of paint.

the nascar bars at with tubing 1.5 " dia, .095 is 1.44lbs/ft. if I remember correctly so depending on what you build, gutting the doors could save you some weight.

[JLawton]

And I think we have Bill Miller to thank for this change He's been campaigning loud and hard for this change for years!! I'm surprised he never had a heart attach the way he went after it!!

Nice job to Bill and the IT Committee!

[Davis]

Can you skin the hood? What front to rear weight proportion is optimal? What is acceptable?

Pulled out the old GCR's. The answer to my first question is....NO!

[Bill Miller]

Originally posted by JLawton@Jan 24 2006, 05:56 AM
And I think we have Bill Miller to thank for this change He's been campaigning loud and hard for this change for years!! I'm surprised he never had a heart attach the way he went after it!!

Nice job to Bill and the IT Committee!

[snapback]71845[/snapback]

Thanks for the kind words Jeff, and I'd love to think that I had something to do with it. But not because I asked for something, but because it was the right thing to do. For those that have been around this board for a while, from the very beginning of the discussions about an objective classification process, all I ever asked for, was that it be applied to all the cars in the ITCS. I certainly do take a small amount of satisfaction out of the fact that somebody was listening.

Thanks again, but the real credit goes to Darin and the rest of the ITAC. It's going to be cool to talk about this 5 or 10 years from now, and say that we were there when it happened. Once more, nice job guys!