Lighten or Repair?

F1Flyer · Jul 14, 2009

I'm usually a 'lurker' on this list (I've learnt a lot, but I'm not usually qualified to advise!) but I've finally been moved to post for opinions!

I've owned my Turbo for a number of years and love the driving experience, but I'm suffering one of those lows in the ownership experience! Recently, every time I get in the car, something goes wrong. It's got the usual list of things which have never worked since I bought it (air-con, clock, tail gate remote release, radio, rear screen heater) and despite my best efforts, the central locking has packed up again, as has the left hand electric window. The left hand door mirror mechanism has fallen apart, the fresh air blower won't work (corroded relay terminal in the fuse box) and recently the right hand side repeater light and both sunvisor clips all fell off on the same day!

You will have gathered by now that mine is not the best example of the breed!

Having read some of the threads about stripping cars to lighten them for trackdays, I'm sorely tempted to get my own back on the thing by removing a lot of this stuff and binning it! I can't help thinking that if I ever sell it, it would be worth as much in a stripped out form than with all these faults and it would cost too much given it's age and condition to repair them all?

There, I feel better for getting that off my chest!

Neil Haughey · Jul 14, 2009

Tricky one. In many ways a stripped out car needs to have other mods to complete the package such as suspension upgrades and/or roll cage.

My 968 works fine but I am tempted to strip out 80Kg or so from that one over the winter, its a disease I tell ya [

]

The experience I have had with the S2 race car project so far, is that for anything less then a race car I would probably do as follows;
- Replace seats with bucket seats that fit you just right, solid mount the drivers side unless you know for sure it will need adjusting a lot. (good for 30+ Kg weight saving). Personally I don't need a harness on track as I found normal belts + a CG lock does the job.
- Remove rear seat back and rear seat belts (good for 13 Kg or so), BUT not the base as it stops a hell of a lot of noise from the transmission and rear wheels getting into the cabin.
- Remove rear wiper, it is utterly useless anyway, doesn't save much weight about 1 kg but the thing is pointless.
- Remove all the sound deadening pads from the footwells, that is under each footwell carpet and up on the bulkhead. The car will be a touch more noisy but its mostly engine noise and is IMHO a good thing. Its also very easy to remove as it just lifts out with a bit of coaxing (good for about 10 to 12 Kg). If your careful you could put it back in if your not happy with the change.
- Remove the spare wheel, jack and tools and just carry a can of tyre sealant foam and AA or similar membership (good for about 20 Kg or so loss).

If you have a look my parts weight thread I weighed all this stuff when stripping my S2 and its really shocking how much dead weight there is in the car. My race car project for example still has electric windows for now as going to manual winders saves practically nowt, costs money and has *other* issues (winder and x bars across the door don't mix very well [

]). My brother stripped down the door loom to just provide for the window, but that is a side issue.

Perhaps a controversial opinion but if I do strip down the 968 it will keep the aircon as its actually usefull to me whereas driving around with a load of tools in the boot and seats that weigh 27Kg each isn't. I also like listening to music when I drive around so the stereo and speakers would stay.

One thing I will say that is beyond controversy is this; the only ppl that think saving say 50 Kg say in weight of the car won't make much difference are the one's that haven't done it. Everyone on here that has stripped weight of a 944 (myself included) raves about the effect it has on the car.

944 man · Jul 14, 2009

Id say: lighten it, but carefully box everything up that you remove so that you have the option of re-fitting. I always make packing cases out of studding and hardboard to keep parts in, because this preserves them.

944 man · Jul 14, 2009

ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey

Tricky one. In many ways a stripped out car needs to have other mods to complete the package such as suspension upgrades and/or roll cage.

My 968 works fine but I am tempted to strip out 80Kg or so from that one over the winter, its a disease I tell ya []

The experience I have had with the S2 race car project so far, is that for anything less then a race car I would probably do as follows;
- Replace seats with bucket seats that fit you just right, solid mount the drivers side unless you know for sure it will need adjusting a lot. (good for 30+ Kg weight saving). Personally I don't need a harness on track as I found normal belts + a CG lock does the job.
- Remove rear seat back and rear seat belts (good for 13 Kg or so), BUT not the base as it stops a hell of a lot of noise from the transmission and rear wheels getting into the cabin.
- Remove rear wiper, it is utterly useless anyway, doesn't save much weight about 1 kg but the thing is pointless.
- Remove all the sound deadening pads from the footwells, that is under each footwell carpet and up on the bulkhead. The car will be a touch more noisy but its mostly engine noise and is IMHO a good thing. Its also very easy to remove as it just lifts out with a bit of coaxing (good for about 10 to 12 Kg). If your careful you could put it back in if your not happy with the change.
- Remove the spare wheel, jack and tools and just carry a can of tyre sealant foam and AA or similar membership (good for about 20 Kg or so loss).

If you have a look my parts weight thread I weighed all this stuff when stripping my S2 and its really shocking how much dead weight there is in the car. My race car project for example still has electric windows for now as going to manual winders saves practically nowt, costs money and has *other* issues (winder and x bars across the door don't mix very well []). My brother stripped down the door loom to just provide for the window, but that is a side issue.

Perhaps a controversial opinion but if I do strip down the 968 it will keep the aircon as its actually usefull to me whereas driving around with a load of tools in the boot and seats that weigh 27Kg each isn't. I also like listening to music when I drive around so the stereo and speakers would stay.

One thing I will say that is beyond controversy is this; the only ppl that think saving say 50 Kg say in weight of the car won't make much difference are the one's that haven't done it. Everyone on here that has stripped weight of a 944 (myself included) raves about the effect it has on the car.

I took far to long to reply there! I agree with everything that Neil has said: but Id add that replacing the bonnet with a GRP part, replacing the battery with an Odyssey and replacing the windows with polycarbonate will also save a good deal of weight, as will replacing the hatch with a polycarbonate part too (also electric hatch releases and sunroof motors all add up). My old 944 was lightened to within an inch of its life and the difference that it made was MASSIVE! One thing I'll do differently next time though, is make sure that ventilation is provided for before I fix the windows up. The next car will have forced ventilation through a rear quarter light duct and a dropping polycarbonate window catched-up on the near side, after I nearly died to death caught in traffic in the recent hot spell (without a sunroof too; I had to open the door)...

Neil Haughey · Jul 14, 2009

Simon I feel your pain, I was very nearly made ill a couple of years back in my S2 on a hot day. The car was still fairly standard but had black leather / black trim and no aircon. It was one of the hottest days of the year I drunk 2 litres of water I sweated that much and this was with a sunroof, working fan and windows down.

Peter Empson · Jul 14, 2009

Guess what I'm going to suggest???

Lighten the sucker! It's so much fun [

]

Neil Haughey · Jul 14, 2009

Fibreglass bonnet is perhaps the only bit of fibreglass you can fit on a 944 and still keep the car looking pretty stock. Its also got to be the easiest to fit, and IMHO will make more or less no difference to the car in a bump as opposed to fibreglass front and rear bumpers that are designed to fall off. On my race car project Barry is fitting a complete kit and there is a fair amount of work to fit it all correctly and make it look nice. On a race car its the difference between a nicely turned out car and a BOS [

]

Always tell your insurer what you do though, IMHE they don't seem bothered about stuff being removed unless its a safety item but can have a fit if you tell them you are going for a full fibreglass kit and welded in cage etc.

Copperman05 · Jul 15, 2009

Whilst I cant say I have 'Lightened' my S2 I did remove the redundant spare wheel, tools and jack from the rear, its just seems dead weight that I'll never use, like Neil says I just have a couple of cans of Holts tyreweld in back just in case.

It may be only 20-25kg saved but I'm sure a can tell a difference in that the rear seems perhaps unsurprisingly somewhat lighter![

].

Edd

944 man · Jul 15, 2009

I didnt mention that Id removed the radiator fan fuse too, so I was having to control the engines temperature using the heater. Some people might be surprised to learn that this is possible in most circumstances, but its bloody uncomfortable when your windows are fixed and you dont have a sunroof... I had been meaning to struggle with the fan switch for weeks... [

]

Btw Neil; do you remember that we disagreed over the weight of a GRP bonnet? Ive found the details of the firm who supply the sub 6kg part (5.6kg allegedly, so saving well over 10kgs!) and I can forward it to you if youre interested.

zcacogp · Jul 15, 2009

ORIGINAL: 944 man

I didnt mention that Id removed the radiator fan fuse too

Why? Was it heavy? I'm sure that most fuses in mine are a good ... ooooooooh <ScratchesChin> 5 grams or so.

( [

] )

Oli.

944 man · Jul 15, 2009

Not particularly, the radiator sensor was playing up: so the fan would remain on turing slowly until the battery was flat on occasion.

F1Flyer · Jul 15, 2009

Thanks for the input guys.

I think I'm going to start the stripping out process!

Cheers.

Hilux · Jul 15, 2009

the only ppl that think saving say 50 Kg say in weight of the car won't make much difference are the one's that haven't done it. Everyone on here that has stripped weight of a 944 (myself included) raves about the effect it has on the car.

Very general rule of thumb is 50kg lost equates to a 10ish bhp increase (power to weight)

Neil Haughey · Jul 15, 2009

ORIGINAL: 944 man

Btw Neil; do you remember that we disagreed over the weight of a GRP bonnet? Ive found the details of the firm who supply the sub 6kg part (5.6kg allegedly, so saving well over 10kgs!) and I can forward it to you if youre interested.

That is mega light. The one I have comes I believe from Club Autosport. Its pretty well made and looks very similar to the standard one. In fact perhaps a little too similar as it has a metal frame covered on the back to look more or less the same as the structure of the standard bonnet. It has the screw holes for the bonnet hinges for example.

I am sure a bonnet made of a single skin with little to no structure underneath would be much lighter so 6 Kg sounds about right.

Personally I am thinking about looking into getting some nice stiff single skin Carbon fibre panels made up, a bonnet could go as low as say 4 Kg and that would be well worth paying for (as would front a rear bumpers to reduce the polar moments of the car).

Please post up or send me the contact Simon.
Cheers.

944 man · Jul 16, 2009

I will sort it out tomorrow. Youll be surprised how complete the bonnet looks, complete with series two type reinforcement. They also offer a carbon part at 4kgs or thereabouts, for £600-odd, as opposed to approaching £400. The do appear to be very well made too, but they should be for the price!

sawood12 · Jul 16, 2009

My 2 penneth worth (and to put across a different view) is it all depends upon what you use your car for. If you use your pretty frequently then I personally couldn't do without A/C - it gets bloomin hot in these cars and given we spend most of our time in traffic jams these days (gone are the days of the empty and open roads) you just sit a stew in your own juices. Lightening sounds fun if it is for a car you use as a dedicated track car with very occational road use, but for regular and mostly road use I really think you'll be sacrificing alot. I've read alot of posts on various forums about lightening these cars and it seems to me the only way to get any significant weight saving (i.e. and any significant noticeable performance improvement) is to go the whole hog - i.e. basically stripping down the whole car and removing absolutely everything, much like what Neil 944 man (sorry don't know your real name) have done - and don't uderestimate the cost involved, it will certainly be comparable to getting your niggles repaired by a specialist - I mean CF bonnets don't come cheap. If you just dabble you end up with a heavy, noisy, vibrating car with the creature comforts removed.

zcacogp · Jul 16, 2009

Good call Scott. My S2 is a dedicated road car - yet to see a track (although I would like to change that one day). The heavy front sports seats are lovely to sit in for long journeys. I fairly often have one or two people in the back so the back seats are staying. I quite like listening to Radio 4, so the radio and speakers are staying, as is the sound deadening 'cos otherwise it would be too noisy to hear Just a Minute. Some people may find the rear wiper useless, but I find it very useful when you are driving in the rain and need to see out of the back window. And when I had a puncture on holiday the other day, the spare wheel and jack were particularly useful - much better than filling an expensive full-size tyre with foam which would mean it would need to be thrown away soon after. The list goes on ...

I would love to see the day when I can forego some of these creature comforts and have a faster, lighter, nimbler car (and I have no doubt it will make a huge difference), but for now those heavy bits are useful, and staying.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but the other side of the argument needs airing as well.

Oli.

Neil Haughey · Jul 16, 2009

Don't write off a good bucket seat until you try. I would generally put them into 2 types;
1) low sided seats like the Sparco Rev and Recaro pole position.
2) high sided full circuit race seats, they usually have circuit and pro in the name as all the major seat manufacturers do em.

The first kind are surprisingly comfortable. Barry mounted my seat in the race car the other week and we where both surprised just how amazingly comfortable it was sat in the car with the harnesses on. It has a decent amount of padding too. I know some ppl fidget about and get very claustrophobic but I am not making this up I found it a more comfortable/reassuring feeling then sat in my 968 on its stock leather seats.

Having said all that I am not to sure now that the Sparco rev is the right approach and I may change to a seat from the second type in the not to distant future. Something I hadn't thought about until seeing it, is that seats with a high sides get between your legs and the door bars so you can get away without padding all over the door bars. With the Sparco Rev et all this isn't possible as your knees can flap about and would thus hit the bars in a crash.

The advantage is basically that you can find a seat that fits you perfectly then it will be very comfortable. I am lucky in that I find the stock seats very comfortable but even a basic Sparco Rev is for me more comfortable then the stock seat.

P.S. Something else I am now convinced of though, getting in and out of a 944 with door X bars is an unbelievable PITA. There is no way I could do it on a frequent basis, its track/race only.

Peter Empson · Jul 16, 2009

I find buckets more comfortable, they're much more supportive when pushing on (even compared to the sports seats) and the lack of padding is more suited to a stiffly sprung setup. Try the standard seats with a firm setup and you find that the bounce of the springs in the seat means you're almost moving out of sync with the car, it's quite odd and very wearing!

Neil Haughey · Jul 16, 2009

Good point Peter, you also feel what the car is doing much much more and this is important in a 944 as you feel more useful information through your butt then through the steering wheel when really on it.