More stripping out

[u63af]

The more I start stripping my 944, the more I want to start removing. Started off wanting a lighter 944 turbo with cage etc. Now I am getting more tempted to remove even more.

So far, car has had sound deadening removed, sunroof mechanism and padding removed and bonded in, removed seats and replaced with bucket seats, removed seat belts, spare wheel, tools etc.

I was thinking of cutting the door insides out and removing window mechanisms to save even more weight and put in polycarb windows with air vents.

This is going to be a road and track day car.

I managed to pick up a pair of doors for £20 off flea bay, so my intentions were to modify them with poly carb and keep my old doors in the shed. Is polycarb ok for every day use?

 

[MarkK]

Carparks,tolls,security these are the negatives for a road car.. on the track polycarbonate windows would be safer,just depends on what bias of use you are going for,a good compromise maybe are some doorcards,they save a ton of weight and the car is still usable,i did that on mine.

 

[DavidL]

Can't help you Sandy, sorry. Thought I'd just say I've put the seats in and they're great. All the heating works too which is a bonus.
The inside of my car is just how I want it now, just got to finish the outside and under the bonnet!
Still it's getting there.

 

[u63af]

David, glad the seats are working well, will probably regret selling them when i see pics of the insude of yours. At least they have gone to a good home.

I was going to put in sliding vents so that I can get my arm in and out. I may be wrong on this but thought that i would be able to save about 15kg either side from stripping out door (i.e. cutting out inner metal) ,removing windows, regs etc and replacing with polycarb. Has anyone got any figures for weight that I would save? I priced up the carbon door cards but they were about £300 + Vat and carriage. Trying not to spend too much at the moment.

Mark, what weight do you reckon yours is now? I would love to get mine down to 1200 kg but to do it I think I will need f/g front end, gts headlights and poly carb windows with stripped doors.

 

[DavidL]

ORIGINAL: u63af

I would love to get mine down to 1200 kg but to do it I think I will need f/g front end, gts headlights and poly carb windows with stripped doors.

That and no haggis or deep fried anything!! (pizza, Mars bars.....)


Do you think it might be a bit unforgiving on the road by the time you have finished? That or shares in ear plugs!!

 

[barks944]

ORIGINAL: u63af

Is polycarb ok for every day use?

Would a polycarb front windshield be ok for a road car? I can't think of any major reason why nort.

 

[Diver944]

I would have thought that windscreen wipers would scratch them to opaque in no time at all

 

[barks944]

I thought it was pretty hard stuff, although I guess not as hard as glass...

 

[u63af]

I was just going to remove my windcreen and get some goggles. [] The added wind resistance would slow me down a lot thought.

the car should not be that unforgiving on the road, as I am putting carpets in and will put something over the doors on the inside like fibreglass sheet.

 

[barks944]

ORIGINAL: u63af

I was just going to remove my windcreen and get some goggles. [] The added wind resistance would slow me down a lot thought.

Ha, the main reason I asked is I have a nice crack in my winshield. Wondered if it would be worth while replacing it with lexan or such. I guess its pretty useless if it would get scratched by the wipers though...

 

[DavidL]

ORIGINAL: barks944

I thought it was pretty hard stuff, although I guess not as hard as glass...

Polycarbonate is extremely impact resistant but very soft. We use them in spectacles but they all come with a plastic coating. Even then it isn't great.
For a windscreen it would be awful and not great for windows if you keep the opening facility.

 

[Neil Haughey]

ISTR the car can not have a plastic windscreen and stay road legal?

IMHO do not under any circumstances cut out the door bars. Even on a race car I would keep the door bar on the drivers door, after seeing a 968 take a heavy side impact at Silverstone it is very clear just how well the door bars work.

Stripping can only get you so far before hitting the old diminishing returns problem, manual window winders for example save very little weight over electric. Binning everything else in the door gets rid of a lot of stuff but then your car has no central looking etc. Binning the PAS and manualizing the rack saves a good few Kg's and saves a bit of dropped Bhp but means no PAS for parking etc. Pretty much all the weight saving mods have downsides.

Having said that I am really looking forward to driving my S2 this year.

 

[Neil Haughey]

Carbon door cards look good but waste of money. Take the pocket of your standard cards and weigh them, they weigh virtually nothing.

A carbon fibre bonnet though like the one 944man posted about awhile back would be a big benefit.

 

[Hilux]

ORIGINAL: u63af

The more I start stripping my 944, the more I want to start removing. Started off wanting a lighter 944 turbo with cage etc. Now I am getting more tempted to remove even more.

So far, car has had sound deadening removed, sunroof mechanism and padding removed and bonded in, removed seats and replaced with bucket seats, removed seat belts, spare wheel, tools etc.

I was thinking of cutting the door insides out and removing window mechanisms to save even more weight and put in polycarb windows with air vents.

This is going to be a road and track day car.

I managed to pick up a pair of doors for £20 off flea bay, so my intentions were to modify them with poly carb and keep my old doors in the shed. Is polycarb ok for every day use?

Is it an unmodified turbo?

If so then dont go mad to save weight as it will cost a fortune (diminishing returns as Neil quite correctly stated)

A Turbo engine can be enhanced cheaply for worthwhile gains and with a bit more (under £1000 can have around 300bhp)

A rough guide of 50kg weight loss is said to be worth about 10 bhp so do your sums and if a £300 ish level 1 kit from Promax will give you a useful 30 ish bhp its like losing 150kg without the pain of altering the car from standard[]

Compare that to the costs of spending in other ways to lighten the car once all the easy bits have been ripped out and thrown over the hedge and its a no brainer.

Better brakes certainly means faster lap times as does driver tuition []

 

[u63af]

it has promax 1.2 bar chip, 55lb injectors, tial dpw, 3 bar fpr. Will be getting 3" s.s exhaust. Was hoping for 300 bhp.

 

[barks944]

Should make 300BHP easy as long as you can hold the boost pressure at high RPM. Mines was 275bhp with 1 Bar stock exhaust and quite a bit of boost tail off. Got an Apexi AVCR now which helps keep the boost up. Mine is a 220bhp turbo tho so with a bigger turbo you might not have that issue....

 

[MarkK]

Disagree,carbon door cards are superb= make the doors way lighter..

 

[Neil Haughey]

ORIGINAL: MarkK

Disagree,carbon door cards are superb= make the doors way lighter..

Like I said Mark, weigh a door card without the arm rest and pocket attached. Replacing a stripped down door card with a CF card makes naff all difference to the weight of the door, if you weighed the parts you would know this. The doors are very very heavy but unfortunately much of the weight is the metal door itself. I can go back to the thread I posted last year with the weights listed or you can look it up yourself.

They do look great though.

 

[Neil Haughey]

http://www.porscheclubgbforum.com/tm.asp?m=441581&mpage=1&key=

Hopefully the link works, difficult to find [Is the search working OK?]. Upshot is that a door complete weighed in at an enormous 27.4 Kg, stripped down to just the metal it still weighed an enormous 16.4 Kg. As we weighed the window mech complete to see how much could be saved by going manual we know that bit weighs 2.4 Kg, most of which is metal work also shared by a manual winder. Thus everything else weighs 6.6 Kg and this included the door card, all the wiring which is surprisingly heavy, the glass obviously a fair old weight, the central locking assembly etc. Doesn't seem like I posted the weight of the door card but I remember it was so light with the arm rest and pocket removed it just didn't seem worth bothering about, ISTR about 1 Kg.

 

[MarkK]

Just comparing it to a normal door with all the trims,it opens and shuts completely different ... can't believe its in my mind??It looks neat and tidy aswell,i couldn't keep the delightful pinky studio check- that would have not been pretty[:'(]