Decent weight reducing body parts?

wstar

I'm not looking to buy yet, but more looking at my long-term options on body parts. I see tons of parts here from tons of vendors, but virtually none of them mention weight savings. I know a lot of our stock body pieces (hood, fenders, roof) are already pretty thin and lightweight from the factory, so it's probably pretty challenging to offer any decent savings.

Does anyone have a list of the aftermarket replacements that offer real weight reduction when painted?

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kenchan

how about your belly? do you have extra weight there?

theDreamer

http://www.the370z.com/brakes-suspen...on-thread.html

We have a decent start to a weight reduction thread going, just need more input from people when they buy stuff.

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kenchan

doesn't the AT weigh like 30-40lbs more than the MT? kinda off from the getgo...

you can start by removing the spare tire and all stereo stuff, get a dry cell. i'd swap out the fender and quarter to CF if that was really the direction you want to go.

basically take off everything you dont need like interior panels.

at the end of the day 100lbs in saving will net you about 0.1 sec if 0-60mph.

SPOHN

I could do 15 myself.

I

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tranceformer

IIRC the doors hood and hatch are aluminum? No need to buy expensive cf parts for those items if they're aluminum, imo.

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Ray
2009 370Z Base Sport 6MT / 12.860 @ 109.09mph / 1.921 60ft / street tires
official 1/4 mile track times

wstar

Yeah, I could stand to drop around 15-20 there

Yeah these are the basic weight specs from the factory for 2009, AFAIK:

MT Base: 3232
MT Touring: 3278
AT Base: 3269
AT Touring: 3314

I'd rather not get into another 6MT vs 7AT debate here, that's totally not the point of this thread :P

I've already done most basic things ages ago, as you can see in my journal thread. I killed the washer fluid system, the spare tire, the subwoofer, the bluetooth stuff. Did the battery relocate to a tiny PC680 (AGM) in the trunk. Lighter wheel+tire setup. Lighter 2pc brake rotors and lighter seats are on my eventual to-do list.

I haven't compromised the interior much yet though, as it's still a semi-daily driver / road-tripper for now.

Eventually, someday, that might happen, when I pick up a new DD car and re-purpose this one to be a bit more dedicated. But there some things I can do ahead of time that don't compromise its current function, and that's what I've been shooting for where I can. I figured one of those would be body panels, but when I trawl through the threads in this section advertising body panels, tbh it looks like they're all about the flash and not the weight loss, because they're not advertising any comparative weights. If there's one or two of you sponsors/mfgs that are advertising weight drops, speak up here so I can find your thread in the haystack.

Yeah I've been following that since day 1, but we don't have any body parts listed there, and quite frankly I'd rather not be the test mule on figuring out aftermarket body part weights if the mfgs aren't giving us any data to base buying decisions on.

The point of this thread is basically to call out the 370Z after market body parts makers and ask: do you have reasonable weight-dropping pieces available at reasonable prices? What kind of weight drop can we get from painted FRP fenders, hoods, etc? Are the stock pieces so light it's just not worth bothering?

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kenchan

so how much weight has your car lost so far? 200lbs? 300lbs?

if so you went from a 0-60 time of say 5.4 to 5.1sec. hardly worth the effort on a street car imho.

if you're going to do it, do it like you mean it by making a track car. take out ALL the interior panels out and rest of your stereo, a/c everything.

wstar

Well, what's "worth the effort" is highly subjective. It's hard to be on these boards and not sound hypocritical saying that to anyone. Most regular humans would say it's not "worth the effort" to replace exhaust or intake systems for the gains they give either. That ship has long sailed, we're obviously all over-optimizing here.

0-60 isn't the whole game either, not by far. Dropping weight off the car also benefits handling, and redistributing the center of gravity towards the bottom and back can give pretty significant positive handling changes for fairly small moves. Hence the focus on the front body panels, rather than say the rear bumper or even the trunk lid so much. The battery move alone can be felt in the handling of the car, IMHO.

I'd love to build a track-specific car, more like TravisJB's build, but it's not in the cards right now. I don't have another car lined up as a replacement daily driver, and quite frankly with as few weekends as I could devote to the track right now it wouldn't really be worth it. I plan to keep this car pretty much indefinitely though, and someday it will get there

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kenchan

i agree that dropping weight does wonders for handling but you live in houston. ive lived in houston decades ago so i know what it's like. there's no such thing as canyons or any kind of serious curves you'd carve in your area unless you go to the track. so im guessing your primary goal is acceleration since your roads are flat and straight, and some braking benefit.

you see, ive been modding cars basically for street use for many years. after all the weight reduction and intake/exhaust forced induction mods, suspension, etc ive done, it comes down to this... most sport/sporty cars these days are built pretty damn well out of the box. especially for street it runs very well. you make changes to the car you sacrifice something else. unless you do dramatic sacrifice you're not going to gain much.

street cars you shouldn't have to sacrifice anything.

Cmike2780

This is pretty much the philosophy Lotus is/was after. It's asking what you can do without. I would probably start with the seats and wheels (although the stock's are pretty light already). Body panel replacements will yield minimal results, but everything does add up.

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KamiSpeed

The oem semi-dry carbon varis hood I have for sale is 6 lbs lighter than stock
and the one with vents is 5 lbs lighter, if you need weights of other items let me know and I can find out for you... but in terms of weight reduction the seats and interior are a good way to start

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wstar

I drive all over TX, but even just here in Houston there are plenty of curves and corners, but they're generally brief violent affairs, not long sloping stuff. At speed some of the highways are a blast too. My favorite is the Woodlands Autobahn (aka Hardy Toll Road). Perfect pavement, and some really nice curves with pretty dramatic elevation changes in places too. Gotta hit it in the early AM on a weekend to find it relatively free of traffic though.

Some of it's just sacrificing some labor and dollars, it's not all an even tradeoff. I wouldn't characterize most of my tradeoffs as trading one performance aspect for another and netting roughly the same overall performance benefit.

There are lots of tweaks that can be made where it's just not worth it to the factory on labor and/or sticker markup to make certain small improvements. A lot of the decent tradeoffs are also just personal taste on performance vs noise, inconvenience, maintenance, and comfort/entertainment. The factory can't please everyone with the blend they pick there.

For some examples: I'm not willing to gut my radio/CD player completely. I do like having music in the car. But I can totally live without the subwoofer in the back, my music still sounds fine to me that way.

Or my recent addition of an oil catch can. The factory could have done that, it's all upside and no downside in terms of performance and engineering. The downside is in maintenance: they don't want to burden consumers with emptying out a catch can on a regular basis (or have the consumer face a blocked PCV system sucking liquid oil if they forget).

Better brake pads: possible noise issues, more brake dust on the wheels, more expense, etc. Washer fluid system: again it's just dead weight to me. I own a little squeegie to clean my windshield in my garage, and I don't mind doing it regularly when I stop at gas stations either. Good wipers and Rain-X work well enough for most everything else.

Smaller battery: all upside performance-wise. The downside is that while most normal car consumers pretty much never have to worry about their car's electrical system (so long as they don't leave the headlights on accidentally or whatever), I now have to consciously think about my charging/starting cycles (like, hey I just stopped and started the car 5 times without giving the alternator enough time to recharge from all that, so I guess I better leave the car running a while now).

You get the idea. The car is great out of the box, but it can be made a lot better if you're willing to sacrifice a little of your own time and convenience in areas that don't matter so much to you.

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kenchan

so going back to my earlier question, exactly how much weight did you remove? 200lbs? 300lbs?

wstar

Yeah that's what I was afraid of, that there wouldn't be really good weight savings on these parts. Not enough to justify the cost to me, personally, anyways.

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