Red Pepper Racing

a roll cage should improve the torsional and bending rigidity of the chassis, if designed well enough.

but for what you are suggesting, i'd recommend dumping a ton of money into tube framing it.

there is no cheap way to properly do what you want to do.

street racing bragging rights is NOT worth your safety (hence, your life).

tubeframe equals 75?lb weight penalty.. might be more in nhra

so dont go that direction, just get a cage.


Edited by dmotoguy, 09 April 2004 - 11:35 PM.

So if I get a cage, (a good 6pt chromoly cage) then I can gut just about the entire car. No rear floor (nothing behind the seats to the hatch), No webbing around windows, gutted rear hatch, all lexan windows, and a fuel cell moved to engine bay of car.

Now, will that work?

If you really want to save as much weight AS POSSIBLE then dont where a helmet or if you do then make sure its a nice lightwight one like a styrofoam cycling helmet.

Seriously though get a cage you might want to surprise people with the sleeper and that has some credit but people wont be surprised anymore when your car folds or crumbles in a crash (they do happen by the way) because you disregarded safety in the name of being #1, and after it is all said and done, your injured or dead,..... they wont be remembering you as a winner.

I dont think that people will be all that surprised that your pulling fast times when they look inside your car and see that theres nothing left of it.

besides all of this a nicely built cage can look very cool and get the ladies and hey lets face it, thats what racing is really all about.

I think that you should take a really close look at how your car is built before you talk anymore about what your gonna remove. remember that those guys running tube frames are also running lightweight fiberglass bodies. If you cut out to much steal then your gonna have to support the body with more steal in the shape of tubing and will probably end up heavier than when you started.

Later, Jay.
Edited by jayburn, 10 April 2004 - 11:09 AM.

there is some stuff you can cut out of the crx, i hve cut pretty much everything i can.. dont mess with the floor. you can get the 1g so light without comprimising its integrety so why bother. what webbing under the windows are you talking about? im confused on that one. gut the inside of the hatch. scrape all of the undercoating (inside of firewall and under car plus under seats and in trunk)

never ever cut anything structural out of a crx unless you have a GOOD cage.
I know it's been said before on here..but i just have to say it too.
While working i've seen peoples legs crumbled like spaghetti even with FIA approved rollcages because the engine came through the bulkhead on Eau Rouge (Spa Franchorchamps racetrack in Belgium)and lots of other occasions.
i can only imagine what would have happenend without a cage.
A good racecar is designed to crash...sounds weird but it's a fact.
and let's face it...a fully intact crx right out the showroom ain't that save either.
sorry to be hammering on safety...but it can't be said enough.
Go hard...Go save...kick ass with that lil crx!
besides...you want to have your crx stiff as a board or it'll use some energy coiling the chassis up.

Sander

I think I will just remove the sunroof and lexan all of the windows for now and see where that puts me. If I am around 1600 even; then I will be satisfied.

To get lower than that with my setup I will have to make extreme changes. Guys, I know safety is a must; but I am not ready for the final step yet. The car might be a low 11 second car right now; but I will never know until I can get traction. Once I fix the traction issue and see how fast it is, then I will go onto the cage.

the sunroof's good for a little over 30 pounds

you should weld the front torsion bars like you would a rear sway bar....that'll save some weight when u cut em out. then take out all the sway bars, and let the oil out of the engine and tranny. while you're at it, get rid of the cooling system...that's useless weight in drag racing right? right....

for street use especially....and those dumb kids you're racing, we all say get a cage.

I've seen street races go really baaaad!!!

Our cars have a unibody.

They are over fifteen years old.

Metal fatigues.

Every body panel, including doors and hatches and windows are structural.



You could always try to lose some weight off yourself.

Why don't you race in the nude?

No really.

maybe some lightweight wheels?
cut your exhaust in half and run it out the side.
Tube frames are sometimes heavier than a unibody.
remove three of your four lugnuts on each wheel.

cutting really wont do much. Just get some more power. maybe a 100 shot?

Weld the front torsion bars, (lol) you guys are funny.

It seems that the only thing to do is maybe fuel cell and lexan the windows. I can't gut anything structural unless I go full cage. I am already light enough at 185 lbs.

How much do the 1st gen drag cars weigh that are running 10's and 9's?
What about removing the rear sway bar? Will that work?

good luck on finding a good cage, and if you do find one share the welth with the rest of us, the ONLY time i have found something for the 1st gens and not the 2nd is carpet, but i am assuming that your car is carpet free.

i think the people who are running 9's are liars.. not really i have heard about it, maybe they have fly paper on their wheels.

i don't know if this would help anything but maybe instead of trying to lighten you should just carfully place the weight you do have, like move your seat so you are lower, (because you may very well be the fattest thing in your car when you get done), i would assume you don't have a dash that you are trying to see over, or you could put all of your gauges and equptment as low and over axels as you can. i don't know jack about drag racing, but i imagine that you have to have a fire extinguisher and some types of tachs, or shift lights. dunno, good luck on that though, i would like to come see you race when you get it on the track

Lets get real here.. If the car is <2000lbs, its freakin light. Why would anyone want to cut more off of the car if it could potentially weaken the structure of it? I yanked everything non-structural and it was around 140lbs of stuff but going for even more major weight reduction would be somewhat of a waste

BTW pocketrocket good point about balancing the car and evening weight out, I think thats something that can be overlooked pretty often

are you planning on fiberglass doors? those can cut alot of weight

yes, you can weld/cut the rear sway bar. i've done it and a few others here have too. it basically just make the car act neutral, and saves weight in the rear axle.

you could get a carbon-fiber hood
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saves weight too