Q weight loss

[sultan]

just for kicks i put my 94 on a diet. weight loss is as follows, and may not be exact, but that's what my scale says.

rear seat back: 34 lbs (no headrests)rear seat bottom: 25.5 lbsrear headrests: 5 lbsrear floormat: 4 lbscarpet in trunk: 2 lbscover over spare: 4.5 lbs (plastic and wood piece combined)storage net and small plastic tool cover: 1 lbtotal weight loss: 76 lbs!

i did not remove the spare tire, or jack and tools.the seatbelts also were not removed.

[carlos_knology]

What did you put in place of the rear seats?

Carlos

[sultan]

it looks like this right now.

[AZhitman]

Pull the spare and jack - That should be good for almost 2 tenths in the 1/4!

[PalmerWMD]

I agree teh spare tire and jack are <heavy>.Anyo9ne wanna go and measure them?

Fred..

[sultan]

tomorrow i will weigh them. does the jack just pull out, or what? when i autocrossed i couldn't get it out. might go to the track tomorrow night, also.

[PalmerWMD]

You ahve to twist the knob one way so it slims out a bit.And then it pulls out.

Fred..

[lessthanjakejohn]

You better put that stuff back in ASAP, you are running the Q45!

[sultan]

spare tire: 25.5 lbsjack: 4.5 lbstools: 3 lbs

[Q45tech]

After 108 pounds of weight reduction...108/4300=2.5% and 22.5 gallons of gasoline weighs 139.5 pounds.

Just like horses need light jockies, Q needs 95 pound drivers.

The other problem is you are taking the weight from the rear [back of center of gravity -drivers seat moved for for 5'8" driver]............which just decreases rear traction - weight on already light rear .

From the front strut towers forward is where you need to remove it........relocate battery remove AC compressor, horns, condenser fan, condenser, bumper, headlights, grill.

No wonder everything is made light a flimsy now to keep weight under 4,000.

The front seats are very heavy.....all the motors.

[sultan]

i'm just doing this to see what they weigh, at the track i can always borrow other peoples spare tires to get traction, and fill up the gas tank. maybe i could remove the bumper support from the front. that thing is pretty heavy.on a sidenote: i don't have a breaker bar, but today i found out that i can slide my "truck club" (from another car) onto my socket wrench, and get lots of leverage.

[sijoko]

Q45tech is right about the front seats. I had to loosen them when I did my stereo. They are real heavy. I would guess them to be in the 70-80 lbs. range, each. You could get some nice Recaros w/ manual adjustment that are in the 30 lbs. range.

There are a lot of areas on the Q that you can take the weight out. Some are more worthwhile than others.

I had some heavy 17x9.5 rims w/ 275/40 Kumhos. They weighed in at ~54 lbs. I switched them out with some lightweight 16x7 wheels w/ 225/60 Continental Touring tires. Together the rim and wheel weighed in at ~40 lbs.

The difference in accelaration was outstanding. Even more, when you consider that the 225/60's are taller tires.

Reducing rotational weight would have the biggest effect on performance.

Some worthwhile mods include: lightweight wheels and tires, billet torque converter from Precision Industries (10 lbs lighter), carbon fiber driveshaft (25 lbs lighter).

[sultan]

i went to the track last night. got no traction, best run was mid 16's with a trap speed near 90. not only are my wheels heavy, my rear tires are 255/50-17's, deflated to about 28psi. the stuff mentioned above was still removed, but at the track i borrowed a maxima spare, a spec v spare and a sub box for traction, to the delight of those FWD car owners. at least, i think i wasn't getting traction. they make you roll your windows up, and on the track all you hear is stones flying up in your fenderwells. so, i couldn't hear my wheels spinning, but acceleration sucked. on the street i can slam the gas with no wheelspin and accelerate 10x better.

my fuel pump is making a lot of noise now, too.

i put my car on the scale at the track, it said 4165 lbs. that's with the extra ballast, 3/4 tank of gas and a 175 lb driver. do you think the scale is off? i thought the car would weigh more.

[1qckser]

My 91 Q with HICAS came in at 4260 with a lil under a 1/2 tank of fuel, so the scale was probably pretty close.

[Q45tech]

Remember the oem tires were very soft to achieve good acceleration/handling and braking.........even the 94 came with 200 treadwear D80V4.

Very few aftermarket tires are built for drag racing plus independendent rear suspension is not the best for launch...wheel hop due to soft springs/soft shocks and subframe windup/twist. A really stiff rear sway bar will improve things a lot.

[sijoko]

I think one of the biggest causes of wheel hop is the compliance in the rear subframe bushings.

The 300zx has the same design subframe and wheel hop is reduced by replacing the subframe bushings w/ polyurethane ones.

Also you could also use the subframe spacers designed for the Z on the Q, assuming that your subframe bushings are not leaking.

[Jberger]

Rather than stripping the car down to a Geo Metro why not just add Nitrous?

You could keep the seats, AND add HP