Race car - remove dash or not?

[RSready]

Hey everyone. I'm in the process of building an S13 for a Chump Car race and the first thing on the list is weight reduction. We've got the interior completely stripped except for the dash. But the console, door panels, interior panels, sound deadening, etc are all gone.

Now my question is, should we remove the dash? Obviously it will save a fair amount of weight. However, it's budget racing so we're going to use the stock gauge cluster. We'd also like to have the heater/fan still functional as the race is in Canada in May. There could be a foot of snow still for all we know. I've tried looking at pics of S13s with no dash but haven't had any luck. I want to know if there will still be some sort of structure there to somehow mount the cluster so we can read it and have the heater controls in a useable location. Even if we have to ziptie it up for the race...

I don't want to pull the dash all out only to realize I to have the cluster and heater operation I have to put it back in.

Thanks for any suggestions!

[moso]

the short answer is yes. you can remove the dash and still mount the heater controls, just mount them to the radio mounting tabs. as far as the gauge cluster, use scrap metal to make brackets.

[the converted]

All of the factory mounting points will leave with the dash. If your running chump car, I'd just cut the passenger side of the dash off.

[RSready]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll do what moso said and rig up something to mount the cluster. I thought about cutting the passenger half off, but it's a black dash and there's three or four people who want to buy it for $100 and that's a lot of money in the Chump Car world!

[the converted]

I wasn't thinking about that bit of it. Which chump car race are you going to be running in? I helped build a lemons car but had to move across the country instead of racing it.

[RSready]

We're running in the Calgary race in May. I live in Edmonton, three hours north of there. The car will just be a pretty much stock DOHC motor, with some type of suspension upgrades, probably 180sx brakes and as much weight stripped out as possible. It's going to be a fun weekend!

[the converted]

After seeing a few lemons races, I wouldn't be too concerned with the suspension upgrades. Good brakes, tires, radiator, and maybe change out the head gasket now. Other than that, it really is luck of the draw as far as who the judges decide gets the penalty. Have fun and stay safe on the track.

[RSready]

Yeah, we are going to pull apart the motor and take a look at everything. We have three laying around, so we need to find out which will hold up the best. Why would say not to worry about the suspension upgrades?

[the converted]

Well staying under $500 with suspension is kinda hard. I'd be focusing more on where that spending is going to show more return in the likelihood of keeping it running. It's not so much being fast that's going to keep you high in the results as staying out on the track. Our car got some nice new shocks on it and it seemed that it really made no difference to the people that were driving it. If you show up with a set of coilovers, the judges are really going to pick over your car in tech. Lemons lets you fudge the value a little with "selling" parts off the car but Chump won't let that fly.

[codyace]

I"d keep the heater core/defrosters just as a temporary 'heat control' in the event you begin running hot.

[liquid_cool]

take a look at Garys mods at our team website..."Link at bottom of post"...he's running a throu dash roll cage and made a dash out of paper thin aluminum...this could be an option for you ..hope this helps.