Weight Reduction
 

Hey guys,
I'm working on stripping some weight from the z and wondering if any of you guys have weighed your z's and what your'e weighing in at against whp

i have 317 to the wheel and installing some parts hoping to get it up in the 330's, and hoping to come in around 3,000 with a full tank of gas, is that possible without really gutting it?

google search says approx 3250 but z1 motorsports said in a video they come stock around 3400-3450 depending on options

i have not weighed mine yet and was waiting until i had seats/rollcage put in

thank you!

btw searched the forum and all i found was the OG thread from 09'

Mine is about 3600 ish with 150lbs driver, all fluids, maybe a 1/2 or 1/4 tank gas. 09 Nismo OEM manual cloth seats. Spare donut was in the trunk. 3400 range sounds about right.

Stickied thread here

http://www.the370z.com/exterior-inte...on-thread.html

3250 is not happening without gutting the car. That is not realistic to expect otherwise.

A bunch of people posted their corner weights in this thread. I was at 3450 with the rear hatch gutted and a full tank and me in the car.

http://www.the370z.com/track-autocro...coilovers.html

A lot of the weight also would also have to come from the rear of the car, making the 53/47 weight distribution even worse.

3000 lbs requires gutting the car.

hmm good point, didn't even think about the distribution

i think i knew that i just needed to hear it

dang makes sense, was hoping it was a little lighter

:( i know that now lol

gutted car here, with no headlights, a half cage, and everything superfluous removed. All track items needed (surge, baffled oil pan, etc) done, and car weighs 3010 lbs wet on the scale at my home track.

oh wow...thanks for that, that really helps me out. any pics?

Unfortunately not many decent photos yet. I bought the car mostly built from another member. I'm working on a splitter and detailing it out with photos in another thread in this same forum. Once that's done I'm going to de-livery the rest of it and then get some better photos. Hopefully I'll get some out on track soon :).

I do expect the splitter setup to add about 25 pounds. I believe there's about 15 pounds of hardware I have in total right now for a rigid support and the carbon splitter should be around ten pounds I'm guessing. Cutting some big louvres into the hood would definitely reduce weight though :)

I wouldn't bank on it being a net loss in weight, but Trackspec makes some very nice hood vents for our cars

Thanks! I'll take a look at them. I've been talking to verus engineering about their louvres. I've got them on my gti and they make a 350z kit that shouldn't be too different from 370z in cfd analysis.

From initial look it looks like trackspec louvres don't have wickers. Wonder if they have an option to add or if there's an easy way to add myself? The verus ones just slide in from the bottom, and they do make a big difference.

The trackspec ones work very well. I have them on my car and it solved my heat issue.

Good to know. I'll take a look at them more. Maybe they have a reason they didn't use wickers, but from reading the mustang forums a few guys have added wickers and dramatically improved results.

Here's a link to the verus ones I was going to try to fit:
https://www.verus-engineering.com/sh...41?category=33

I would agree if the car will stay without aero, with a wing, the weight distribution will not matter unless it is in Autocross or very slow circuit, without aero in a fast circuit, it is going to snap oversteer easily.

And I agree, 3000lbs needs major works, mine is at 1460 kg without driver, I think half tank of gas, removed spare and tools, many other bits, but with both seats installed, I assume it will come down to 1440 with racing seat and without passenger seat, I did it but didn't weight it :icon17:

So, 3200 lbs WITHOUT PASSENGER could be possible with some efforts but no major work.

I've got my rear end completely gutted with fixed-back race seats. I'm hovering right around 3300-3400. So damn heavy! With that said, I've just recently replaced my coolant overflow resevoir with a much smaller one and removed the washer fluid tank. Lastly, I replaced the front bash bar for a custom lightweight tube for future FI clearance and weight reduction.

I'm curious what other people have done to lose some weight in the front, I feel like my car is now front-end heavy with all the gutting I've done in the rear.

Street2Soul is down to 3000lbs. I'll link you his IG your dms

You are going to always chasing something in the Z when it comes to balancing. All bets are off for those of us TT kits. I also added a larger bash bar to mount the splitter to. The biggest bang for the buck is a lightweight battery. You can gain more weight functional control by getting lighter rotors and wheels. If you are going for mostly racecar then get rid of creature comforts like the AC and condenser. You can go all out and remove the heater core and blowers. From there it is all about suspension up front. Get a good set of coilovers.

The rear you will want a wing and contrary to popular belief they do work at relatively slow speeds. Most the tracks I run on are less than 2 miles long and heavy car or not most everyone in a competitive series runs one if they are allowed. I was shocked how much the wing helped on the Miata! We took it off and she was ha handful on anything over 45 mph.

Also having spent some time with the crew from Nissan that has been to the last few ZDAYZ events and them providing us a tour of the Nissan Heritage Museum, which is not open to the public we talk about the need for better grip and rotation of the rear of the car. Jeremy promptly took me over to one of the 280z race cars and showed me their solution. There was a post welded on each side of the rear wheel well were they added weight directly over the wheel to gain additional mechanical grip. He said the additional weight was worth it in lap times. In fact the Nissan Pace Car they brought to ZDAYZ, a 300 Z, they added about 300 lbs to the trunk to make it behave on the track due to the power level of the car. It was essentially their Trans AM car. Anyway Jeremy suggested I do the same as they did with the 280z. We will see how well the wing does.

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Is this balance due to the hatchback nature of the car, which basically has a bunch of empty space in the back?

a carbon hatch would have done wonders, huh?

I think that is part of along with being rear wheel drive. This is not much of an issue with front wheel drive hatchbacks.

Austin Hurtel added a cf hatch a a 9 Lives wing to his racecar. He was fast before he gutted and detuned his car so he could race wheel to wheel. His initial results are promising.

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Very interesting stuff. I've been curiously thinking that if my rear end is so darn light compared to my front, could this have a negative impact on my rear-end grip (and I think it does). I'm playing around with suspension setups, tire pressure, and no swaybar to see if that helps. Having a stock diff definitely doesn't help either lol As for your comment about aero, I'd love to run aero but at this time I'm planning on competing in Gridlife Street class which limits us to no aero at all unless stock USDM or JDM.

Carbon hatch would help, but not by much (by itself). The heaviness in the hatch actually comes from the glass. If I could replace my hatch with a CF one AND replace the glass with plexiglass, I'd be golden! But unfortunately, my class doesn't allow for plexiglass.

You need to talk to Austin, he holds and broke several records in Street class with his Z. He is really fast!

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Yep - we're facebook friends :)

I can run as low as low 2900's with driver, fuel and/or ballast, and that is full cage. 350z, but still...

Figure 2700 no driver and a gallon in the tank and that is with pretty heavy aero.

2700 would be tough. You'd have to fully rip out the dash, door framing, replace panels with real carbon panels (not that fiberglass stuff with a layer of carbon on top), and start chopping away at the structural bits that are no longer needed with a cage.

I'm sitting at 3010 without driver but with fuel. Another 300 lbs is tough to find, but doable with some persistence.

If you don’t already know or assume, putting some context to his post, this is his car. Ain’t nothing regular about his car haha

http://www.the370z.com/other-vehicle...ce-car-fs.html

I don't know exactly what my cage weighs, but I'm willing to bet my car is mid 2500's dry with no cage in....so you might need to find 500lbs haha.

I just meant in the context of getting a 370z down to that weight.

I think 2800 is possible. You can drop a lot weight removing driver and passenger windows, and using lexan for the rear hatch even if you don't do a carbon rear hatch. If legal lexan for the front windscreen.

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https://www.plastics4performance.com...indow-kit.html

For lexan, it can shave a lot, but I will be hesitant to take weight from the back, so it will not be too light on the rear tires, it can make the car snappy with trail braking.

I get that if you have no rear aero! You can also relocate that 40lbs battery to the rear.

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Yeah, don't get me wrong, I think 2800 is possible and 2700 will require some more extreme efforts. My weight is with no driver/passenger windows but with the front shield and rear glass. The rear glass could definitely lose some weight up high, which would be huge, but there's no way I'm dropping another 200 lbs without pulling every single wire, bolt, harness, and cutting out every bit of the dash that can be removed. After that the lightness gets more and more expensive.

I'm trying to slot this car into NASA Tt3 where I'll need about 30-50lbs ballast that I can have balanced in (probably a lead brick in the rear somewhere).

Wonder what the stock rear bar weighs? I might try running without it like a few others have. I'm sure it's not light...

I am right there with you. I want to fit into TT 1 so I need to stay over 3100 and 3200 would be better for the power to weight ratio I am shooting for. If I can't get get there then it is TT U and then I will start shaving even more off. I left the driver's passenger windows in because I still want to drive it on the street from time to time.

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Biggest weight savings you are going to get is the doors. They are incredible heavy fully dressed with windows, crash bar, etc. My doors are something like 60+lbs per door lighter than stock. That really isn't an option unless you have a full cage, though.

Dry carbon doors can be pretty cost prohibitive for most, however, and some of the vendor offerings for carbon doors are not a whole lot lighter than skinning the factory doors once you get hinges on, etc.

Definitely agree on both points. The door is already pretty light with door cards, windows, etc gone so if you have a full cage, ripping out the supports is a great savings that the cage adds back in a bit. Worth it, but I'm curious how much the door supports alone lost you once the full cage difference was added in?

What if you rebuild the chassis out of titanium? I bet that would get you some weight savings!

If you make that happen, I will pay you one million dollars!

imagine....that thing would take flight