how to get down close to 2150 lbs....

so we heard today that our track is eliminating the Grand National motor option that they let run with the crate cars and we must switch to a 602, 604, or 525(not going to be able to afford a 525, so lets just rule it out) we would like to go to a 602 because they get a weight break all the way down to 2150 from the 2400 we have to weigh now.

with a full tank of gas we now weight 2440. and after the heat and feature we are right at 2405....give or take if i ate a hotdog or two before the race. how can we get our weight down to get close to the 2150? does a 602 crate weight less than a 383 with a 4bolt truck block with steelheads?

only things we can think to do is:

driver loose some serious weight (i weigh 290lbs now)

go to a smaller fuel cell. (we only use about 6-7 gallons a night racing so we could go with a small cell)

get rid of steel bell housing and put an aluminum on with a scatter shield

Definitely a smaller cell, and aluminum bell. What about a smaller radiator? Going to be tough to lighten a car up 250 pounds.

well we know we will probably save 30ish lbs going to an aluminum bell. maybe 80lbs less with a smaller cell (60lbs fuel and 20lbs because the cell is smaller and will weigh less) and maybe 15lbs with an aluminum shaft. so add that all together and we have lost 125lbs or so. do these figures sound right would i lose more/less by switching these things?

also, we really dont want to go to a smaller rad as we would like to keep this thing a cool as it can be.

given your weight, I'd say IF you got the lightest trick parts available you would still be overweight and your percentages are not going to be what they need to be. If you use the latest and greatest magnesium everything you can get the car there with a sub200lb driver but the cost of the lightweight stuff is going to offset the price of a 604 so I'd choose the 604 or 525 or I'd say you are pissing in the wind. The 602 has steel heads and that adds about 50 lbs to the front weight of the car and the only place you can take weight off is the fuel cell and fuel load and that only adds to the front percentage and the bell housing/shaft are central in the car so you will never get the car to handle because lack of rear percentage and high ls weight

you'll never get to 2150. I run a 604 lowest i can get right now is 2270 and get my numbers even close. I weigh 230 can't get left low enough and barely enough rear.

I could be wrong but I think that taking weight off of the rear via the fuel cell will not allow you to get the correct rear weight percentage. Our 2005 Rocket with a 602 has to have 25 gallons of fuel to get the desired rear percentage. My driver is 215 lbs and with 75 lbs of lead bolted on we are at 2425 lbs. I have been told that this is why a 602 is not competitive in the Steel Block Bandit Series.

I have an 06 GRT.(w/lightest stuff money could buy) At one time it had a 602 crate. I weigh 175lbs and the lightest I could get car was 2305 and keep percentages correct and that was with 25 gallons of fuel and 70 lbs of lead in driver door. It wasn't competitive on a long track,but kinda drove like a go-cart on a smaller track. What do you have to weigh with a 604?

they are still determining, but they are thinking 2400. so if we go with a 604 we will have to add weight, being that the aluminum heads will make the motor that much lighter. i suppose a guy could just go 604 and mount lead on each upper front frame rail next to the motor and you should be almost exactly where you were before.

With a newer TNT and a 12 gallon cell we got to way close to that but we had to do some creative fabrication to locate the cell, mount all the electronics, reloacted the battery and all to be able to get the numbers. I would not do it again, a proper scaled car is MUCH more important than being 100-150lbs over minimum weight.

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Originally Posted by Egoracing

With a newer TNT and a 12 gallon cell we got to way close to that but we had to do some creative fabrication to locate the cell, mount all the electronics, reloacted the battery and all to be able to get the numbers. I would not do it again, a proper scaled car is MUCH more important than being 100-150lbs over minimum weight.

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yeah. we have always subscribed to being a little heavy is ok, knowing that you are set up properly. well this year, they raised what we had to weight to 2400 from 2350 (we were always about 100lbs heavy. well this year we took all the extra junk off the car (we had 35lbs of steel weight mounting points and random shock mounts all over the car from when we purchased it, that we well....just never got around to taking off) and this year now that we are even with the other guys running a GN and 604 we are much more competitive...so we were thinking, if possible, to get down to the 2150 and stay cheaper with the 602 motor we might be able to gain just a bit more money for tires, fuel, and such, but its looking like getting down to that weight might be the most expensive part of it all.

Sometimes, it's good to be a 150lb driver :)

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Originally Posted by RacerX10

Sometimes, it's good to be a 150lb driver :)

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Exactly what I was thinking! Only one instance I can think of..........driver has altercation on track and it spills over to the pits

Im 15 and weigh in at 130-140lbs. I run a 06 round tube underrail TNT and run a 602. My car has a 32 gallon fuel cell in it but we only run 15 at the absolute most. My car also has about 25 or 30lbs, I can't remember, and with me in it with 15 gallons in it on the scales, the car weighs 2250lbs. So, it looks like you jus might have to try losing weight, but realisticly, you'll have to do something else, unless you want to put it on the scales a lot because you losing weight will obviously change the car. Hope this helps you!