bavarian06

Curious to know what everyone did to their cars to drop weight. I'll start (car is '97 C4S):

removed everything in the trunk (spare, toolkit, carpet)
removed windshield washer container and fluid + spray nozzle components
removed carpet, sound deadening
removed airbags
removed AC compressor and all lines
removed blower motor
removed heat exchangers and pipes
removed HVAC and stereo
removed speakers
removed door panels, ctr console, lower dash, all seats and replace with one Sparco Evo seat
removed seatbelts and replace with one set of 5-pt harness
removed sunroof and parts of inner support and sealed it with kevlar skin
removed headliner
removed factory intake box and replace with air-filter cone
removed factory cat, exhaust, headers and replace with fabspeed maxflo
removed factory decklid for fiberglass RS tail
removed factory front bumper for fiberglass GT2 RS clone
added chromoly roll-cage

With half tank of gas, car weighs 2850lbs. Don't know what's next, possibly the fresh air blower motor and filter. Post your numbers, thanks!

Gasser

2325

Everything I could unbolt or cut out. All fiberglass and lexan. List too long to list.

Weight includes cage and two seats.

bb993tt

AWD delete?

bavarian06

That's amazingly light. Can you give me suggestions on what to remove rather than replace? Not ready for fiberglass doors and lexan. I was looking up how to remove the fresh air box and motor in the trunk but looks like a pain, the whole fuel tank has to be removed.

bavarian06

I actually like the AWD, my safety net considering there isn't TC. Besides that's only 100lbs (granted that's considerable).

clubsport1

1270kg......removed nothing, it even has the factory fitted welded in matter cage, a/c and fire extinguisher in that total.

race911

~2900 on the yellow car. Not much removed, absent seat replacement (add back roll bar) and air conditioning removal. It's how the car came to me.

Know what? Means less than a second/minute of lap time until you butcher the car. (See: videos I posted before my latest trip, with and without ~175 lbs. of passenger.) I think our current Spec911 lap record holder has set his times with at least 50lbs. trophy weight.

What's the safety net of AWD? On track, anyway, which sounds like this is where this car spends its time.

Gasser

It was a pain but I got it out. I did have to loosen the fuel tank and move it forward. I got everything loose and moved the metal firewall forward and started unbolting everything. Just takes time and some head scratching.

I just started removing everything down to the fuses I was not using any more. I took over 2 pounds of fuses and relays out of the fuse box I did not need. I cut out several pounds of wire as well. Be carefull here though as Porsche had some critical loops of wire travel down a bundle to dead end and then travel back up. I cut a bundle of wire about 10 inches long back to the Y thinking they were already cut and nothing critical. After I cut it, the car would not start. I found 3 sets of three wires that I cut that just ended half way in that dead end bundle. I had to splice them all back. What a pain.

I have removed everything not needed for racing. I think you can hit 2550 or so easy with all metal. Gut your doors and get rid of glass where you can depending on rules etc....

bb993tt

I wondered the same thing. Getting approx. 100 lbs out in one fell swoop at this point isn't going to be all that easy.

Chuck W.

As a point of reference; my stock 993 turbo weighted in at 3,333 pounds with 3/4 of a tank of gas during a corner balance.

Martin S.

My street licensed/street legal 97 Carrera narrow body weighs 2943 with 1/2 gallon of gas. Took out:
Speakers, Door and package shelf,
Ait blower in the engine compartment
Removed all carpeting and replaced with 993 RS carpet kit
Installed 993 RS door panels
No spare
Replaced factory drive and passenger seats with Sparco Race seats
Utilize MY 2002 996 wheels (18"), they seem lighter than 17" Cup II wheels..
Replaced stock cats with 200 cell cats and X pipes from Fabspeed*
Replaced stock mufflers with FD Motorsports Stage I mufflers*
Took out the lower dash knee guard and glove compartment
Race steering wheel, no air bag
Delete passenger air bag

Added the weight of Heigo roll cage
Have GT2 deck lid and tail
Added Ruf secondary oil cooler
2 1/2 Lb Halon extinguisher and mount
Driver and passenger belts

What remains that could be extracted is:
Factory air
Radio (Although no speakers)

Note my minimum weight for my race class with driver,and some gas is 3204
With my fat ***, driving suit (Cheap & heavy) helmet and other safety gear and 1/2 a tank of gas the car weighs 3268.

* I have had nearly every muffler iteration, B&B, Robin Sun's RSR, factory sound package, Super Cups, Cat bypass in to RSRs, Fister Stage III with stock cats.....according to my ear, the Fabspeed 200 cell cats and X pipes with Fabspeed Stage I is the best of all possible worlds. No drone and an incredible cam lope at idle, great acceleration and deceleration sound.

bavarian06

what i meant is the added safety of having an AWD system. i'm still new to racing (about 20 track days). last thing i want is the rear to step out and go rear first into a wall. my affair with a s2k ended in that fashion.

bavarian06

amazing build gasser, looks like you did it yourself as well. do you have an online photo album of the process?

race911

Let's take a couple of steps back here. There's no, I repeat no "safety" in an AWD system. You just set them up in a slightly different way. You don't even drive them differently, absent trying to compensate for poor/underprepared setup. (This "advice" becomes irrelevant if you're somewhere you expect to have wet pavement regularly.)

Further, separate racing from track days. If this is a wheel-to-wheel car, then (as Martin posted above) you're hostage to a rules package. And it usually means the last thing you're taking out in a stock(ish) class is weight. If you're proceeding to GT/unlimited, then a 993 is an extremely poor and expensive platform from which to build. (This weekend we'll have a PRC event at Sears Point, and the pointy end of the grid will be torsion bar based chassis cars, sub-2000 lbs. which can comfortably stay ahead of any non-pro driven 997 Cup. No 964/993 based car has a chance in hell.)

Bottom line is that there's no other way to drive a 911 (at least through the air cooled variants) than with a rear slip angle. That's just where physics dictate you drive, because the weight is out back. Again, refer back to those videos I posted last week, and how basically twitchy mine looks. I think I only really stepped out in one of the corners there. There is at least one missed apex from missing a braking point within a couple of feet, and at this point it's all experience that tells me deep + crap rear tires = wait a fraction of a second for turn in. Better to be slow than have a tank slapper. Or worse.

Which brings me to my ultimate suggestion--drive a slip angle friendly tire (NT01, RA1) until your skills are developed to the point that rear sliding isn't an issue. Bonus: you can learn all about rear tire management! Ultimately, I'm damned glad I learned it 30 years ago with short wheelbase 911s on skinny tires.

justin993

I was waiting for this response after I saw the "safety of all wheel drive" quote this morning.
Well put