Putting her on a diet

My '69 Mach is full weight. What I saved in aluminum heads, manifold, headers, and no ac I likely made up for in cage, connectors, BBF and C6. All steel, complete interior... true street machine. I'm planning to shave some pounds on it this winter without gutting it. Roughly 200lbs is my goal. I'm thinking a lift off, 23lb fiberglass hood and fiberglass trunk to start the diet while keeping the appearance identical to current. Next is getting rid of the heater core & fan, and sound deadening (can't hear myself think anyhow in it).

I was wondering if anyone knew the approximate weight of a stock steel classic stang's hood?

I don't know the hood weight, but how about lightweight racing bucket seats (if you don't already have them), 'glass front fenders and 'glass bumpers. My 'glass bumpers were pretty cheap....look like the real thing.

Your going down the same road I did, its a pita.

I have a glass hood and bumpers, the rest is all steel. The hood is 40#'s with scoop.

Gutted the doors, lexan throughout except the windshield, quarter window stuff all gone, dash gone now replaced with alum, backhalf with steel tubs, strut front end, lightweight brakes all around.

Alum headed a460 block, glide, 3.5 gal cell, if it dont need it it aint there.

You would think it pretty light, but with me in it and a full cell its 3065# When i started with this car years back, all the glass, windows, dash, heater box, iron heads and a c6 it was 3375............

Honestly if your car is real nice its not worth cutting it up to loose 300#s.

I have considered a glass nose, and still may go this route this winter along with a lexan windshield.

The whole 100#s = 1/10th is not always true. On our smallblock car its more weight sensitive than the BB car.

I'd do the fenders and bumpers as well if the savings is decent. I'd like to keep the stock chrome appearance on the bumpers. I've heard there are shops that can do some kinda chrome-like flex coating on fiberglass stuff. I've not seen it to know if it looks like ass or not.

richter69 wrote:Your going down the same road I did, its a pita.

I have a glass hood and bumpers, the rest is all steel. The hood is 40#'s with scoop.

Gutted the doors, lexan throughout except the windshield, quarter window stuff all gone, dash gone now replaced with alum, backhalf with steel tubs, strut front end, lightweight brakes all around.

Alum headed a460 block, glide, 3.5 gal cell, if it dont need it it aint there.

You would think it pretty light, but with me in it and a full cell its 3065# When i started with this car years back, all the glass, windows, dash, heater box, iron heads and a c6 it was 3375............

Honestly if your car is real nice its not worth cutting it up to loose 300#s.

I have considered a glass nose, and still may go this route this winter along with a lexan windshield.

The whole 100#s = 1/10th is not always true. On our smallblock car its more weight sensitive than the BB car.

Wow. That's a lot of work and stuff tossed for 300lbs. Maybe my 200lb goal is unrealistic if I'm not about gutting it.

I was thinking glass hood might shave 25lbs, another 10 with the trunk, maybe 10 each with the fenders and 25 total with both bumpers. 15lbs with heater core & fan. That sound about right so far? Oh yeah, and single, split leaf rear springs to help 60' and shave some more.

I'm aiming for 10 flats this spring here at Albuquerque which will make my ride illegal at any other track. The plan is to get her quicker on the motor and back off the juice when I travel. I'm not interested in cert and license for 9.9.

Thre's a paint company out there now that's got a "chrome" paint system. It's not that old aluminum paint crap.....It actually simulates chrome pretty well. I believe the company is called "Q H & F".

4thHorseman wrote:

richter69 wrote:Your going down the same road I did, its a pita.

I have a glass hood and bumpers, the rest is all steel. The hood is 40#'s with scoop.

Gutted the doors, lexan throughout except the windshield, quarter window stuff all gone, dash gone now replaced with alum, backhalf with steel tubs, strut front end, lightweight brakes all around.

Alum headed a460 block, glide, 3.5 gal cell, if it dont need it it aint there.

You would think it pretty light, but with me in it and a full cell its 3065# When i started with this car years back, all the glass, windows, dash, heater box, iron heads and a c6 it was 3375............

Honestly if your car is real nice its not worth cutting it up to loose 300#s.

I have considered a glass nose, and still may go this route this winter along with a lexan windshield.

The whole 100#s = 1/10th is not always true. On our smallblock car its more weight sensitive than the BB car.

Wow. That's a lot of work and stuff tossed for 300lbs. Maybe my 200lb goal is unrealistic if I'm not about gutting it.

I was thinking glass hood might shave 25lbs, another 10 with the trunk, maybe 10 each with the fenders and 25 total with both bumpers. 15lbs with heater core & fan. That sound about right so far? Oh yeah, and single, split leaf rear springs to help 60' and shave some more.

I'm aiming for 10 flats this spring here at Albuquerque which will make my ride illegal at any other track. The plan is to get her quicker on the motor and back off the juice when I travel. I'm not interested in cert and license for 9.9.

Thing is as i removed stuff i added stuff, like cage, frame rails etc. Car is also built real well, not so much for weight reduction. The headlight buckets in these cars are pot metal and heavy as hell, I'd almost bet a glass front end would get rid of 100#s. I thnk there is 30#s to be had in the block going from a 4.42 bore to a 4.57.

Try SNS Chrome, I've seen their stuff. Looks just like chrome.

Horseman,
When I had the Maverick, I had the same ideas as you do now. My doors were already gutted but I picked up a set of Fiberglass doorsat the Swap meet,took out all the glass and replaced w/lexan,including windshield and back glass.I took the stock dash out and built a new Alum. dash. It took me all winter to do it all plus the paint stripping/body work/paint. Cost me a bunch of money/hard work and lost a measely 150# and the car picked up .08 hundreths .I would never do it again. JMO Good Luck

Hmmmmm. Sounds like the juice isn't worth the squeeze here so much. I looked at those complete glass front ends but I think the car would loose its "classic" looks and appear to "race car." Man they only weigh like 30lbs though. Sure is tempting.

I guess I'll do the hood & trunk lid in glass, toss the heater core & fan, light weight seats, split mono rear springs, rip out the sound deadening, and glass bumpers. Just aim for a little weight savings and leave the rest be. I could maybe also replace the factory glass in the doors with lexan, but I'd want to keep the stocker ability to roll it up & down. And that's about it. What it is is what its gonna be because I really want to keep it stockish/classic appearing as best I can.

Thanks to all for the advice.

Ernest

When I took my Maverick one piece nose out of the crate it weighed 27 lbs.....Naturally a little more with the hardware. The bumpers were 2 1/2 lbs. front, 3 lbs. rear.