73-87chevytrucks.com
73-87 Chevy _ GMC Trucks => Brakes, Frame, Steering & Suspension => Topic started by: markdilljr on August 04, 2010, 11:30:00 pm
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Just wanted to get some ideas on weight reduction, the truck still has to be street legal but looking to shed some weight to free up some power and hopefully get a couple extra mpg. I thought about inner fender wells and replacing them with trailer ones but dont know if that would be worth it, anyone have any ideas?
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Replacing your inner fenders with trailer fenders isnt going to do anything but waste $ and time, in my opinion. I would look at doing some other things like swapping your mechanical fan for a electric, headers, exhaust, carb tune up, ignition upgrade, etc if you want more MPG. Weight wise, I suppose removing a gas tank if you have two, gut the interior, etc. You most likely wont shed too much weight unless you remove a lot of items.
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Fiberglass body from US Body?
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Fiberglass fenders, hood, bedsides, racing seats, magnesium wheels, low profile rubber, lexan rear window instead of glass, fuel cell instaed of dual tanks......hit the ol treadmill.
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liposuction
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Is this a race truck? I've seen guys at the track cut the floor from the bed to reduce weight, but I would guess that just causes traction problems.
What are your goals for the truck?
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Thought weight reduction was for ricers.. ;D
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I dont know whats on your truck now. but assuming stock.
spare tire and carrier, rear bumper remove and add a roll pan, 2nd fuel tank, add on items such as brush guards/running boards etc, hitch, bumper guards, stereo, could just about gut the interior too. really would help to let u know what the purpose of this truck is.
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Install an aluminum intake manifold and headers. Alloy wheels. Skinny front tires. Aluminum heads. Inflate the tires with helium. (Just kidding). Get a skinny girlfriend.
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your looking at it all wrong, you dont need weight reduction, you need more horsepower to overcome the weight you already have...
clint
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what truck do you have? Some of these trucks are like a the salesman said at the lincoln dealership... if you gotta ask what MPG it gets, you can't afford it.... ;D
There's not too much to do other than buy fiberglass panels, but you could buy a lot of gas for what all that costs.
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As others have pointed out many times before on this site, if you want mileage, pick up a 4cyl-5 speed beater on craigslist for under $1000.
You can spend a small fortune on overdrives and lightweight body panels, but in the end it's still a 4000+ pound barn door fighting it's way through the airstream.
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Ok I can afford gas, its a 84 long bed 1/2 ton 2wd. I am building a pro street truck that will still be street legal, its not all about mpg but the more weight you take off the more power you free up, its not all about HP you need to look at torque as well, high HP dont mean nothing for the launch, you can have 1000 HP in a heavy truck and it not move as well as if your truck was lighter. Yes it will have skinny front tires and 18 1/2 inch wide rears with a tubed out frame. I know there is other ways to reduce weight without going to fiberglass, I grew up at capital raceway ( drag racing motorcycles with my dad ) but decided to build a nice truck, it wont be at the track but it will be a bad :( street truck, thanks for the input I guess i will have to look at some of the racing sites for the answers I need.
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I guess i will have to look at some of the racing sites for the answers I need.
I'm guessing they will tell you not to build a pro street 84 long bed Chevy and then expect great mpg's out of it.
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Or if they tell you go for it, They will tell you to go to a custom tube frame, fiberglass everything else, and still need gobs of torque and horsepower...
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You could convert it to a shortbed, rollpans both front and back, take out the inner fenders and a fiberglass hood would all be a good start
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Take a long look at your truck. Decide what you're willing to live without. Then get creative. When looking for suggestions on weight reduction don't limit yourself to just this bodystyle. Some of the best tips I've soaked up were from F-body, Honda, and Caprice/Impala sites. There's not a ton of weight to be removed from these trucks anyway...maybe nearly half a ton ;)
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Lexan windshield and side windows. Get a fule cell.Everywhere it is double walled like the bed and inside the cab, cut out big sections of it. The inside of the tailgate too. Cut holes in the bed floor as well and cover them with thin sheet metal and some rivets.J ust don't be in a wreck... Sorry no one in here had the magic, one size fits all answer you were looking for. The quickest, easiest way to shave weight that I can think is is to not sit in it. :P
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LOL. Funny but true...I reduced my truck's weight by 50lbs with the driver mod. I let my 170lbs brother-in-law drive/race my truck. We're working on making the truck remote controlled for the even more weight savings.(J/K).
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That'll do it! ;D
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Ok fitz like I said before my biggest concern is not mpg, I said if I could pick up 2 or 3 in the process it wont be a bad thing, from what I was told its only about 150 lb diff between the bed on a lwb vs swb, thanks to all for the other ideas
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btw 150 lbs is a huge difference. also a rollpan in the front would help too and looks decent.
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While I like the look of a rollpan, and the weight reduction would be nice, a little old lady in a Buick convinced me that my heavy bumper needs to stay on the truck. She hit me in the tail at a Taco Bell drive-through. No damage at all to my truck, but she had a nice chunk taken out of her plastic bumper.
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The first thing you need to do is look at class rules. Are there any restrictions on what has to be there in the class that you plan to run in? That will determine what you need to consider removing, or more importantly repositioning.
While total weight is a concern, balance and distribution should be considered as well. If you haven't put it on 4 corner scales, that should be you first stop.
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Install an aluminum intake manifold and headers. Alloy wheels. Skinny front tires. Aluminum heads. Inflate the tires with helium. (Just kidding). Get a skinny girlfriend.
^^^ This. I'm assuming you haven't done it already. On my 454, the intake is cast iron, as are the heads, as are the exhaust manifolds. Lots of weight saving opportunity there. New heads are quite pricey though.
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make sure you buy race wieght parts, fully finished fiberglass parts sometimes are no lighter then metal. I picked up a 4" harwood cowl hood and it's 5lbs heavier then a stock hood. You can also gut sheet metal parts so that they're just as light as glass, parts. take a look at some pics of my truck on old threads, might give you some ideas.
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Back in the old days of funny car racing they would acid dip the bodies.
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I am building an 83 chevy 4x4 1/2 ton for mileage. Already ripped out the entire interior and installed poly racing buckets and installed a really light weight shifter. Will make plastic inner fenders and make my own box out of angle iron or round tubing. Picked up an aluminum intake and water pump the other day. An electric fan would free up some power. I have a bunch of ideas. Email me.
"harwood cowl hood and it's 5lbs heavier then a stock hood." WOW GREAT INFO thanks. I saw a lexan hood for a jeep...
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I am building an 83 Chevy 4x4 1/2 ton for mileage. Already ripped out the entire interior and installed poly racing buckets and installed a really light weight shifter. Will make plastic inner fenders and make my own box out of angle iron or round tubing.
Not to pick on you, but to more so make you stop & think a bit. I have a few questions:
(1)What did your truck weigh when you started this "quest for milage through weight reduction"?
(2) Do you have some accurate formula for XX pounds removed results in an average of 1 mpg.?
(3) When you say "complete interior", do you mean floor covering, door panels, dash pad, seat belts, ect. Just what all did you remove & how much did the "complete interior" weight? How much do the new seats & bracket/hardware weigh?
(4) What did you REMOVE from the original truck's shift linkage & what did that weight? What does the new shifter weigh?
(5) Have you weighed an inner fenderwell of an '83 GM truck? What will the "box" of round tubing & angle iron weigh?
Please try to answer the above questions accurately to the best of your ability.
Now the reasons for my questions (& slight sarcasm if you noticed it). Not that weight reduction doesn't help fuel milage...it sure does, however with what you described I'd GUESS (which is why I asked for exacts) the WHOLE interior doesn't weigh 100 pounds, all of it. Take EVERTHING out of the cab, put it on a scale. Seat, seat belts, heaterbox, radio, door panels, extra wiring ect. ect. Leave only the items needed to run & drive the truck while sitting on a milk crate, likely you improvement in gas mileage would be a number of .02%.
Gas mileage is largely gained in less ROTATING mass, engine efficientcy, maintaining a steady engine speed, lower engine speed, aerodynamics is a biggy, the actual weight is down the scale a bunch. Now if your starting with a clean slate like the auto manufactures, sure weight is a concern...to distroy the half-way convenience inside of a '73-'87 truck in search of "gas mileage" or even timed racing improvement just doesn't add up to me, they don't have that much in them to start with.
On a relevant side note, at work we have/have had a fleet of '88-'97 Ford tow trucks over a period of about 20 years. The ones I'm referring to are gas engine F350's, some 2wd & some 4x4. All but 1 have been 460 ci. engines. (the other a 351). They get an average of about 10 miles per gallon towing, not towing, ect. ect. sure it is slightly different unloaded, but if you you a 1/4 tank of fuel hauling the car somewhere, you better have very near 1/4 tank left or your not getting home...The engine running, moving that vehicle through the air uses XX in fuel, even adding Resistance & weight of another vehicle doesn't do all that much difference. Now if you hook up a "contractor special" van & go mostly uphills to the destination...sure things would be different. Oh the one with the 351, it gets 10 mpg ;)
My friend has a '94 E350 regular van with a 460, on a good day, tuned up it gets 13 mpg avg.
I have a 26' '86 E350 motorhome with a 460...It gets 9 mpg. avg. about 8 pulling a car hauler with my truck on it. Surprised? Not me ;)
WOW That was loooooong! Just my Two Cents, Enjoy your truck the way it is, unless you go to an efficient fuel injected engine & overdrive transmission, ect. your going to get about 10 mpg. Lorne
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It's adding the right weight that counts, if you know what I mean ;)
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I cleaned the frame up on mine. I removed all the brackets including the stock exhaust brackets and used much lighter aftermarket types. I moved my battery to the tail end of the truck. I removed both my saddle bag tanks and put a fuel cell in the middle behind the rear end. I removed my inner fenders but mainly so I had a place to stand while I work on her. You can remove a lot of the window mechanism and use the supercar trick of a strap to the bottum of the window to pull it up and down. No wipers or wiper motor. If you really want to lose some weight change out to light duty brakes and get some tubular control arms. Those stock control arms weigh a ton. Shed the leaf springs in the back and go 4 link. Aluminum radiator. Aluminum head/intake. If you watched the US-body website you can catch some of the fiberglass hood on sale for $100 if your willing to drive to northern Florida to pick it up.
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Have you looked into any easy lightweight brake setups? I have a couple in mind, one's expensive should shed atleast 30lbs. The other one is cheaper and simpler but doesn't drop much weight(20lbs). In the end I'm not even sure if the weight reduction is worth the money or effort(atleast when talking about the front brakes).
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do a complete bolt in IFS, that sheds lots of weight,
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do a complete bolt in IFS, that sheds lots of weight,
???
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if you do a bolt in IFS you lose the stock crossmember, stock upper and lower control arms by replacing them with lighter tubular stuff.
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What is the weight difference?
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in 2 weeks i can tell you, just ordered a scot's front end today...
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That looks like a nice kit. I wonder how the weight transfer and suspension travel is with that setup. I've read that those coil over setups like that don't have a ton of travel like you would need for a leafspring/caltrac setup. I think if I had the money, I'd still try it.
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if u wanted lots of adjustment all you have to do is go with double adjustable coilovers.
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The most important weight reductions you can do are unsprung weight and rotating mass. Unsprung weight is wheels, tires, break component, anything, not supported by your suspension. Weight savings in these areas will make far more impact than weight savings that are supported by the suspension. You will gain improved acceleration, better handling and reduce braking distances by cutting unsprung weight.
Next on this list, rotating mass. Your drive wheels (obviously also part of the unsprung weight), your flywheel and whatnot. Anything that takes engine power to rotate will be far more efficient if lighter. In most cases you lose some durability, some comfort or end up compromising something else to lighten the rotating mass. For all but the purest performance oriented trucks, I'd focus far more on unsprung weight then rotating mass.
In my opinion, weight distribution is far more important for performance gains in our trucks then any sort of weight reduction. For instance, putting the battery in the rear adds a bit of weight, because it requires longer battery cables, however that weight gain is more than compensated for by the fact it puts weight in the rear where it is needed. In my truck I am replacing the stock fuel tank with a plastic fuel cell, I will mount this more rearward and in the process will save weight and move it rearward. Anytime, you can make 2 gains with one mod (especially when my factory tank would need replacing or at the least severely cleaning and prepping) it's a win win.
Sean
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As heavy as these trucks are, unsprung weight won't have nearly as much effect as, say, on a motorcycle. If there are gains, I'd say go for it, though. Take it where you can get it. I have alloy wheels on my '86, but never really bothered to do any sort of comparison.
The last part of that post would be very pertinent right now in much of the country. Weight distribution would help prevent some of the more entertaining efforts to climb the hills in my neighborhood... well, that and some adjustments behind the wheel.
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What's the lightest anyone has got these trucks down to?
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Team, That's all hinging around: How much of the "real" truck is left & what your willing to do without.
The fellow with the Silver longbed race truck that posted on here a bit claimed something under 3000 lbs. with a bigblock, however what that really is, is a '79 Chevy outer skin set on a tube chassis...Does that count? You figure a fiberglass cab, doors, front clip sat on a strut type, tube frame with an all aluminum small block (or LS) could be really light. You gotta stop somewhere or it's not really a '73-'87 truck. Lorne
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i'm not claiming it, that's what it is. 2960 with a 200 lbs driver. Yes it's basically a shell set on a chassis, but for a purpose built drag truck it's perferct. It's light and it's easy to make it go fast. As far as a street truck there is a guy that brings one out to our track, and it weighs 3300 lbs all steel with chrome moly chassis and a small block chevy/ powerglide setup. The sky is the limit, as well as the cost, just do what makes you happy.
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Oh, I meant no disrespect or that fact that I didn't believe you...maybe a different word should have been used: stated, posted, mentioned or something. That's one of the flaws of reading something a person you don't know types...it can be taken for something other/more than it meant. Sorry, Lorne
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I had mine down to 3680 with a big block when I ran it across some scales, but it really wasn't a truck, the bed floor wasn't there, whole front section about 1 ft wide was missing, manual everything, no radio, no trim, bucket seats..
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"The sky is the limit, as well as the cost, just do what makes you happy." Thanks drag80. I used to drag race and am having fun with this project. Bought the truck for $500 so how can I go wrong?
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A guy at my local track made a tube rad support. I dont understand why people cut this topic down. Money can be substituted for Talent. I have seen guy make there own control arm on this site. Cost a fraction of the price. With talent like that the sky is the limit and I wish I had half of that talent! I dont have money or talent! And it something can get me quicker ETs and better gas milage I am all for it.