Many of you will probably think I am crazy after all of the hard work and how well it turned out, but I am considering removing the interior of my car to further shave weight. Currently at just under 3700 pounds, I am hoping to get it under 3500 if not less.
IF I did do this, what level of interest would there be in purchasing front and rear custom quilted seats and perhaps more?

 

It would be a shame to destroy such a beautiful and unique interior, particularly since there's no guarantee that doing so would make your car as competitive as you desire.

Just like a race horse who is past his prime and retired to spend the rest of his life blissfully doing his studly duties, I'd retire my (p)ride and buy a younger and more capable race car.

Just food for thought, FWIW.

 

My opinion?

Just buy another car to be your lighter weight ride.

Get a Corvette Z06 and gut that instead.
Or do something like a Factory Five Coupe.

There are lots of lighter options that still keep what they are with a gutted interior.
The XKR loses what it is if you do this.

 

I asked my Mom er, I mean my wife. She looked at the pics, rolled her eyes and gave me a hard no. She doesn't understand and never will. In reality, I'm with Stuart.

 

I would be all over this, except like Sean stated my Boss er, I mean my wife would kill me...

 

At that point you should remove body panels, glass, doors .... just take it down to the bare frame and powertriain. Go all-in!! loll

 

What would the weight savings actually add up to? Maybe twenty pounds/nine kilos? I doubt even half that total. I put door panels INTO my drag car cuz it made it nicer.

 

Been meaning to ask however just waiting for the right time it's been playing on my mind however if someone could manufactor a carbon hood and tail gate surely this would drop a few pounds.

In regards to the seats by memory they're roughly 45lbs each

 

At under 3700 pounds I’ve already dropped a couple hundred and with additional parts shedding I could probably be at close to 500 pounds total which is more than 10% weight loss. I am told that anything over 10% WILL be noticeable. However I have yet to find one person who thinks it would be worth “destroying” this car.

As far as getting a “real” track car, that’s easy. What has been fun is the journey I’ve taken over the year modifying this one and making it unique. Not necessarily a smart choice, but it has improved the performance and looks so far.

 

Are you certain of that? I don’t know why I didn’t weigh mine when I had them out for the custom leather work, but I’d swear with heat and 16-way power they felt closer to 80 pounds a piece. One of my children is 45 pounds and she feels light as a feather in comparison.

I’ll have to pull one and check before I go any further.

 

No, no. If those seats were the high back performance seats I'd buy them from you.

 

Why stop there, turn your car into tube car. Easily shave 1000+ lb.

 

They're always going to feel super heavy and they are awkward to lift .

I remember I weighed mine when I had to vacuum out my carpet and Posted the weight on one of the threads I try and dig up the exact weight

 

How much do you want for the seats?

 

I would say to keep your nice car “nice”... Maybe go find a salvage title car with a beat interior and gut that for your track car.

 

Hey J,

Have you looked into lightweight batteries? Antigravity makes H8's that can save you 50ish lbs. I see you already have lighter wheels; have you ever thought about lightweight rotors? One pound of rotation mass saved is equal to 6 lbs of static weight. Lightweight rotors are as much as 1/3 lighter than factory rotors sometimes. That would really add up when you multiply x4. I dont know the details of how well they perform and for how long, but I have seen threads where people lower their ETs on 1/4 mile using the lighter rotor and wheel combo.

 

https://antigravitybatteries.com/pro...tive/ag-h8-rs/

Ummmm, $950? Yikes!!!! I have considered a 12volt motorcycle battery. I do have lightweight front AP racing 2-piece rotors with alloy hats.The wheels are almost half of factory weight and I could get some that are even a few more pounds lighter. I'm going to start stripping non-essentials like washer fluid resevoir, pumps, possibly HVAC, etc. The interior would be a great weight savings but I am torn because of how nice it looks. But many of the changes already made for track use make the car not such a fun street car, not that it is anymore but I do take it to shows and events in addition to track events.

EDIT: So Antigravity says their H8 batteries weigh 19 pounds but Optima batteries weigh only 26 pounds, not much more weight for almost 1/4 the price. However motorcycle batteries can weigh 10-15 pounds

 

Not sure yet, just reaching out for interest at this point. I spent about $2K on the custom leather work and of course there is value to the seats themselves however I know I can't recover all of those costs. I guess if you want to PM me an offer we could start there.

 

Something to keep in mind with batteries is that the Cat has a charging/discharge profile designed around a specific battery make up.
It is a bad idea for the longevity of a battery system to have something non compatible.
I ended up not looking very far at alternative batteries and just went with the OEM chemistry and specs.

Perhaps an uber geek able to re-program the car could get away with it.

 

That interior is a gorgeous, Bentley CGT-like interior. Nothing would persuade me to part with it - certainly not a tiny performance gain from reduced weight when compared with a standard type interior. I think the interior would give me more pleasure than shaving 0.1 seconds off my 0-60 time. But that's just me - YMMV (literally!).