Overweight ITB Rabbit GTI - any ideas?

BlueStreak

BlueStreak

New member
I'm 80-100 lbs overweight with a quarter tank, depending on whose scales you believe.
Interior is down to dash, kirkey AL seat, bolt in cage, belts, and extinguisher. Doors are still loaded- but I can't gut doors without changing the cage.

All allowed exterior trim removal is done.

Wheels are 15lbs each.

Driver is 6-2 250, and he gave up losing weight 10 years ago.

I've thought about taking the handcrank mechanism for the moonroof out, but I'm not expecting any big weight loss there.

Am I missing anything obvious? I need all the help I can get. Motor is semi-pro built - and any more power would come only by blowing off the rulebook. I've lost 4-6 car lengths on the front straight to two different top notch A2 cars at my last two events. What's that last 100lbs worth? 5% more on the front straight? Maybe 1 car length?

Just looking for where to spend the dollars the best regarding the weight issue.

Thanks
 
Off hand with out seeing, it's hard to determine.

I ran 50lbs of ballast, spare tire, a full tank and 170lb driver.

Lighter wheels will help a lot!! Get rid of the rotating mass.
 
Get rid of the sunroof!

Start grinding on the undercoating in the wheelwells and undercarriage.

Remove the radiator fan.

Sport fewer decals. :D
 
That's going to be a tough one since the drive is already 70# over the 'target' of 180#. There was plenty to play w/ when the cars were 2180#, but now that they're down to 2080#, there's not much left.
 
Every little bit helps.

Wheels,undercoating, sun roof, small battery, cage mod to be able to gut the doors. 5lbs. here, 20lbs. there 2lbs. over there...it all adds up!

Light weight helmet? suit?
 
I thought about the battery, but the GCR seems to be clear in its intent on a "stock" size replacement battery.

Most of the undercoat is gone.

Are wipers/motors required? I have them front and rear. All US spec 83-84 GTI had a rear wiper. I need to check the GCR on this.

"Sport fewer decals" - any kid on the street knows decals add horsepower!

Is removing the radiator fan legal? The car has never seemed to need it......
 
"I thought about the battery, but the GCR seems to be clear in its intent on a "stock" size replacement battery."


See posts elsewhere on this site about the "battery issue".



"Are wipers/motors required? I have them front and rear. All US spec 83-84 GTI had a rear wiper. I need to check the GCR on this."


The GCR does not say that you may remove them.



"Is removing the radiator fan legal? The car has never seemed to need it......"


The GCR says you may use any radiator.



BUT, as a true novice, I will appreciate ANY corrections.
 
Do you have ALL of the asphault sound deadening removed? On the floor, in the doors, behind the rear passenger side panels, in the rain tray, on the firewall.

Remove the sunroof and entire mechanism. Replace with appropriate thickness steel.

Are you running the GTI AL bumpers?

Weren't there two styles of bumper supports? mechanical and shock style, with the latter being heavy.

Remove the radiator fan.

Kosei 14x6 wheels.

Does the exhaust go all the way out the back? Why not shorten it.

Are all of the evap emission control components gone, not just disabled?

Do you have a header rather than dual outlet manifold?

Speaking of the cage - what is it? Bolt in Autopower style is legal and heavy. Install a custom welded with the correct tube size and you will gain strenght while loosing weight and windows/regulators.

Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head. Many of them have probably been addressed. Good luck pulling the 'lead' out. :eclipsee_steering:
 
Are wipers/motors required? I have them front and rear. All US spec 83-84 GTI had a rear wiper. I need to check the GCR on this.

"Sport fewer decals" - any kid on the street knows decals add horsepower!

Is removing the radiator fan legal? The car has never seemed to need it......
[/b]
Click to expand...

Definitely nix the sunroof. It's not just weight, but top-heavy weight.

Removing the heavy stock radiator fan is definitely legal, and it also comes off the overburdened nose of the car :) I add a lightweight race fan just in case it's needed for racing in tight traffic or idling in the pits.

On the issue of the rear wiper, I was the second owner of an 83 GTI from Arizona that absolutely did not have a rear wiper or even a hole for it. It had the GTI (black) trim on it faded and cracked the same as the rest of the car, so I'm 99.9% sure it came that way. What do others think? It's really not a big issue since more weight is desired in back anyway, but I think you should be able to remove it.

Finally, although it's down low so it might hurt a lot, lightening and shortening the entire exhaust can save a lot of weight if there's nothing else left to go.

Harder and also down low, but tune with springs instead of swaybars to save the weight of the swaybars.
 
I've thought real hard about the sway bar removal. I could find 75 lbs in bar with the weight of the bars themselves plus the brackets etc. The car has coilovers with Konis in front and Carerras out back, so it would just be a matter of playing the spring game until I figured out what works.

Anybody out there running no-bars in an A1 GTI that is willing to share their spring rates?

Thanks
Eddie
 
When I was running a mk1, I had 550# in the front and 400-#450 rear. This was with no sway bar. If I would have kept the car instead of upping to a mk3, I was going to add 150# in the front and 100# in the rear.

Aaron
 
As others have pointed out, you need to lose the sunroof. IIRC, it's ~35#, not to mention that it's up high. The rad fan is another good way to loose some weight. I ran a plastic aux. fan on my old car. That's got to be at least 5# savings, if not 10#.

Interesting theory on using springs instead of bars in the rear. Sure, you're going to save weight by not having the bars, but I think part of the problem is the change in rear geometry when the beam twists. I don't know if just going w/ bigger springs will prevent that. My guess is that you'd have to start w/ something around 700 - 800 if you wanted to run no bar. One of the other benefits of running a bar, is that if you want to tighten the car up, you just disconnect the bar, rather than changing out springs.
 
I've thought real hard about the sway bar removal. I could find 75 lbs in bar with the weight of the bars themselves plus the brackets etc. [/b]
Click to expand...

75#!!!!

What are they cast iron? Seriously - the hollow sway bars, or the bolt to the beam style are not nearly that heavy.
 
Actually, the lower stress bar that the front sway mounts on IS iron angle :wacko: .

There are TWO bars on the back.....

Add it all up and it will be close to ~75lbs.

Previous owner was not worried about weight at all. He was in much better shape than I. He had to run with passenger seat, spare, and 40lbs ballast to make weight. Additionally, he was working with the old weight spec on the car.
 
OK that makes more sense. In that case - make a tubular front tie bar. There are a few on the market as well. I doubt the oem one on the 16v Scirocco weighs 5lbs, too bad it is a 4pt design...

Use just one rear bar - find a stiffer one or bump the spring rate to compensate.
 
:OLA:

Try this out... I am not sure if you are aloud to do this, but this company sells fiberglass bonnets, and hatches for the old Mk1... at 25% of the weight of the original parts you should be able to get rid of weight, and if it is too much then just add it back where you need it

:OLA:

http://www.spridgetech.com/gallery.htm

I got this information from Scott Neville... a former NASA GTI Cup driver from NorCal...

CJ
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top