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As you might have seen, I’m taking my Silver Syncro off to play at Castle Combe this Saturday. I thought I should spend some time taking out the unnecessary stuff from inside the car – as Colin Chapman said – one of the best ways of getting more performance is to ‘add lightness’ The Syncro isn’t a light car, so I figured it might be possible to see some serious gains by getting busy removing weight.
So how much weight is it possible to lose?
I spent last night removing lots and lots of stuff from the inside of my Golf.
Currently residing outside the shell are as follows:
Rear seats, carpets, floor mats (bloody heavy things them!), rear speakers, rear seatbelts, all interior trim aft of the B-pillar, all floor sound-proofing, the lower dash, centre console and central locking compressor (bloody gurt lump). I’ve not attacked the headlining, or the front carpets yet, as I want to see what difference the changes so far make.
Pics of the interior are here: http://diamondhell.com/index.php?option=com_rsgallery2&Itemid=29&catid=6 If you click on the thumbnails they’ll get bigger.
As you’ll see from the pics, there’s a fair bit of weight to be saved by running the vacuum cleaner over things! I’ll take the spare out when I’m on the track to lose a bit more weight, too.
One rather unexpected consequence of removing all this is that the car rose on its springs by about 2″! Thankfully I had a look this morning and it appeared to have come back down a bit over night, which is a relief! The car currently only has about 10litres of fuel in it, too.
It’ll be really interesting to see what difference all this makes, both on the road and on the track. Sadly one of the key things that will be different will be the loss of refinement without the sound-deadening, but there’s no way it was staying given how much the damned stuff weighed!
It was really nice to see how good the floorpan of my car is, too – good sign for the future
So, for reference, I’ll be going to Combe with the following mods: PB motor head, running a Weber 32/34 DTML, 280mm front brakes (and big master cylinder), Newish dampers, G3 Syncro VR6 springs (less a few coils), fresh suspension mounts and a Rallye rear ARB. I’ve also got a set of semi-slicks to try out on one of the sessions, which will be interesting [
]Take out the passenger seat it must weigh 20 pounds or so, and replace the drivers seat with a fibreglass shell type one thats another 15 pounds or so allowing for the weight of the replacement.
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Take out the passenger seat it must weigh 20 pounds or so, and replace the drivers seat with a fibreglass shell type one thats another 15 pounds or so allowing for the weight of the replacement.That costs money!
The lightening so far hasn’t cost anything, which is the beauty of it!
You could also replace the Glass rear & side windows with perspex and get rid of the rear winder mechanisms & silicon the perspex sliding part in, it is still reversable if there is a change of plan.
I got a bit of perspex from BnQ which I was going to bung. And probably some clear silicone too. All free…..
Shall we see how much we can lighten Diamond Hell’s Golf without spending any money? I have an angle grinder I can lend.
Well if it was my Golf Syncro the best way to lighten it would be for me to go on a strict diet, that would save at least 30 odd kilos! however I dont really think that would be a viable option on TC’s car, anyway pimper old lad why boring clear silicon when you could make it a colourful feature? [:0]
BTW the rear wiper will now scratch the perspex rear window so you may as well chuck that out as well along with the rear washer, hopefully this winter I will get the time & also be motivated enough to make some carbon fibre or polyester bolt on panels for the golf 2,
I mean things like bonnets, tailgates, wings and even doors of both the 2 & 4 door typesme need the GTi diet to. right i’m off to go and rummage in mine and throw all the dead K jet bits at the bin. mk1 has just been moved and think a decision has been made to give it 2ltrs and remove everythign possible inc dashboard
I got some aluminium door cards in my 80 Sport, they might fit. Don’t know how much weight they save though….
bucket seats now gone to skoobadude.
he’s currently sitting on them in his shed holding an imaginary steering wheel making vroom vroom noises……
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ucket seats now gone to skoobadude.Dammit, I go away for a couple of days…..
Alloy cards might well work, even if they need a bit of trimming. I’ve got an offer of a set of out of date (for FIA use)4 point harnesses, too – nice wide ones [
]cut the floor pans out and replace with ally sheet,cut away all excess metal around the door inners,tailgate,bonnet,lightweight bumpers would save a fair amount of weight,remove mirrors,arch liners,heater box,lightwight[smaller]fuel tank…
Blimey, that’s a *little* keen!
This is supposed to be a relatively cheap, simple and fun project – I do understand where you’re coming from, but it’s unlikely I’m going to tear into too much of that, especially as I want to keep it driveable on the road as well as the track – it would be a shame to completely lose those B-road blasts
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