Light weight vs. Weight/Weight Ratio

[kamotors]

IN my experience getting rid of the front bumper beam helps a lot.

on my E30 the beam weighs in around 25lbs and on my subaru closer to 35lbs. getting rid of and replacing with lighter aluminum bracket really helped turn in

[nrubenstein]

Completely irrelevant.

a) Clarkson is so much faster than May that it's not funny. (He is Captain Slow, after all.)
b) The cars were not comparable.
c) That concrete paver wasn't that heavy.
d) Did I mention that it's not a meaningful comparison in any way?

[2mAn]

sort of off topic, but I have to get new control arms and Im considering the M3 simply because they are aluminum. Worth the money and the weight savings? I cant imagine it saves more than just a few ounces, so Im skeptical to spend the money. I know shaving unsprung weight is a big benefit. Thats one of the main reasons my 11# SSRs are staying with me no matter what

[Hooffenstein HD]

How much weight do you think I would save by removing the sound dampening/heat shield from the engine bay and trans tunnel? Because mine is just crumbling away.

Also how much loader, and hotter do you think it would get in the cabin?

I removed all mine and it was around 7kg. It didn't make much difference at all to heat/noise in the cabin. Removing the in cabin sound deadening and insulation takes care of that.

[dougie30]

I removed all mine and it was around 7kg. It didn't make much difference at all to heat/noise in the cabin. Removing the in cabin sound deadening and insulation takes care of that.

Thanks for the info. Do you recommend removing it? Mine is turning to dust lol

[JinormusJ]

Gonna bump this cause there's a lot of valuable stuff ITT

IN my experience getting rid of the front bumper beam helps a lot.

on my E30 the beam weighs in around 25lbs and on my subaru closer to 35lbs. getting rid of and replacing with lighter aluminum bracket really helped turn in

Do you have any link to this bracket?
Does it replace the plastic reinforcement behind the plastic bumper cover?
I've recently been but by the weight reduction bug and want to even out the weight distribution; while it may not seem like a lot, 20 lbs here and there would really add up eventually

[Hooffenstein HD]

Thanks for the info. Do you recommend removing it? Mine is turning to dust lol

Probably not for a daily. My car is a rolling convection oven, I wouldn't recommend it.

Schwarz, dark tint, black interior and no air con don't help but you can really feel that heat through the trans tunnel.

[GillesBigCowboy]

Less weight is good up to a point. Realistically, no one is going to achieve the kind of weight reduction that it takes to throw a BMW chassis so far off the curve that the weight balance is worse than the weight reduction without getting to fairly stupid and unlikely measures.

Right on.

As for balance, yes the mid engine rear weight bias seems to be th ultimate fastest way around the track, but is it the most fun to drive? Or is it more fun to drive a car with a relatively lighter and more active tail...? ...the lighter tailed car would be more likely to achieve it's "perfect cornering balance" under acceleration when the weight has dynamically shifted towards the back. I can't think of anything more enjoyable than a WOT balanced drift during corner exit.

[Nick_S]

IN my experience getting rid of the front bumper beam helps a lot.

on my E30 the beam weighs in around 25lbs and on my subaru closer to 35lbs. getting rid of and replacing with lighter aluminum bracket really helped turn in

Got any pictures of what you used to mount it after you removed the beam?

[Mr. Tasty]

im proud I created this thread

[Xat1cZ]

im proud I created this thread

[TobyB]

Within reason, lighter is always better.

There are limits.

If you made up a fake car with 95% of the weight on one end, it would be very slow.

Realistically, weight's going to be roughly (60-40) equal. Beyond that, the devil is
always in the details.

But with a road course race car, job 1 is making minimum weight. Job 2 is making maximum horsepower. Job 3 is tuning suspension to balance handling, and thus, go faster... Job 45 is trying to shift things around inside to balance masses on the axles.

Rally cars are similar. Autocross cars are similar. Drag cars are different.
Drift cars are not race cars, as such, and have somewhat different needs.
Top Gear is a TV show, and if you thought the internet was full of BS, well,
you haven't watched enough TV...

t

[JinormusJ]

Image

EPIC FREAKIN LoL

[JinormusJ]

Hey guys,

Earlier in this thread KAmotors mentioned a bumper mod that could help shave weight off the front of our nose heavy cars. Seeing that even m10 cars suffer from front-heaviness, I figured every e30 could potentially have everything to gain doing this mod; especially swap cars with their even HEAVIER engines.

I've just been researching engine weights and power outputs and found this list (which many of you are fimiliar with as it is the unix nerd compilation) recently, and thought to share the findings:
m42: 220 lbs
m20: 258 lbs
s5x: 336 lbs
m54: 278 lbs
S54: 478 lbs

Anyway; here is the Mod straight from KAmotors

So basically you need to completely remove the fiber glass bumper core. The turn signals and threaded bracket need to come off and directly bolt to the bumper skin. Take the threaded clips off the beam and slide them onto the cover to mount the signals and use the torx bolt of the bracket and bolt it to the skin as well.

core


The gold bolt in this pic hold the brackets to the bumper its only 1 bolt per side and no drilling is needed. Stacking of washers is needed for proper alignment and you need to remove the thick washer on the stock bumper bolts because the bolts now need to touch the skin to set the proper height.


End result is a nice lightweight tucked bumper. I belive it lost exactly 12lbs right off the nose of the car.

So, you might be thinking:

only 12 lbs? What's this overhyped derp on about?

What I'm on about is that when you think about swapping in an M54B30 that has almost as much power output as an s5x, but do this mod; you'd potentially have a super lightweight s5x swap car with m20 weight distribution and similar handling characteristics. Best of all; this mod is $free.95

Any future weight reduction (carbon fiber fitted hood, AC delete, PS delete) could well put a 24v swap car into a weight class that's even lower than the m42 and possibly even an m10, but keep it in a power class that can easily run circles around even e46 m3s

Plus, for those of you worried how reinforcement delete might fair in a crash; styrofoam has a similar crash rating, and is virtually weightless, so stuff away



Maybe it's already been discussed before, maybe it hasn't, or maybe I'm just getting over excited about 12 measely pounds. However, I think this is seriously cool shiznitz, and I want to give a hand out to KAmotors for informing me and allowing me to share to you guys the knowledge of this mod, be it shared before or only now known about to newer members

[VinniE30]

Hey guys,

Earlier in this thread KAmotors mentioned a bumper mod that could help shave weight off the front of our nose heavy cars. Seeing that even m10 cars suffer from front-heaviness, I figured every e30 could potentially have everything to gain doing this mod; especially swap cars with their even HEAVIER engines.

I've just been researching engine weights and power outputs and found this list (which many of you are fimiliar with as it is the unix nerd compilation) recently, and thought to share the findings:
m42: 220 lbs
m20: 258 lbs
s5x: 336 lbs
m54: 278 lbs
S54: 478 lbs

Anyway; here is the Mod straight from KAmotors



So, you might be thinking:


What I'm on about is that when you think about swapping in an M54B30 that has almost as much power output as an s5x, but do this mod; you'd potentially have a super lightweight s5x swap car with m20 weight distribution and similar handling characteristics. Best of all; this mod is $free.95

Any future weight reduction (carbon fiber fitted hood, AC delete, PS delete) could well put a 24v swap car into a weight class that's even lower than the m42 and possibly even an m10, but keep it in a power class that can easily run circles around even e46 m3s

Plus, for those of you worried how reinforcement delete might fair in a crash; styrofoam has a similar crash rating, and is virtually weightless, so stuff away



Maybe it's already been discussed before, maybe it hasn't, or maybe I'm just getting over excited about 12 measely pounds. However, I think this is seriously cool shiznitz, and I want to give a hand out to KAmotors for informing me and allowing me to share to you guys the knowledge of this mod, be it shared before or only now known about to newer members

The weights on that website you're talking about (and also the bimmerforums engine weight list) are very unreliable because they are taken from many different sources, and he also doesn't say where he even got them from.(although I figured out where he got some of them from)

If you're going to compare engine weights, at least compare ones from the same source. Or at least try to make sure they were all weighed under the same conditions.(all weighed with all accessories, or all weighted with just the bare long block, etc.)
See my engine weights thread...

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=233682