can I cut out my spare tire well?

[lateracer]

Got a dedicated E30 for autocrossing and track racing. Does the spare tire well provide any structural support or can I just cut it out?

I would like to cut a nice square sheet out so that a patch panel would be an easy fab.

[Jean]

Check your autocross rulebook if it's allowed and/if/what class that might put you in.

[PeaveyBassist]

The spare tire well cut out of the car and replaced with a flat panel will drop the weight by 300 pounds and make a HUGE difference in your autox/track times. You definitely need that last 0.05 sec on a track day and that last 0.01-02 on the local autox once a month. Think about it, the extra 5 pounds you lose off the rear end of the car won't make a difference. More time on the track and honing your driver skills will. There are some people that could drive a stock e30 around a track a HELL of a lost faster than some of the modded cars on the forum. Is taking the wheel well out worth the trouble? Why not locate the battery in the spare tire well or just leave it empty?

[lateracer]

Yeah, it's not so much of a weight savings measure as it is cleaning things up and making the rear end easier to get around underneath. There's no tire in the well and it's all dented in from the PO jacking up the car with it.

Totally agree about the driver improvement being better than the performance add of a pound or two of sheet metal gone. Just tired of looking at a beat up tire well and planning to swap my rear end out.

The car is a beater and eventually lemons bound, so I'm not real concerned about how this effects classing. It's usually close last place anyway at this point. I'm still "finding my inner racer" :)

[Dominic49]

removing the tire well gives you room to add a diffuser.

[Bruce Colby]

Got a dedicated E30 for autocrossing and track racing. Does the spare tire well provide any structural support or can I just cut it out?

I would like to cut a nice square sheet out so that a patch panel would be an easy fab.

Mine has been removed and everything seems to work just fine. PM me if you'd like to have a look at it. I'm in Vista.

[Rolla1990]

removing the tire well gives you room to add a diffuser.

'nuf said...

[dinanm3atl]

It just isn't worth it anyways. As said, just drive. You will make up the time faster ;)

[Jean]

Mine has been removed and everything seems to work just fine. PM me if you'd like to have a look at it. I'm in Vista.

Can you post some pictures? I am curious to see how it looks inside/outside.

thanks

[PeaveyBassist]

If you want to do it, more power to you. Just wanted to make sure you werent doing it because you thought you would be faster without it. Sorry if I came off as kind of a dick.

[erik325i]

removing the tire well gives you room to add a diffuser.

This is true.
Removing the spare tire well without doing anything else, will just make your rear bumper/valence a huge parachute.

Erik

[lateracer]

I'm just here to learn. I'm not sure how to make it any clearer than this:

It's ugly and gets in the way when I'm working on the rear sub frame or that general area. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't going to hurt anything/buckle sheet metal after I cut it out.



The car is a dedicated Lemons/Auto-X racer, so before anyone else tells me that I need to spend more time sleeping under the car or learning German so that I can think like a BMW engineer, let me take this opportunity to thank you for sharing what you know but politely refuse.

If I was really concerned about dropping massive weight or taking lots of time off runs, I wouldn't be racing a car I bought for $200. I'm more concerned with things like "Is this road bumpy, or did I toss a rod?"

The rear diffuser sounds like fun though. I've got some extra aluminum left over from another project that might be kinda cool.

[Brian D]

Got a dedicated E30 for autocrossing and track racing. Does the spare tire well provide any structural support or can I just cut it out?

I would like to cut a nice square sheet out so that a patch panel would be an easy fab.

I thought we found through jlevie's bad luck that the spare well doesn't add support:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=1634079&postcount=30

[Jean]

I was only suggesting to check the rule book before making such a mod...

[91greg325i]

Cut it out if its in the way... Also, remove that 40-50 pounds of sound damping.