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The Elephant In The Room: unloading the load from a B-body.

Mopar John said:
It is a Dorman 555-059 plug shown as 1 3/4" camshaft plug.
Click to expand...
What I love about all of this is that normal items such as plugs at a Home depot or auto store can contribute to a diet plan on a race car.
I once made a home brewed cowl air box for a friends '67 firebird out of roof deck ducts at Home Depot. Yes it was made out of one those thin aluminum funnel like thingies right off the shelves. The opening fit perfectly over the carb mouth and had a 45 degree slope that caught air on the back side. I connected it to an aluminum pan air box that sealed to his cowl area underneath and the flat formula hood. It astoundingly shaved three tenths off his ET that Fall day. I thought it was a fluke of some kind, so we removed it and he went for another pass. It went back up exactly three tenths. Dropped in the air box once again and the ET dropped 3 tenths with it.
 
fullmetaljacket said:
What I love about all of this is that normal items such as plugs at a Home depot or auto store can contribute to a diet plan on a race car.
I once made a home brewed cowl air box for a friends '67 firebird out of roof deck ducts at Home Depot. Yes it was made out of one those thin aluminum funnel like thingies right off the shelves. The opening fit perfectly over the carb mouth and had a 45 degree slope that caught air on the back side. I connected it to an aluminum pan air box that sealed to his cowl area underneath and the flat formula hood. It astoundingly shaved three tenths off his ET that Fall day. I thought it was a fluke of some kind, so we removed it and he went for another pass. It went back up exactly three tenths. Dropped in the air box once again and the ET dropped 3 tenths with it.
Click to expand...
Here's another close look at one of the powder coated aluminum "Steely Dan" wheels.

IMG_1034.jpg
 
Love the thread you have going. I came across this lightened ride on Fb marketplace last night...said " you will get lots of looks driving it"Lol

Screenshot_20230722_061822_Facebook.jpg
 
fullmetaljacket said:
Oh, and talking about lightweight anodized items, here's some good humor ice cream. How about a pair of anodized aluminum ignition keys? Every ounce counts. LOL.

View attachment 1485715
Click to expand...
When I was working I had keys to just about everything in the shop and then some hanging from my belt and they were kinda on the heavy side. The company keys were brass, larger and heavier than ignition keys so they all got drilled. Probably took off over a 1/3rd of the weight.
 
When I bought my 66 Belvedere I 2dr sedan back in 88, I took it to Houston Raceway Park and put it on their scales and it tipped in at 3370 without me and it had a maybe a 1/4 tank of gas in it. One of the first things to do to it was install a glass hood, pull off the front bumper and remove a ton or two of undercoating. Also removed about 2700 coats of paint on the thing. It was making miniature volcanoes all over the place and thought it might be good to take it off to see what was going on under it all. After using up 3 36 grit discs on the deck lid alone, a buddy said to try a razor blade. Exploding light bulb? It worked and it came off in sheets! Never knew a 5 gallon bucket of dried paint could actually weigh something. Even more amazing was how much undercoating this thing had and it was a Texas car no less!

Another weight saving task was to remove all the cracked and dried out factory rubber floor mats. That stuff was still pretty heavy. Also removed the back seat and rear window regulators and installed a pair of buckets. The buckets looked like Duster seats and were in my 68 road runner drag car and saved them after parting out the road runner. That car is another story and the old bench seat was ragged out and found that it was making my back hurt while driving it back and forth to work almost everyday. And IIRC, I hole punched the doors as much as possible before weighing it again. By this time I removed the original wheels and installed 15x7 cop car wheels with caps and 235/75-15's all the way around. Why that size tire?? Because I had them. That's just me......also lowered the car and added a bunch of camber and all the caster it would take. Anyways....got rewarded with a scale weight of 2950!! And the factory AC was still in it and the only reason for that was it still worked.

I've done more weight loss which entails a 32 lb K member (trimmed and solid welded but have another that's 26...but 38 was stock weight?), suspension parts, door hinge mods (had a thread about that a year ago or two) and more trimming on the body here and there. Had aluminum heads but still have aluminum water pump and housing on the 440 with intake and a few other things but no titanium. These days it's not on my budget. Life really got in the way on this one with my dad being the first casualty in 98 and seems like every time I got back to work on it, another relative decided to leave earth. My wife 'finally' decided to leave (she's still living lol) in 17 and now I have to watch my budget even closer. Best thing to happen to me was her leaving!! Just wish I had kept a log on each and every part that I did!

Couple of pics of some of the things I've done.....and of course, a couple of 'lightened' keys I still have. Having holes in the house key helps in the dark.

IMG_20230722_130027607.jpg


IMG_20230722_131647344.jpg
 
Cranky said:
When I bought my 66 Belvedere I 2dr sedan back in 88, I took it to Houston Raceway Park and put it on their scales and it tipped in at 3370 without me and it had a maybe a 1/4 tank of gas in it. One of the first things to do to it was install a glass hood, pull off the front bumper and remove a ton or two of undercoating. Also removed about 2700 coats of paint on the thing. It was making miniature volcanoes all over the place and thought it might be good to take it off to see what was going on under it all. After using up 3 36 grit discs on the deck lid alone, a buddy said to try a razor blade. Exploding light bulb? It worked and it came off in sheets! Never knew a 5 gallon bucket of dried paint could actually weigh something. Even more amazing was how much undercoating this thing had and it was a Texas car no less!

Another weight saving task was to remove all the cracked and dried out factory rubber floor mats. That stuff was still pretty heavy. Also removed the back seat and rear window regulators and installed a pair of buckets. The buckets looked like Duster seats and were in my 68 road runner drag car and saved them after parting out the road runner. That car is another story and the old bench seat was ragged out and found that it was making my back hurt while driving it back and forth to work almost everyday. And IIRC, I hole punched the doors as much as possible before weighing it again. By this time I removed the original wheels and installed 15x7 cop car wheels with caps and 235/75-15's all the way around. Why that size tire?? Because I had them. That's just me......also lowered the car and added a bunch of camber and all the caster it would take. Anyways....got rewarded with a scale weight of 2950!! And the factory AC was still in it and the only reason for that was it still worked.

I've done more weight loss which entails a 32 lb K member (trimmed and solid welded but have another that's 26...but 38 was stock weight?), suspension parts, door hinge mods (had a thread about that a year ago or two) and more trimming on the body here and there. Had aluminum heads but still have aluminum water pump and housing on the 440 with intake and a few other things but no titanium. These days it's not on my budget. Life really got in the way on this one with my dad being the first casualty in 98 and seems like every time I got back to work on it, another relative decided to leave earth. My wife 'finally' decided to leave (she's still living lol) in 17 and now I have to watch my budget even closer. Best thing to happen to me was her leaving!! Just wish I had kept a log on each and every part that I did!

Couple of pics of some of the things I've done.....and of course, a couple of 'lightened' keys I still have. Having holes in the house key helps in the dark.

View attachment 1498350

View attachment 1498351
Click to expand...
Here you go. Aluminum anodized Chrysler blanks.
Could match with blue aluminum anodized Direct Connection valve covers. LOL.
I race with only one key in the ignition, no underwear, a haircut, fasting from food for a few days and yes, a good sit down in the John and you're as light as a feather. LOL.

By the way, nice touch and idea for that distributor hold down bracket.

Wait till y'all see what's happening and has already happened in region #2
Still covering region #1. Lots on the table.

s-l1600.jpg
 
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MarPar said:
My doc told me as much as 4lb lighter! That's yuge!
Click to expand...
My buddy in the plumbing supply industry mentioned toilets are designed for about 2100 grams lol iirc .
So that's in the ballpark
 
fullmetaljacket said:
Many years back, I had a Racer Brown cam that went with the ideology. "If it ain't Brown, it ain't Sh!t" LOL.
Click to expand...
What can be hiding within region #1. HHhhmmmmmmmm.
This was at the very first Road Kill nights by Dodge in Detroit just outside of the old Silver dome stadium. The car was doing very very well that day through the rounds and when I thought they were going to call the event short because of a supposedly strict curfew, I left to go cruise Woodward. Unbeknownst to me, they kept the event going into the early evening and the cars in the finals were within my reach. The grand prize was a brand new crate Hellcat motor............................LOL.

unnamed-4.jpg
 
fullmetaljacket said:
What can be hiding within region #1. HHhhmmmmmmmm.
This was at the very first Road Kill nights by Dodge in Detroit just outside of the old Silver dome stadium. The car was doing very very well that day through the rounds and when I thought they were going to call the event short because of a supposedly strict curfew, I left to go cruise Woodward. Unbeknownst to me, they kept the event going into the early evening and the cars in the finals were within my reach. The grand prize was a brand new crate Hellcat motor............................LOL.

View attachment 1498959
Click to expand...
fullmetaljacket said:
What can be hiding within region #1. HHhhmmmmmmmm.
This was at the very first Road Kill nights by Dodge in Detroit just outside of the old Silver dome stadium. The car was doing very very well that day through the rounds and when I thought they were going to call the event short because of a supposedly strict curfew, I left to go cruise Woodward. Unbeknownst to me, they kept the event going into the early evening and the cars in the finals were within my reach. The grand prize was a brand new crate Hellcat motor............................LOL.

View attachment 1498959
Click to expand...
Region #2. From the firewall to the B-post, roof line to the floor boards. Stay tuned.
 
fullmetaljacket said:
Region #2. From the firewall to the B-post, roof line to the floor boards. Stay tuned.
Click to expand...
A few things in closing region #1.
Aluminum AFCO radiator with tailor made aluminum shroud which also holds the high CFM fan assembly. Never logged in how much weight it shaved off compared to the original copper brass radiator, but it was a modest to decent amount only because it is wider and thicker. Widened and removed some of the radiator support walls to allow more air to the wider aluminum core and its tanks. Sealed all openings, crevasses and pin holes.
190 degrees tops in street driven 95 degree oven air.
180 degrees in Fall air.
170 degrees in dead Winter.
All fastening hardware are aluminum.

0-1.jpeg
 
fullmetaljacket said:
A few things in closing region #1.
Aluminum AFCO radiator with tailor made aluminum shroud which also holds the high CFM fan assembly. Never logged in how much weight it shaved off compared to the original copper brass radiator, but it was a modest to decent amount only because it is wider and thicker. Widened and removed some of the radiator support walls to allow more air to the wider aluminum core and its tanks. Sealed all openings, crevasses and pin holes.
190 degrees tops in street driven 95 degree oven air.
180 degrees in Fall air.
170 degrees in dead Winter.
All fastening hardware are aluminum.

View attachment 1500647
Click to expand...
I went over to the Dark side to get a little lighter with the use of a Powermaster Black series GM 140 amp Alternator. My original 35 amp Chrysler unit wasn't juicing enough for the few things reliant on a good alternator so I went there, especially when I weighed the two and the GM unit was exactly 2 Lbs less. I know that now there are even lighter mini Powermaster juicers that look more the part in a Chrysler engine nest, but don't have the time to prefabricate those brackets at this time.
Speaking of brackets, Note the aluminum brackets and aluminum hollow spacers where the Titanium mounting bolt slips through to mount the juicer to the engine. Been working for years trouble free.

0-3.jpeg
 
While region #1 is coming to a conclusion unless there's an elusion to other tricks, a big block fuel pump can weigh as much as 3-1/2 Lbs with push rod and all at the very front of the car. All this can be switched to the rear of the car with the use of an external electric fuel pump or in-tank unit. Not necessarily removing the weight, but repositioning it for more effective weight distribution.
My fuel pump weighed 3 Lbs with push rod. Electric in tank unit weighs a little more, but placed in the right place.

s-l1600.jpg


61a-0xmvM+L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg
 
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