I am learning here....No cage and no lead in crossmember = sub 2800lbs haha. I think the fiberglass bumpers and aluminum brackets, a carbon fiber hood, lightweight racing seats, and maybe start drilling holes in the body!
I took the front and rear fiberglass bumpers and mod'd brackets off my Maverick and replaced them with the stock ones....................for the 38 lbs you loose I just don't think it's worth it...........................................IMHO
I gave them to Ed here on the website......................that was almost a year ago..................if not I would have given them to you.
Darn, oh well. I am not on the level of a big block or anything like that, so 38lbs is definitely a good savings. It all adds up!
I'm guessing that olerodder was just pointing out that the bang for buck aspect of losing minimal amount of weight may not be worth it for most all but the hardest of the hardcore. But you are right. It does all add up and the car becomes better all-around(accell/turn/stop).. because of it. I'm actually kind of surprised that more around here aren't notching firewalls to allow moving the motors back a bit more. That really helps these cars in so many ways. Traction, turning and braking can really benefit from just a simple 2 inch setback.
These cars are nose-heavy, more so than many other cars. Think about it ... it already is a smallish, light car with a lot of the same mechanical stuff crammed into it that would have been found in bigger cars at the time. If you use a floor jack, you can find the balance point, where you jack the whole side up, right behind the front wheelwell. I would focus any weight reduction on the front and improve the balance for better traction. Beyond that, if you want to go faster .... make more power.
I also own a 70 Maverick,which I am building for the track.Previous owner said it weighed 2505,stripped w/ 351w and cast iron hds,c-4,narrowed 9 in.,10 pt. cage,racing seat,10 1/2 in slicks and all aluminum intr.incld. dash.Ole Rodder has stated in the past that his car is an older build w/ square tube chassis and ladder bars which would make it heavier.My car also has a fiberglass hood and light aluminum wheels,there are lots of ways to take weight off.
wow!.. that's pretty light. I can only hope to keep mine to about 2,800 with all my extra chassis stiffening tricks. I do plan on race gutting it eventually.. and installing glass just about every place it can be bolted up too though.. so maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be lighter. 500 horse in 2,500 lbs would be way fun.
I am going to run a 351w too,I got a good deal on the mtr which has rousch hds on it.I am only going to use them to start with because they came on the mtr,and I also know they have to be ported to gain the xtra 50 HP out of em.They are heavy and w/ the blow proof bellhousing and Toploader 4spd along w/ the ladder bar set up I`ll easily gain 200 lbs.But hopefully,this should be a solid 10 sec. car.
lol.. at that weight?.. you could almost do that with heavily mod'd stock heads. and lol.. at first my brain saw "roush" and somehow substituted "yates".. which immediately made me wonder why the hell they would need any porting. So, which heads are they? If they're the ones I've seen bare in the shops before?.. they certianly need work. I almost bought a used bare set last year for my 310 inch build.. but I didn't like the short sides potential at all and decided to pass. Not sure what your background is.. but you might be best served to start a thread over at yellow bullet or speedtalk to get more firsthanded expert opinions before you start cutting on them. If I had firsthand experience with that particular casting.. I'd gladly share it with you. They did look pretty straight forward and most general rules of porting will apply there though.
Part of the reason mine is so heavy is that it was built as a NHRA B/SM car, which meant it really couldn't be reduced much............with the exception of the fiberglass hood. Of course it has a Boss302/spd back in the day but with the 408/Powerglide I'm not sure how much of a weight difference there is. The interior of the car is tubed to accept the 14" wide slicks although in the day they could only run a 10.5" tire.............but all of the tub/rear bulk head had to remain the same gauge of metal the car was built of...................although mine is slightly larger gauge.........and since it was covered with carpeting I doubt any tech inspector would have been able to tell.........(more weight over the rear tires).....and also the rear cross member that goes between each rear frame rail is filled with "lead".................which is at least another 100lb+. In the SM classes back then they had to have the car as close to 50/50 weight distribution as possible (so know one had a weight advantage over the rear tires........ so that means there is no aluminum in the car at all.....................well, almost..........I will install the aluminum door and quarter panels from ScottFab which will not lessen the weight.......just replace the quarter panels and door panels to give it a little cleaner look. When I took the rearend housing down I found that they have the axle tubes made out of some very heavy wall stuff........almost twice the thickness of the original and with all the brackets for the pivoting ladder setup/shocks/wheelie bars that the bare housing weighs almost 200lbs...............something else the tech inspectors would have had a hard time noticing................so, I would like to shoot for the car to weigh in at 3000lbs but unless I started taking glass out and replacing it with plexiglass and replaced all the panels I could with fiberglass I doubt I could ever get down to where you are. It would be interesting to put your car on the scales to see what it actually weighs though......................when I bought my car the guy said it was just a few pounds under 3000lb.....................obviously it did not.
So far I have done a few more things for weight reduction. Ditched the stock seats and am throwing in a kirkey aluminum seat. My dual exhaust with flowmaster 40's is quite heavy. I am going to try to replace them with something else that exits out the side, maybe glasspacks, I hate how the dumps blow dirt clouds off the ground everytime I rev it up! I will be adding one of the sw roll cages for harness and seat mounds, and traction masters, and slicks. I also added a few lbs of Taurus radiator fan. Maybe its all a wash?
To Groberts101,they are cast iron 200s,type in Roush cyl hds and go through the threads until you see the article about porting,what to do and what not to do.I have 7 yrs auto machine shop exp and could do most anything except grind a crank,never taught how.It`s pretty straight forward,grind down and smooth out guide bosses,smooth out the flashing under the exhaust valve.Then,about a 1/2 in under the intake valve in the port on the cyl wall side,cut away just a little bit to make a curve.This will create a swirl effect just before the air fuel mixture enters the comb chamber according to the article.Also,these hds come w/ the street flo valves,swap them out and install the race flo valves.They are more tulip shaped and have thicker margins flowing more air.Then what I do on the intake is run 44deg,30deg and 25deg backcut,on the exhaust 44deg,30deg, and 22deg backcut.They claim these mods will net you another 50hp on the flow bench.This and a windage tray is 75hp,pretty easy for 10 to 12 hrs. worth of hd work,something I`m not willing to give up.
