TNTRacing - XRCosworth

[pablo]

I think thats part of our problem. Everytime we talk about weight saving we think of your old car and just know we could never get ours down to what you achieved. Even Ronnies 3dr weighed about 1090kg and that was nearly all carbonfibre

[Stuart]

I still reckon that you can get your car down to 1050 kgs or thereabouts and still be road legal. Have you;
-cut out the bumper crash bars front and rear
-cut out the inner door skins
-cut out the boot skin
-removed the bitumen sound deadening from everywhere
-remove the heater matrix (a heated screen is £300)
-fit plastic windows to everything except the windscreen
-remove central locking
-remove all locks
-drill out any excess metal from doors using a hole cutter

I seem to remember you've swapped things like your radiator for an alloy one, plated the sunroof and removed some of your dash.......it all helps. The 2.9 Cologne block weighs more than the Cosworth with a turbo hanging off of it, so then you're down to differences between brake set ups and wheel sizes. This post seems like deja vu.......have we said all this before?

[pablo]

We probably have spoke about this before

-cut out the bumper crash bars front and rear - No, we feel the front one offers a bit of protection to the engine if we kiss a tyre wall
-cut out the inner door skins - This winter
-cut out the boot skin - This winter
-removed the bitumen sound deadening from everywhere - Done
-remove the heater matrix (a heated screen is £300) - Not available on mk1
-fit plastic windows to everything except the windscreen - This winter
-remove central locking - This winter
-remove all locks - Needed for insurance
-drill out any excess metal from doors using a hole cutter - This winter

Also looking at:
Fibreglass bonnet
Fibreglass front wings

[Stuart]

Shame about the windscreen. When I priced up one for mine I had to specify mk1 or mk2 and that was via a rally supply company. Locks won't make much difference in terms of weight so no great shakes there. The bumper crash bar is about 20/25kgs on its own so a fair amount there. I think you may be wasting your time and money with FRP wings and bonnet. In my experience, admittedly with my mk2 (so they may differ) the weights, once stripped down, were virtually the same.

[jap.slapper]

I dare say there comes a stage where you've managed to get a car down to a particular weight whereby every gram thereafter costs a small fortune to lose, when you start getting into the reams of carbon ceramic brakes, custom sub frames and bespoke carbon fibre body panels etc. I think that's where you have to draw the line (or not as the case may be)

[pablo]

Good to know about the wings and bonnet.

We originally wanted to make wider arches to allow for wider wheels until we factored in the additional costs. Wider wheels, not cheap for 3 sets, wider tyres a big difference in cost and an ongoing costs as well.

[Stuart]

I dare say there comes a stage where you've managed to get a car down to a particular weight whereby every gram thereafter costs a small fortune to lose, when you start getting into the reams of carbon ceramic brakes, custom sub frames and bespoke carbon fibre body panels etc. I think that's where you have to draw the line (or not as the case may be)

My XR4x4 cost me about 5k in all, from start to finish including all consumables too across 5 years of ownership and probably 50 events + It was cheap, reliable and reasonably quick; especially in the wet.

I had the advantage of not needing a road legal car so that freed me up to ensure it was light and cheap, first and foremost, as opposed to being light and road legal which must add cost. I had no lost sleep over taking an angle grinder to the Sierra, so that helped

[jap.slapper]

I dare say there comes a stage where you've managed to get a car down to a particular weight whereby every gram thereafter costs a small fortune to lose, when you start getting into the reams of carbon ceramic brakes, custom sub frames and bespoke carbon fibre body panels etc. I think that's where you have to draw the line (or not as the case may be)

My XR4x4 cost me about 5k in all, from start to finish including all consumables too across 5 years of ownership and probably 50 events + It was cheap, reliable and reasonably quick; especially in the wet.

I had the advantage of not needing a road legal car so that freed me up to ensure it was light and cheap, first and foremost, as opposed to being light and road legal which must add cost. I had no lost sleep over taking an angle grinder to the Sierra, so that helped

£5k all in, jeez' now that's impressive

[Stuart]

£600 to buy, £2k to build and just under 2.5k for tyres, brakes and oil. Should never have sold it but life moves on.

I did get a fair amount of help/piss taking/banter/support from Gary @ APT back in the day, but pretty sure I bought most of the bits when he was still at his old employer, SCA, who he now owns Funny how it all works out!

[jap.slapper]

I reckon you'd be lucky to find a decent rust free base XR4x4 these days for under £2k, however that being said you'd probably struggle to get an equivalent 'Jap' car for the money