making your car lighter, any ideas?

[kabel]

Unless you are taking the approach gman has , really you are wasting your time on a street car.
What was your end goal. Quicker track times, faster 0-100 or 1/4 mile times ?

More power is probably a better solution than a compromised noisy car.
Just my opinion.

[vekara]

Unless you are taking the approach gman has , really you are wasting your time on a street car.
What was your end goal. Quicker track times, faster 0-100 or 1/4 mile times ?

More power is probably a better solution than a compromised noisy car.
Just my opinion.

True, it is all about "bang for buck", many people tune their cars at very high cost and get very little for the money. I have written about this before, the cheapest bang for buck is to mix octane booster into your fuel, few dollars gives better performance which you can feel. to get the same increase in performance you would have to spend a pretty penny on other upgrades.

[kabel]

Not sure how much "performance feel" you would get by adding Octane Booster to a tank of fuel in a stock 1.8l N/A automatic Astra for example, possibly a placebo effect !

I do take your bang for buck comment though however would not be my preferred method as a first option. I would spend some money on handling upgrades if you want to increase the fun factor and keep it safe.

But do let us know how you go with your experiment. If memory serves me correctly Top Gear may have done an episode on this subject.

[dutchy]

better put 98 in your tank then for the money as that is much cheaper thank a bottle of octane booster. now just putting 98 in your tank doesnt make you car a rocket all of a sudden.

[SilentShout]

I had a thought, things like a lightened flywheel might help too, e.g. factory wheel is 10kgs, lightened makes it 5kgs, thats 5kgs of savings.

swapping other components out for lighter parts too, alluminium rad (if you car has a heavy one) etc etc.

[vekara]

We have had few Opels in our family;
2003 1.8 astra auto where 98 or 102 octane made virtually no difference compared to 95 octane.
2001 V6 Vectra does benefit from 102 octane and becomes noticeable more responsive and reduces fuel consumption by about 10%.
2006 astra turbo, 102 octane does make it snappy with the traction light flickering through second gear. That car is so fast with 98 octane that really any difference needs more sophisticated measuring method than a bum on seat.
2003 2.2 litre Astra manual benefited most from 102 octane, the engine became alive and responsive.

increased octane does not necessarily increase the max power but what it does is make the engine run more efficiently with what it has. more efficient engine is more responsive because of advanced spark timing so the max power comes out faster. It all depends on how the ecu mapping has been done, what the parameters are. I used to fill with Shell racing 100 octane fuel and it made a big difference to the 98 octane. also the fuel consumption went down by 7% so the extra cost really was no extra cost.

Nulon sells octane boost Pro, add 40ml to every 20 litres of 98 octane and see what it does to your car.

[Shortstuff]

I read an article about a new design of ringless piston, which meant they are almost friction free. It uses air pressure to do the job of the piston rings.

The article said the reduced friction meant massively lower operating temperatures which means components of the cooling system could be made smaller. They reckoned smaller radiator, fan, water pump could save around 10kg.

[guy 27]

I think konigsegg's camless engines will be the next big thing to come in. Each valve is controlled by an actuator.
Timing section and cams are all therefore removed saving plenty of weight.
Their system can be put into any existing engine as well.

[Shadow110]

I think konigsegg's camless engines will be the next big thing to come in. Each valve is controlled by an actuator.
Timing section and cams are all therefore removed saving plenty of weight.
Their system can be put into any existing engine as well.

Saw a video of this a few months ago. They can rev to infinity (almost).
They have the system on an old saab 9-3 aero and have done something like 100k miles in it and hasnt missed a beat...
Freaking amazing idea, konigsegg just bought the guy that invented it, well played victor... well played.

[SilentShout]

Saw a video of this a few months ago. They can rev to infinity (almost).
They have the system on an old saab 9-3 aero and have done something like 100k miles in it and hasnt missed a beat...
Freaking amazing idea, konigsegg just bought the guy that invented it, well played victor... well played.

That makes sence, last i heard alpha romeo was the one behind the camless engine, but they struggled to get the engine past 5k rpm as the computer they were using at the time couldnt process fast enough. Another thing they noted was solenoids which is what they were using at the time were bloody noisy and somewhat unreliable.

I read this a fair few years ago now though (05-06)

Iirc they wanted to couple it to a variable compression engine and make a high powered 1.5l turbo engine or something.


Nissan went the other way with the Zeod. They looked into low friction tech and have come up with a 3cyl 1.5l engine making 400hp and weighing in at 40kgs.