Martin996RSR
Well-known member
- Joined
- 8 Dec 2016
- Messages
- 613
Hi Ned,
I've done most of the things that you've done plus a few of the things you propose and I can say that it does make a real difference. My only caveat is that you need to be a reasonable driver to be able to appreciate that difference. A lot of people on here don't get the fact that the improvement comes from the sum of incremental gains rather than from just doing one particular thing.
I also have a similar mission to you, in that I have kids and need the rear seats to be accessible and functional. In essence though - go for it - it's a much better car when it's lighter. It feels far more agile, - it's not all about power to weight ratio, it's the fact that it will change direction quicker and stop quicker too, which adds up to a much more fun driving experience.
Stuff to do..
1. Lose the spare wheel and tool kit. If you must, take a compressor and a can of gunk, and your towing eye.
2. Don't remove your front impact bar, as the towing eye screws into this. If you can make other provisions then great, otherwise hang onto it. It's not that heavy anyway. Do remove the rear one.
3. Any weight lost from the rear of the car will be of greater benefit to the handling balance than weight lost from the front, so the lighter cats/exhaust and wiper delete are all steps in the right direction.
4. Lightweight battery - I went for the same battery as ELA but found that because the car lived outside, the battery got too cold to start the car on winter mornings for the school run. The lithium cells in the battery need to be above about 6 degrees C to give enough oomph to start the car. You can warm up the battery by running some electrical devices such as the lights and radio, and then turn them off again before attempting a start. This worked for me many times, but it was also frequently a gamble as you could easily drain too much juice out of the battery when warming it up and then not be able to start anyway. I have an Odyssey PC680 on the bench which is about to go into my aeroplane, and I might try it in the car to see how it goes.
5. LWFW - ELA reckons this is the single biggest game changer of the character of the car. I don't have one yet, but I probably will go for one at my next clutch change. The centre plate needs to be a sprung one from a 993. The cheapest way to get one is to buy an old worn out one and get new friction surfaces riveted on. I found a place in Bordon, Hampshire that would do it for £90 and give me any friction coefficient they had to choose from.
6. Wheels - I went from Sport Design GT3 wheels to 993 10-spokes as they were supposed to be the lightest OEM wheel, but the difference in the driving experience was really very minor, so perhaps hold off on wheels until other gains have been realised. The weight difference was minor and most of that difference seemed to come from the tyres rather than the rims.
7. Roof - The non sunroof steel roof weighs 7KG and costs about £400, the sunroof version with all the sunroof gubbins is somewhere around 20KG, and a carbon roof costs £1000, and weighs 3KG. When I do my roof, I'll be going for a steel panel. If you go for a composite roof, don't take any cr@p from cretins who think a bonded in composite panel represents a weak link in the car and will fall off in a crash or make the car less rigid. It makes the car more rigid.
8. Radiators - remove one of the fans. The comment earlier about it not being a Mezger/GT3 and therefore the mod not applying doesn't hold water. Heat production is proportional to HP production. A Mezger producing 400HP has a 33% greater heat output than an M96 at 300HP, so has a 33% stronger argument for having fans on both radiators(yeah, yeah, I know there's a centre one too). You can easily lose one of the fans. I took off the RHS one in the pursuit of better side to side weight distribution. I have an LTT and the temperature rarely goes above 81. I would only put the fan back on if I was expecting to be regularly stuck in very bad traffic on very hot days.
9. Washer bottle - It's pretty big -run down the contents until the low washer bottle light comes on the top up just enough to put the light out.
10. Take out any floor mats. They weigh a fair bit.
I've done most of the things that you've done plus a few of the things you propose and I can say that it does make a real difference. My only caveat is that you need to be a reasonable driver to be able to appreciate that difference. A lot of people on here don't get the fact that the improvement comes from the sum of incremental gains rather than from just doing one particular thing.
I also have a similar mission to you, in that I have kids and need the rear seats to be accessible and functional. In essence though - go for it - it's a much better car when it's lighter. It feels far more agile, - it's not all about power to weight ratio, it's the fact that it will change direction quicker and stop quicker too, which adds up to a much more fun driving experience.
Stuff to do..
1. Lose the spare wheel and tool kit. If you must, take a compressor and a can of gunk, and your towing eye.
2. Don't remove your front impact bar, as the towing eye screws into this. If you can make other provisions then great, otherwise hang onto it. It's not that heavy anyway. Do remove the rear one.
3. Any weight lost from the rear of the car will be of greater benefit to the handling balance than weight lost from the front, so the lighter cats/exhaust and wiper delete are all steps in the right direction.
4. Lightweight battery - I went for the same battery as ELA but found that because the car lived outside, the battery got too cold to start the car on winter mornings for the school run. The lithium cells in the battery need to be above about 6 degrees C to give enough oomph to start the car. You can warm up the battery by running some electrical devices such as the lights and radio, and then turn them off again before attempting a start. This worked for me many times, but it was also frequently a gamble as you could easily drain too much juice out of the battery when warming it up and then not be able to start anyway. I have an Odyssey PC680 on the bench which is about to go into my aeroplane, and I might try it in the car to see how it goes.
5. LWFW - ELA reckons this is the single biggest game changer of the character of the car. I don't have one yet, but I probably will go for one at my next clutch change. The centre plate needs to be a sprung one from a 993. The cheapest way to get one is to buy an old worn out one and get new friction surfaces riveted on. I found a place in Bordon, Hampshire that would do it for £90 and give me any friction coefficient they had to choose from.
6. Wheels - I went from Sport Design GT3 wheels to 993 10-spokes as they were supposed to be the lightest OEM wheel, but the difference in the driving experience was really very minor, so perhaps hold off on wheels until other gains have been realised. The weight difference was minor and most of that difference seemed to come from the tyres rather than the rims.
7. Roof - The non sunroof steel roof weighs 7KG and costs about £400, the sunroof version with all the sunroof gubbins is somewhere around 20KG, and a carbon roof costs £1000, and weighs 3KG. When I do my roof, I'll be going for a steel panel. If you go for a composite roof, don't take any cr@p from cretins who think a bonded in composite panel represents a weak link in the car and will fall off in a crash or make the car less rigid. It makes the car more rigid.
8. Radiators - remove one of the fans. The comment earlier about it not being a Mezger/GT3 and therefore the mod not applying doesn't hold water. Heat production is proportional to HP production. A Mezger producing 400HP has a 33% greater heat output than an M96 at 300HP, so has a 33% stronger argument for having fans on both radiators(yeah, yeah, I know there's a centre one too). You can easily lose one of the fans. I took off the RHS one in the pursuit of better side to side weight distribution. I have an LTT and the temperature rarely goes above 81. I would only put the fan back on if I was expecting to be regularly stuck in very bad traffic on very hot days.
9. Washer bottle - It's pretty big -run down the contents until the low washer bottle light comes on the top up just enough to put the light out.
10. Take out any floor mats. They weigh a fair bit.