[thePill]

Originally Posted by Number 3

Forged wheels may offer a reduction. But GM has some pretty severe wheel requirements. I know shopping for my Sky I can find some "race" wheels that save about 8 pounds per wheel. But race means no potholes.

There is a happy medium with the casted/flow formed wheels that Enkei and OZ offer. They are quite durable, light weight and half the price of forged wheels. Alot of weight can be lost just by down sizing from the 20's, to 19's alone.

Manual seats for sure, but only a few pounds. I know my Sky has power height on the driver side, but manual for all others. So that can work.

Go all cloth race buckets and maybe a rear seat delete option.

I will let Pedders or Pfadt comment on this. My first instinct is they actually weigh a bit more. But that is a factless observation.

Stock springs and shocks are usually pretty light, its hard to lose weight here with performance suspension but weight gain can be mitigated with lightweight control arms, sways and links.

I haven't seen the EPS mass. ZL1 has EPS, SS doesn't so if it weighs less it's good. Plus better FE.

I think EPAS is very close to the old school PS, But it's a great addition...

LS7 is for sure more power and awesomeness. But just big bucks due to the manual build in Wixom. I'd hope for a nice LS3 bump. Problem there is you now make the LS7 obsolete. Why pay big bucks for 505 when you can get 450+ for much less.

I think the LS3 weighs less at 418lbs and is cheaper. This is the same predicament Ford is in with the 5.0 and the 5.4. The 5.4, just like the LS7 is only used in a very limited applications. Upgrading an LS3 would cost less, weigh less and produce enough power to make the LS7 obsolete.. So why not save some money...

Gearing something that I think could add an immediate benefit. Honestly not sure why we haven't tapped into this.

Go to a 15 gallon fuel tank. Saves full tank of fuel mass and also just a smaller, lighter tank.

As far as gearing, you know what to do, and I think an lighter valve train and EPAS could easily avoid a GG tax.. Look into transmissions, you can save some weight by moving to a Getrag (40lbs) and have 5 useful gears instead of just 4..

Fuel tank: Good idea, research the typical classes that this type of vehicle would run in and find the duration of each race... Adjust the fuel tank accordingly, if its a 1 or 2 hour race, they are going to have to use a fuel cell anyway and relocate the fuel door for pit stops.

Titanium exhaust (C5 Z06)

Wow!!!

Magnesium front cradle (C6 Z06)

Getting expensive now...

Low mass race wheels (C5 had titanium but wouldn't go quite that far)

Outta my price range but really cool...

If at all possible, get the Wixom LS3 (reported to make more power) and add tweak it where possible. Only asking for 450 at the crank.

Now add the suspension improvements from the ZL1 minus MR shocks.

Widen the front tires to help understeer.

Peak power can be ignored, its the curve and freeing up some RPM's that a track star is interested in. I still like the Z51 package for suspension... You don't need to widen the tires, if you don't stagger the wheel/tire size you can eliminate oversteer. Oversteer (correction: Under steer) mostly comes from weight and an oversized rear tire. If this is a track car, it is better to offer 275/40-19's all the way around so the driver/team can rotate the tires and save money. You just have to watch for snap understeer, but the ability to rotate the car will improve with running a 275/40-19 all the way around (and weight/rotational mass)..