Steering response....

[Doc]

Originally Posted by UsedTaHaveA68

So let me get this straight. The Enkei wheels are 14lbs lighter a piece. 14x4=56lbs. 56x20=1120lbs.

Falken tires weigh 6lbs less per tire. 6x4=24. 24x20=480lbs.

2pc rotors are 9lbs less per rotor. 9x4=36. 36x20=720lbs.

1120+480+720=2320lbs.

You mean to tell me that by removing 116lbs of unsprung weight from my car, it will handle/brake/accelerate as if I had removed 2320lbs of sprung weight? Does anyone else find this just a tiny bit flawed? I think you're off by a factor of 10. I've always read/heard that for every one pound of unsprung weight removed, it's like removing 2lbs of sprung weight. My car handling like I removed 232lbs of weight sounds slightly more realistic than 2320. Otherwise I'd be driving an Ariel Atom!

Oh no you misunderstood the ratio. Removing 1 pound of unsprung weight is = to removing 20 lbs of sprung weight is assumed to be a 4 corner reduction. If you get rims that weigh 1 lb less than stock you aren't getting just 1 rim. If you get a brake rotor that's lighter, you aren't getting just one rotor. That's factored into the 1 = 20. I gave the correct number in my post; it's 29 lbs x 20 = 580 lbs of sprung weight reduction. As far as actual dead weight, if you put your car on a truck scale it will weigh 116 lbs less. Unsprung weight reduction is an effect. Your 2SS which weighs 3860 stock, will perform like it weighs 3280.

The suspension has to handle the effects of the "unsprung" weight hanging at the 4 corners of the car. It takes power to spin up the weight, power to stop it, and the springs, shocks and sway bars have to dampen the vertical movement to control the tire staying on the ground. The more the weight, the more power it takes to start and stop, and the harder the suspension has to work to try and control it. This is why these guys who want to put 24" chrome plated rims on their car are murdering their performance. It goes the other way too. Those big rims weigh around 45 lbs which is 13 lbs more than stock, so 13 x 20 = the effect of 260 more pounds of sprung weight added to the car. It will slow down acceleration, take longer to stop the car, increase understeer; nothing good actually other than I guess they can look "badass" to whomever they think they're impressing.

If you ever get to drive or ride in a car that's been properly setup the way I've described, you'll be amazed at how different it feels. It actually feels lighter. It leaps off the line when you accelerate, brakes like you popped a drag chute, takes corners easily that a non-modified car strains at, and generally feels much more nimble and quick...because it actually is. Remember, performance = grip. The moment the tires are sliding you have a control issue and you're losing performance. It doesn't matter how much power you have if the tires aren't gripping.

If you get out on the track you'll notice the guys that just went with power look and sound great down the straight until the road curves, then all they do is eat the dust of the properly setup car. A good driver in a properly setup car doesn't even look like any big deal on the track, the car handles so well it looks like they're out there just cruising until the lap times pop up and then everyone else is going "damn, how'd he do that?" Lots of noise and sliding around looks dramatic and hollywood, but it kills your lap times.

Quarter mile is a different story but the basics of unsprung weight still apply. Guys who don't understand want to stuff the biggest rims they can in their wheel wells; the guys that go fast at the drags want the smallest rims they can get away with...there's a real good reason why.

[UsedTaHaveA68]

Gotcha. You're saying 1lb unsprung = 5lbs sprung. I misunderstood or misread or something and didn't realize the 20lbs was being spread across all 4 corners. 5:1 ratio still sounds a little optimistic, but I agree with what you're saying and how important it is. I'd like to see what a Camaro could do with 100lbs less unsprung weight and 150lbs less sprung weight could do. Lightness FTW!

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

I am with you guys on this, And if you have the $ to do coilovers from pedders you will drop 40 lb in all,The engine cover is 8lb to, i think that the ARH headers is 40 LB lees than the cast header so 250 lb of less sprung weight is no big deal and 120 lb of less unsprung weight that is no big deal. And there is some more to remove.

[UsedTaHaveA68]

So I did a little research and Doc, you might have been a little optimistic.

I didn't think the stock driveshaft would even weigh 50lbs, much less would we be able to reduce its weight by 50lbs with a carbon fiber driveshaft. Here's an article testing a 4th gen Z28 with an LT1. I know the 5th gen's driveshaft is a 3 piece, but I doubt we'll save 50lbs. They shaved off 10lbs from the stocker's 19.4lbs.

http://www.acpt.com/article1.html

And the 2-piece rotors you were talking about saving 9lbs only holds true for the Z06 rotors. Using the CTS-V rotors, which are the same as what come on our Camaros, we will only save about 4.5lbs per front rotor, because they don't make rears. I don't understand that though. The Z06 rotor is the same diameter, but .2" thicker than ours, and yet the 2-piece rotors save 9lbs on the Z06 compared to only 4.5 for ours. Doesn't make sense to me.

http://www.racingbrake.com/CTS_V_FRO...p/2114-311.htm

Now if only a company would come out with affordable CCM brake rotors, we could save a ton of weight! Not sure I'd want to spend almost $1000 on 9lbs of weight savings on the rotors.

[CGM2SSRS]

I will not be swapping out rotors for weight. I will have a set of pads and rotors for the track. (undecided which) As far as street, I will be losing enough weight to satisfy me elsewhere. The OE brakes work well and will perform even better with the suspension upgrades and the weight lost. When the first set goes, cost/wear will decide it's replacements.
As far as the driveshaft, a carbon fiber unit is on of the best spots to reduce unsprung weight. Other then the wheels of course. And if you factor dead weight loss it will be 50 lbs.

[carriagehousecustoms]

New here!! But thought I'd add a bit of info, The front rotor weight was 26 lbs on my scale. I had talk with wilwood about there two piece rotor and the weight came in at 14.7 lbs.
Also the rear tire with rim came in at 69 lbs.

Dave

[Doc]

Originally Posted by carriagehousecustoms

New here!! But thought I'd add a bit of info, The front rotor weight was 26 lbs on my scale. I had talk with wilwood about there two piece rotor and the weight came in at 14.7 lbs.
Also the rear tire with rim came in at 69 lbs.

Dave

Good info! This is what I've been looking for, actual weight values. Thanks!

[Info@PeddersUSA.com]

It is interesting the direction this thread is going!, LOL This weekend and today, the Pedders staff busted their butts on 2 Camaros. One with a full kit and Xa coil overs, and the other with just Xa coil overs. I am pleased to announce with a tire change our XA coil overs, we hit the 1.0g's on the skid pad. But took some serious adjustments to try and reduce the seriously negative affects of major understeer, excess body role, etc. We are going to make some slight changes for checking and evaluating in a couple of weeks.

So we have broken the poor handling wall the Camaro has for serious sports driving. More to come.

mike
dms

[Doc]

Originally Posted by UsedTaHaveA68

So I did a little research and Doc, you might have been a little optimistic.

I didn't think the stock driveshaft would even weigh 50lbs, much less would we be able to reduce its weight by 50lbs with a carbon fiber driveshaft. Here's an article testing a 4th gen Z28 with an LT1. I know the 5th gen's driveshaft is a 3 piece, but I doubt we'll save 50lbs. They shaved off 10lbs from the stocker's 19.4lbs.

http://www.acpt.com/article1.html

And the 2-piece rotors you were talking about saving 9lbs only holds true for the Z06 rotors. Using the CTS-V rotors, which are the same as what come on our Camaros, we will only save about 4.5lbs per front rotor, because they don't make rears. I don't understand that though. The Z06 rotor is the same diameter, but .2" thicker than ours, and yet the 2-piece rotors save 9lbs on the Z06 compared to only 4.5 for ours. Doesn't make sense to me.

http://www.racingbrake.com/CTS_V_FRO...p/2114-311.htm

Now if only a company would come out with affordable CCM brake rotors, we could save a ton of weight! Not sure I'd want to spend almost $1000 on 9lbs of weight savings on the rotors.

The info I've been giving is based on estimates at this time; it's been difficult to get actual weight data because the cars are so new. My car is scheduled to go TPW on the 27th so if they build it as scheduled, I could get it mid to late August. Once I get my car I'll be posting actual values as I go along on the project.

I took a guess at around 65-70 lbs for the 2-piece driveshaft of the Camaro, and 15-20 lbs for a single piece carbon fiber replacement; both of which are probably a tad on the high side The stock shaft will probably be closer to 60 and the CF shaft closer to 10-12. Overall weight savings should be pretty darned close to 50 lbs though.

I read the article you mentioned but if you noticed it was written in 1997. Carbon fiber technology has come a long way in 12 years. The Z28 steel driveshaft they said they were using back then which they claimed weighed 19.4 lbs is a number I find hard to believe for a steel driveshaft. That sounds more like the weight of an aluminum shaft which was available for those cars.

I've included a pic below that shows the 2-piece driveshaft of the 2010 Camaro. A steel driveshaft that looks like that I'm going to guess would weigh at least 50 lbs. It probably has 8-10 lbs in joints and yokes alone.

If you read all that article it showed that even with a modest weight savings of only 10 lbs on the driveshaft the dyno still showed a solid 12 hp gain to the rear wheels at 5200 rpm. It will be much better than that on the 2010 Camaro. A one-piece CF driveshaft is definitely on my list of early mods.

As for brake rotors, the info that carriagehousecustoms posted shows the stock rotor weighing 26 lbs and with the 2-piece rotor he was looking at the weight savings was 11.3 lbs. That's huge. That alone would have the effect of reducing the car's sprung weight by 226 lbs. The prices of the Wilwoods are about inline with Racingbrake's. Good info!

[Doc]

Originally Posted by dms

It is interesting the direction this thread is going!, LOL This weekend and today, the Pedders staff busted their butts on 2 Camaros. One with a full kit and Xa coil overs, and the other with just Xa coil overs. I am pleased to announce with a tire change our XA coil overs, we hit the 1.0g's on the skid pad. But took some serious adjustments to try and reduce the seriously negative affects of major understeer, excess body role, etc. We are going to make some slight changes for checking and evaluating in a couple of weeks.

So we have broken the poor handling wall the Camaro has for serious sports driving. More to come.

mike
dms

Good news! I'm not surprised at the body roll with a car that weighs almost 2 tons. Although that isn't necessarily a problem; you can always use the old Lotus racing prescription for handling which was soft springing and good damping. Their cars rolled a bit more than the competition but they won Formula 1 championships with that philosophy.

Did you have to sacrifice ride quality to get to 1g's on the skidpad? What tires did you change to? Stock 20" rims? Did you stick with the staggered rim sizes?

The stock weight balance of 52/48 they've designed is better than previous years but I'd still like to get mine to 51/49 if possible. That would help reduce the tendency to understeer.

Any idea yet on what the price is going to be for the handling package?

[Vash]

That was Dale Jr's only Complaint on his test drive. "It don't need that much body roll" he said. Or something like that.

[stovt001]

Doc, please let me know when you get your car and start a thread on its project. Your ideas seem to mirror my desires perfectly, so I'm very interested in this. I'm fine with the SS's HP and living in California I don't see much use butting heads with CARB anyway, so weight and suspension mods are the order of the day for me.

[CGM2SSRS]

Originally Posted by dms

It is interesting the direction this thread is going!, LOL This weekend and today, the Pedders staff busted their butts on 2 Camaros. One with a full kit and Xa coil overs, and the other with just Xa coil overs. I am pleased to announce with a tire change our XA coil overs, we hit the 1.0g's on the skid pad. But took some serious adjustments to try and reduce the seriously negative affects of major understeer, excess body role, etc. We are going to make some slight changes for checking and evaluating in a couple of weeks.

So we have broken the poor handling wall the Camaro has for serious sports driving. More to come.

mike
dms

I am really looking forward to hear about the coming changes from the test session!
Thanks Mike

[Doc]

Originally Posted by stovt001

Doc, please let me know when you get your car and start a thread on its project. Your ideas seem to mirror my desires perfectly, so I'm very interested in this. I'm fine with the SS's HP and living in California I don't see much use butting heads with CARB anyway, so weight and suspension mods are the order of the day for me.

Will do. Being in California myself I have to consider those same issues too. For power mods I'm thinking a basic CAI, headers and high-flow cats, muffler replace and that's about it. If I can gain about 60-70 hp from those that will be decent enough. Weight reduction, suspension and drivetrain efficiency might cost me as much as some guys are spending on cranking up the hp but I'll be pretty much just as fast, without the reliability issues or loss of gas mileage. My car will stop faster, handle better and be easier to control.

Maybe my car won't sound like a gatling cannon tearing up a city block but then I won't have the cops out looking for me because of complaints from the neighbors either hehe. I want mine to sound smooth, refined and deep; not the harsh mid-range treble barking shredder that most seem to think sounds "badass".