Chevelle Weight Reduction - Trim The Fat

The Four Corners
After we installed all the lightweight parts, the final test was to put the Orange Peel Chevelle back on the Longacre four-wheel scales to see if we made our weight. As you can see from the above graphic, we achieved our goal of trimming the Chevelle to our 2,993-pound race weight. This is without driver, which we also plan to cheat by putting staffer John McGann in the driver seat, who weighs almost 50 pounds less than the author. This would put the Chevelle's starting line race weight at around 3,150 pounds.

The weight distribution of the car without the driver calculates out to 55 percent front and 45 percent rear, which is admitedly less than ideal. We could improve that by moving the battery to the rear or eventually adding a Dick Miller-designed rear sway bar system to improve dynamic launch characteristics. We also evaluated the left-right weight distribution, which without the driver, is within 1 pound. However, when we add driver weight, most of that weight ends up on the wrong side of the car. This means we have more work to do to create a more even distribution of weight.

By Jeff Smith

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