So my car is a daily summer driver that gets a bunch of track use (not drag, mainly track days and drifting). My question is, without sacrificing safety, is it possible to lighten the doors? These things are seriously heavy!
I think the stock doors weight 81 pounds without speakers, about 20 of that is the impact protection. Carbon fiber door skins are about $2k and save you 10 pounds per door. So you are probably better off looking somewhere else to save weight. Check out this thread if you want How Much Does It Weigh? - Page 3 - WWW.S197FORUM.COM
So, I looked at the link you posted and did a lot of those items already. I'm still looking for places to shave a few pounds and decided to delve further into the door option.
I took the panel off, here is the original door:
After spending some time feeling behind and using a screwdriver to probe the areas behind the metal, here are the places (I used black sharpie to "highlight") I think I can safely remove:
Anyone see any problems with taking these sections out? I tried to make sure I left in all the necessary structural and bracing as well as any mounting points for the door trim. The one area at the top with question marks I'm not sure on. I think there are two main safety braces, one at the top and bottom with the question mark area being the inside of the top one. I went outside of all spot welds I saw.
By any chance, does anyone have schematics of the door structure?
I would guess by looking at your pictures that you would remove about 2 square feet of sheet metal, which is probably being generous. I looked up how much 2 square feet of 18 gauge sheet metal (also a conservative guess) weighs, it is only 4 pounds. I like the idea of getting rid of as much weight as possible, but it is up to you if chopping up your doors is worth 4 pounds per door. Let us know how it works out if you decide to try it.
+1 on that, the weight savings doesn't come close to being enough to chop up a door like that. If weight is THAT big of an issue, yank out all the speakers and HU, it's not a permanent mod and would probably drop more weight with less work...