New times after putting car on a diet

Well after removing 195 lbs from when I ran it in the spring and absolutely no new performance mods, I got what i was hoping for...13.1s! My previous thread had it at 183 lbs, but I removed the heavy duty rubber floor mats I have(all except the driver mat)and that was another 12 lbs!!!!! Had this been 1/8th mile racing, I would've been big time upset as the stock tires were near useless for the first few hundred feet. There was 1 run where I revved up to about 1500 RPM and I literaly smoked the tires all the way through 3rd gear until I let off the gas completely so they could hook So most of my runs were off idle or just above. My overall gains were -.236 E.T. and 1.9 MPH Not bad for totaly free mods. Here are a few of my slips and a chart from the spring runs and yesterdays.




Here is the tire frying run

seal614 said:

I'm gonna assume from your extra efforts on weight-removal that you were running with less than a 1/4 tank of gas?

/easiest way to shed weight

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Believe it or not I was trying to do that, BUT I misjudged on mileage and got there almost right at half tank Friday and Saturday, I was only putting in 5 or 6 gallons at a time and driving back and forth and all over MD. Perhaps the long cruise to the track yesterday morning plus the dropped weight gave me better MPG . I know my dash gauge showed 20.3 MPG after my 11 runs and several long burnouts. Here is a pic of my tire destruction

Power4 said:

What did you remove to get rid of 195 lbs?

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This http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?t=720784 PLUS removing 3 of my heavy duty rubber floor mats which weighed in at a whopping 12 LBS!

Five Oh Brian said:

Definitely a 12.90 car if you get some sticky tires on it so you can launch harder. Good runs, Kookdawg6! Good to see another S197 GT automatic charging hard at the track.

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Next year I will have dedicated track tires/wheels for the rear! Speaking of hard charging autos, I met spyder7724 there. That car is rocking! He got a best of 12.09, but I personally saw him run a 12.19@114+! He does have a ton of bolt ons and various weight saving things done as well as many other little things here and there to make tiny improvements. He said his car dynoed at 296 RWHP(100% stock longblock)so he is making the best of getting it to the track The times and speeds he was posting were more than a few of the S/C S197s there(even some with DRs)

Thanks BRED It's a blast to drive a car that is that capable with doing very little to it. My goal is to have a DD(right now that is 28K miles/year) N/A mid 12 sec car that if I choose, I can take on a several hundred mile trip without scarificing my sanity or comfort

superman112 said:

was it hard to remove the shaker 1000?? I am planing on removing that and the rear seats over the winter.

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Not at all.
Holding the box are 3 bolts and 1 nut. 2 wire connectors between the box and tail light. The amp rack is held by 3 bolts and 1 nut as well. There is 1 wire connector for that located just under the 2 for the sub box.
View attachment 360759

The seat backs are only held on by the latch at the top, 1 bolt at the outside bottom corner(pull the back corner of the bottom seat up and you will see the bolt). Then there is a bracket mounted at the lower center of the back seats. Unbolt it(I used an open end wrench).The seat back just slides towards the outside of the car off the bracket(repeat for the other side). The seat bottom is only held in by 2 plastic clips(1 on each side). They are about where the plastic trim piece ends under the front of the seat. Just push those in and out she comes. Getting the seats back in took some time. The lower part just snaps back in within seconds. Getting the seat backs to stay on the bracket while you manuver it to get the bolt back in is a slight PITA. Once you have that bolt started with the 2 seats on the bracket you have it made. Just line up the brackets on the outside corner of the seat and install the bolt. I think it took me about 30 minutes to put the back seat back in...I don't know if there is enough room to slip the seat backs off the center bracket without removing the bracket? Also, I wonder if the seat bottom can be removed first making it easier to acces the seat back bolts or if the backs do have to be removed first. One thing for sure, if I didn't drive this as much with my 5 year old son, the backs seat would be gone permanantly!

Center bracket holding seat backs(looking straight down while seats are folded down)


Bolt holding outside of seat backs


Plastic clip holding seat bottom(passenger side)