You want a weight BIAS towords the rear of the car, but the more weight lost period = better power/weight ratio. The bumper support is made of steel and re-inforces the rear of the car. Now if a car smashes into the back of me (car is track only when my op. permit runs out sept. 1) the fuel tank and the trunk-area will take the hit.
The car has no interior/dash etc. So any weight I can lose I will. I'll be re-locating the battery to the spare tire well in the trunk, so that makes up for it.
EDIT: these cars have bad weight dist. from the factory. But yes, for this drag racing application, I want the transfer from front to rear at launch. The traction bars are great if you dont like corners.....
Keeping/adding weight in the rear is a form of sandbagging, which is not the way to gain traction, unless your on ice where it's hard to transfer weight using the suspension and throttle, of course.
34lbs? That's it? Just the bumper itself, or the struts included? Bumer core and supports comes in a little over 52lbs.
I replaced the support with a pvc tubing. It's less than 10 lbs and touches top and back inside of the bumper cover so there's no sag and the cover is rigid. In a collision, I expect the bumper support shocks to do some shocking.