so what can we do to lighten the nose?

I emailed AJE this morning. They still make the crossmembers and control arms but on an as needed basis only. I replied asking if they still have fitment issues and cracking issues like the originals, and if they are cromemoly now. Awaiting reply.
 
chris2523 said:
personally, i would wanna keep my ac! i don't care how much it weighs.
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We definitely get our hot days up here in Minnesota, but the a/c hasn't worked in my 98 for over a year and even in the 90+ degree temperatures I have survived. So I have passed the survivability test and now it is time to reduce/relocate some weight. I believe that this thread has inspired me to do a few more things before the next time I run it at the strip. :shifty:

I think it will go something like this:

M&H front runners on the aluminum minis
a/c delete
battery relocation to the trunk


That should get me a conservative 3 tenths plus the benefits of the new dyno tune. I'm not going to say that reaching driller's time on the list is impossible yet. I have faith in this car and I haven't launched it at 2000rpms yet either like DLF has. My launches were a bit more conservative on a failing suspension. The more I think about these things, the more I think there is some et definitely left on the plate for my car. :cool:


Sorry moss, not trying to hijack but I'm glad you started this thread. It definitely has my wheels turning. :cool:
 
I've thought about starting a thread titled "The Mark VIII Diet" about how to shed pounds anywhere possible. But I also like this thread. I thought about relocating the battery as well, but more so for the cleaning up of the engine bay.
 
isaiah3g said:
I've thought about starting a thread titled "The Mark VIII Diet" about how to shed pounds anywhere possible. But I also like this thread. I thought about relocating the battery as well, but more so for the cleaning up of the engine bay.
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Remember if you put battery in trunk you will overall add weight to car.
 
I figure since I weight 283lbs, I need to come down to 185 so 98lbs should suffice & I no longer have to worry about taking things outta my cars. If I don't loose the weight I'll just have my skinny 137lb friend race my cars. :D
 
KStromberg said:
How so? The curb weight is still the same. The weight is only being relocated :confused:
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You need fairly hefty copper cables to route the power to the normal connection points near the motor. They are not light. As nearly all your load is up front there is no way around this.
 
yeah, some extra copper cable, but it isn't what i would call an incredible amount of weight.
 
Just a little FYI also. If you race on a NHRA,IHRA track and you relocate the battery to the trunk they want a cut off switch installed in the pos side of battery. This has to be push off only(if switch in trunk) and located in the rear pass side of car only. You might get thru tech without it but I would bite you for not having it. Also you will need to run 2 power wires up from battery to front. One power wire and one alt wire that has to go on battery side of switch as not to keep engine running from power given off by alt.
So if done correctly you will have 2 copper cables,200 A switch and handle and mounting hardware for switch. Some mount it were lic plate is with no push handle.

I found this for a fast run down.
Excerpts from the 2011 NHRA Rule Book: "Batteries may not be relocated into the driver or passenger compartments. Rear firewall of .024-inch steel or .032-inch aluminum (including package tray) required when battery is relocated in trunk. In lieu of rear firewall, battery may be located in a sealed .024-inch steel, .032-inch aluminum, or NHRA-accepted poly box. The sealed box may not be used to secure battery and must be vented outside of body. Relocated battery must be fastened to frame or frame structure with a minimum of two 3/8-inch-diameter bolts. Mandatory when battery is relocated, an electrical power cutoff switch (one only) must be installed on the rearmost part of each vehicle and be easily accessible from outside the car body. This cutoff switch must be connected to the positive side of the electrical system and must stop all electrical functions including ignition."
 
If you eliminate the air ride and remove the associated compressor, etc. that's a significant amount of weight.
 
NetKeym said:
If you eliminate the air ride and remove the associated compressor, etc. that's a significant amount of weight.
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But as stated before the coil overs will weigh more, not worth the work. The battery is the only one that seems worth doing unless your dipping into the 10's
 
KStromberg said:
Nah. That thing weighs like 5 lbs. I usually add that much weight to the front anyways after I hit the concession stand, and that's even after I have pooped. LOL
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But that is 5 lbs hanging a couple feet in front of the front axle. So due to leverage it is adding quite a bit more than 5 lbs to the front end. And adding weight to the rear behind the rear axle adds more weight to the rear than you are adding. PS I thought all the air components in the front bumper weighted more than 5 Lbs ??
 
I kinda agree with don here. It may not lower the weight. But it moves it closer in so there is less weight out on front of the front wheels. That just might help.
 
Does anyone actually have numbers of how many pounds the front wheels pull on a scale and how many pounds the rear pulls? And then from there you can easily find how how much weight would need to be transferred from the front to the rear (or removed), provided you find the full weight of your car also. You should also test the weight of the left and right sides. When I last calculated the driver sits exactly in the 50/50 if not a little more 49/51 from front to back, respectively. Also, just because you remove something from the front half of the car doesn't mean it removes all that weight from the front. In example if you remove the transmission, which probably puts 70/30 of its weight in the front/back, only 70% is being removed and not 100%. Removing something like the battery which sits in-front of the front tires(which creates a negative force) would be the best item to relocate to the rear passenger side. Plus, the engine of the mark viii is fairly light compared to any other engine that can hold 700+ HP. The block is only 85lbs. So to my point does anyone actually have numbers for weight on front/back tires?
 
Some math. If using the 58/42 weight distribution of the T-bird. If you have a 60lbs (do they weigh this much?) battery removed from the front to the back with a total weight of the car being 3700lbs. Before relocating the weight would be 2146/1554. With 60lbs moved to the back it would be 2086/1614. New ratio is 56/44. Not bad for just 60lbs.
 
As I pointed out earlier it will change by more than the weight of the battery due to leverage. The battery sits forward of the front spindle so it adds more weight to the front end than its actually weights. Everything forward of the front spindle does this and the farther forward of the spindle the greater the leverage or the more weight it adds to the front. The same thing in the rear. When you mount a battery behind the rear axle it increase the amount of weight on the rear more than the battery weighs.
 
Right on the Mark said:
What is the OP real goal here? If its 1/4 mile hook my car all stock just lighter battery 60fted 1.810 on small 245/45-17 nittos.
Here you can see what I did to pull battery weight off nose. Was way easier then buying cable,box and switch to put in trunk.
http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=74942
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For many reasons. One example being if you have more power than you. Another would be if you want it to hook up while running a good street tire that you can run all the time. Heck my stock Mark VIII's had trouble pulling out in the rain because they are so front end heavy
 
Don Pfau said:
As I pointed out earlier it will change by more than the weight of the battery due to leverage. The battery sits forward of the front spindle so it adds more weight to the front end than its actually weights. Everything forward of the front spindle does this and the farther forward of the spindle the greater the leverage or the more weight it adds to the front. The same thing in the rear. When you mount a battery behind the rear axle it increase the amount of weight on the rear more than the battery weighs.
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That's what I ment as saying it's a negative force (Opposite to gravity in the wheelbase area) since it's in-front of the front tires. There are soo many forces involved to do the direct measurement of how much the weight would change but since the leverage aspect is somewhat negligible the basic adding and subtracting 60 is fine. You could say it may make a difference of 65-80lb but it would be very hard to show the calculations.
 
A good way of looking at it is lifting a 40 pound weight off the ground keeping it close to your body, yeah its pretty heavy, but then try it again but putting that 40 pound weight at the end of a 3 foot pole and lifting that pole from the other end 'like a big fish hanging there at the end of your fishing pole'. That 40 pounds suddenly feels a lot heavier than 40 pounds. Leverage is a factor that is often under estimated or completely ignored when it comes to weight reduction. I took about 200 pounds off the front of my 87 MonteCarlo and it made a HUGE difference off the line. Total I took between 400 - 500 pounds off my Monte and just the overall handling and feeling of the car was drastically improved 'my Monte weighed in at 3000 pounds even' street/strip car. I actually just started a thread about Mark VIII weight reduction in the performance section. I was hoping everybody could help share some ideas on how to lighten these cars up so feel free to check it out.
 
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