R32 Gts4 Lighter

[vinnie32GTS4]

hey all dad decided he'll let me get a gts4 because of the awd and it being safer and what not lol

so i'll be getting it in 8 months the most.

so i started to read up a bit and it came to my attention that they obviously weigh a bit more than a normal 32 gtst.

one website stated that stock to stock the gts4 will beat the gtst off the line but then the gtst will catch up as it is lighter.

so i was wondering if anyone has any good ideas on making the gts4 light so its the same as the gtst or lighter

oh and i dont wanna remove back seats and stereo. just lil stuff that you dont really need and it will help lighten the car.

cheers

Edited July 21, 2007 by vinnie34gtt

[Haysey]

er max youd gain from removing sound proofing and electrical crap is like 50kg which isnt much, mayaswell go on a diet!

[adam-__-]

As far as I know, they weigh as much as GTR's do, but don't have the extra power to pull them.

Like Haysey just said, it'll be easier to go on a diet. If not that, why not go for a RB26 transplant? Make it go like a GTR.

[MANWHORE]

Well, you said you don't want to take the rear seats out - what do you want to take out?

As mentioned above, sound deadening - wanna scrape that off and have the car more noisy?

Want to take out the door trims, dash, roof trim, carpet etc?

Boot trim?

Spare tyre and jack?

How about pay 1k for a carbon bonnet, few hundred for a carbon bootlid?

[skybarge]

here's some ideas, i've got one as well they are pretty heavy, try turn the 4wd fuse off and step it out, compared to me GTS-t, it feels way way heavier :S

first things to do:

GTS4 - weighs somewhere round 1420kg, mine was just under, so go weigh yours at a station if you can be bothered

GTS-t - weighs round 1280kg, so the GTS4 is an extra 140kg standard :S

Hicas removal bar: $100 from ebay - go for the chromoly one, weighs round 0.5kg, I took out the old bar, weights like 7-10kg!!! then stripped it of all the steel lines to the front(another 1kg - although you could leave them in for future fuel lines if you wanted to)

hicas solanoid in the front: another 5-10kg, can't remember the exact weight, but you'll remove roughly round 25-30kg after removing all hicas gear but leaving the rear hicas computer, because i think it also controls other things and if you unplug it, the steering goes heavy

- 25-30kg

seats - replace the front seats with race style seats, each seat is about 20-25kg? replace with 7kg or less fibreglass ones, custom rails will be needed for this though, so roughly saving round 36kg in the seats

- 36kg roughly, more or less depending on seats

front guards - not really needed, i put some flared 50mm ones in the front, because they were cheap and I want a bigger dish basically saves about 2kg at the most

bonnet - carbon or fibreglass, stock weighs somewhere round 30kg, get rid of it, replace with carbon or fibreglass, mine fibreglass one is 5kg and damn light, uses factory bonnet catch too

bootlid - weighs about 15kg, not too bad, but there are fibreglass ones round, here in NZ racepro do them for $450NZD, they weigh about 5kg as well, not bad

aircon - you might need it, but if you don't get rid of it, compressor 8kg, radiator up front round 3 or so

all other lines and gear 5

so that's round 16kg

- living here in NZ, i don't need it, apart from in Winter when it frosts over, but then i just take out the missus car, and in summer if the temps get up too much, just open up both windows

sound deadening - round 50kg inside teh cabin, do this only if you want to hear gravel and the exhaust loudly

I'm removing mine with dry ice, but replacing it with lighter dynamat, so in the end i'll only be saving round 15-20kg at the most, it'll be worth it though

that'll get your round to the weight of the GTS-t of slightly less round 1251, but that's all a guessimate, as I'm doing all the weights off the top of my head

if you are upgrading the wheels, go Rays, Works and genuine R32 GTR wheels, you can find them cheap enough second hand and they weight a lot less than bling no name brand wheels, when i had my old GTR mags, i used to be able to pick them up and throw them round with one hand, they weighed very little, the tyre weighed more than the mag itself!!!

Spare tyre - absolutely useless on a GTS4 anyway once you blow a wheel(your likely to screw up the 4wd system, unless you pull the fuse, move the space saver to the front then drive slowly in Rwd mode to the nearest station, they weigh a bit, get rid of it and get a can of tyre foam and put it in your glovebox

those are most of the easy options:

to go even more hardcore:

door skins save round 10kg a side, fibreglass $750 each from Racepro here - 20kg

coilovers - not much difference, mine are slightly lighter, get some anyway for the cool factor and drop the car

remove all stereo gear, factory amps and speakers and sub - will save you round 10kg(not worth it in my opinion, i like my stereo)

swaybars - the factory ones are solid, go for some whiteline alloy ones, it'll help your handling a lot as well

ABS - drop the ABS if you have it, get some custom lines built up to bypass the system and remove the ABS sensors off the wheels and the main unit up the front

Lexan windows - very pricey, may not be legal depending on which state you want

that should drop you below the 1200kg mark, you could go lower depending on how much you wanted to spend, but it'd make the car overall less safer, unless you caged it and wanted to make it a drag car, then you could remove the rear seats - i don't see anything bad about not having rear seats, means you can turn down more people when they ask for rides

[skybarge]

oh and final item:

upgrade to a GTR, get a non-compliable one, strip for parts, keep:

Engine, drivetrain, exhaust, gearbox crossmember and rear diff

and maybe brakes if you can be bothered

sell the rest for parts

then sell your engine, diff, gearbox etc and swap it over

or build up an RB30 and replace the poxy RB20, because it's pretty bad :S

mine does a timed 7.5sec 0-100 on stock everything

my GTS-t does a 6.25 0-100 on stock everything!!!

[Haysey]

damn someone knows their stuff!

or you could just get a highflow and stick that on... therefore AWD and POWER

[GTS4WD]

bonnet - carbon or fibreglass, stock weighs somewhere round 30kg, get rid of it, replace with carbon or fibreglass, mine fibreglass one is 5kg and damn light, uses factory bonnet catch too

bootlid - weighs about 15kg, not too bad, but there are fibreglass ones round, here in NZ racepro do them for $450NZD, they weigh about 5kg as well, not bad

sound deadening - round 50kg inside teh cabin, do this only if you want to hear gravel and the exhaust loudly

I'm removing mine with dry ice, but replacing it with lighter dynamat, so in the end i'll only be saving round 15-20kg at the most, it'll be worth it though

Bonnet - you could go a GTR bonnet.. their aluminium.. but.. then you look like one of those wankers that try mate their GTS-T's look like GTR's.. but its another option..

Bootlid? 15Kg? Im not sure about that (that seems like a fair bit! my one seems like its feather weight).. thats a pretty heavy bootlid!!! Take the spoiler off.. theres a saving there..

And im not sure that there are 50Kg's of sound deadining either.. But as you said.. it is a saving there too..

Another thing.. is swap front bars.. The stock ones have that extremly wankey motorised lip.. Take that off with the motor and you dropped ~15Kg again..

IF you wanna go REAL hardcore.. Tatanium.. it's expensive as all buggery.. (and yes.. I will be selling my sperm at the sperm bank to afford this).. bit its LIGHT!.. See if you can find titanium exhausts.. easily drop another 20kg.. same with headers and intake piping.. For that price though.. you may aswell spend on performance mods..

[Kozeyekan]

OK, comparing a gts-t to a gts-4 is a bit off.

The gts-t IS the better drag car, but the gts-4's AWD will let you take corners that would wipe the gts-t out.

Setting a GTS-4 up as a drag car is a waste of money. look to set it up for grip. Spend the $ on tyres, suspension and brakes. If you have even more dosh, highflow the turbo, get a bigger exhaust and get carbon fibre bonnet and boot lid.

I'm a happy GTS-4 owner, but it's not a quick quarter mile car. It IS a great car to take on twisty mountain roads.

[GTS4WD]

I'm a happy GTS-4 owner, but it's not a quick quarter mile car. It IS a great car to take on twisty mountain roads.

It really does need a diet.. it just feels like it should be nimblier..

I went for the even heavier 4 door

..*sigh*..

the price you pay for being diff..

dosnt help the new P plater laws have come in cos its got a 25DE too

[adam-__-]

I'm just like you mate. Went the four door and GTS-4 package just to be different. I wonder how many people on here have 32 GTS-4 sedans.

[MANWHORE]

Skybarge, I agrew itht he removal of the parts you said, but I found almost all of your figures to be extremely inflated

e.g. seats are around 20 kg each including rails. The seats you'd replace them with weigh more than 7kg with heavy steel rails

hicas is no where near 25-30 kg including line removal etc - 20 at max

bonnet weighs nowhere near 30 kg. I don't have the figure on the top of my head, but its around 20

sound deadening is not 50kg

etc etc

Good guide there, but a little optimistic

[skybarge]

haha yeah, they were just guess probably quite a bit off, i weigh things with my hands

I'll have to do a proper after weight at the weight station, just need to get my car fully running before I do, but yeah 1416kg before, have to see what it is afterwards

[BigBlueR32]

Another 4 door GTS-4 here... thats a nice list of fat burning for the GTS-4 but I would never get rid of the hicas.. and since the 4wd uses the ABS sensors I'll keep that too..

but I have the GTR rims and do they ever fit beautifully on a GTS model..

[D_I_F]

gts4 because of the awd and it being safer and what not lol

Haha so not true..

I have seen too many people loose it in AWD and let me tell you it's not pretty!

[skybarge]

haha crazy, you actually like the HICAS?

It feels scary, kind of like going round a corner in an office chair!!!

with it removed, i can get the car into controlled sideways drifts, it helps with cornering as well, i think replacing the stock suspension with coilovers and lowering as much as I have would affect the HICAS as well

As for the ABS controlling the 4wd, i thought that was proven wrong in another thread? the one with the guy taking his ABS all out, then wondering why his 4wd light was on, then finding out it was a disconnected switch :S

But yeah, I'd screw the hicas off, keep the ABS if it's a street car

track car, biff it

[Russco]

Seems to be a lot of mis-information about the weight savings from removing sound deadener - I removed all of mine from an R32 GTST 4 door, weighed the lot on a very accurate set of scales & came out with an all-up weight saving of 10kgs - yes only 10kgs! Definitely not worth the pain or effort given you have to basically strip the whole interior, centre consol etc. Other accurate weights are air conditioning compressor, lines and condensor = 15kg, swapping stock bonnet with GTR aluminium one = 10.76kg saving.

[vinnie32GTS4]

hey guys cheers for all the responses..some good ideas here

ive herd that hicas is annoying but i wanna experience it first and if i get pissed off with it i'll take the system out

oh and putting an rb26dett in would be very nice...and expensive ah wells guess i could save up some cash

Edited July 26, 2007 by vinnie34gtt

[WhatBrake]

I have an M-spec R32 GTS4. If the one you are thinking about have an electric drop down front bar get that out, it looks average and is just a gimic really, that'l save u around 10kg's perhaps a little less but the motors are crazy big for such a shitty little lip. With the hicas some ppl hate it some love it, i dont mind it but i might piss it off soon, instead of getting locker bars u can weld the ram on either side and hey-presto locked up baby (off tangent but hey). Once u start to modify the GTS4's they are good value, id say stock they are alright if it's your first turbo car but u'l b searching for more performance later on. Even by getting a full zorst, front mount, hard wiring the fuel pump, boost guage/controller it makes for a much more enjoyable car for not that much more dosh. Get 1bar into her and I used to easily hold and beat about equally modded R33's on the freeways/hwy's/corners (who knows what boost etc. they were running at the time tho) With weight reduction dont get too anal or it's gains outweigh the effort.

take it easy