Install SE front/rear bumper, remove mirrors, find the lightest stock wheels possible, remove the mufflers and straight pipe it, and tell us what the strongest car in the field is.
I'm probably going to just pull the front and rear body panels as well as the side ground effects off the car. I wanted to do it before the first race so i could sell them to make a little money but didn't want to risk pulling them off the car before i got to the track and asked the tech official if it was okay that i ran without them. He told me i could pull them, that they'd just end up somewhere on the track eventually anyways, but unfortunately i wasn't able to before the first race and now the front one at least ain't going to be worth much. My only concern in doing so is aerodynamics, but at the speeds we get up to, around 50mph or so, I'm thinking it ain't gonna matter much, however I am open to opinion on the matter.
As far as the wheels go, I'm with you on that one too. I'm just at a loss for how much the wheels i have on the car now weigh and what other lighter wheels are out there for me to use that "appear" stock. Anybody have any input they can offer me on this one? As well as a tire choice that's lighter/softer too?
In regard to the exhaust, most racers just run headers/manifolds, but i found that the loss of back-pressure usually hurts performance on smaller engines so i wasn't going to mess with it. It didn't occur to me to straight pipe it though, which should keep the back-pressure up some while cutting a little weight - thanks for the suggestion.
I think the strongest car so far is a Grand Am (year unknown), followed by a Buick Lesabre (year unknown), then me, but I'm going to have to confirm the make/models on Friday. The Lesabre was just a little bit quicker, which makes sense since we basically have the same engines, but the Grand Am was able to pull on the both of us. The Grand Am also seems to be the best race prepped car out of the three right now, maybe a little too much by how healthy it sounds (read he's a better cheater than me), but just to make sure my driving isn't playing a role I plan to draft his ass around the track on Friday to see if he still pulls or is just choosing a better line.
