If you’re looking to maximize your car’s performance, many upgrades are available. Even without changing your engine, there are a lot of modifications you can make that will immediately boost its top speeds. One of those ways is to remove weight from the vehicle. By implementing a few of the effective ways to reduce the weight of your car, you’ll be able to drive quicker with your current horsepower.
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New Body Panels
Your hood, trunk, doors, and other body panels are most likely made of steel or aluminum. While aluminum is a slight step up from steel, both materials weigh a lot without sacrificing any performance. Essentially, they are dead weight, but they can’t be removed because doing so would negatively affect your aerodynamics. But there is a solution. Lightweight materials like glass-fiber-reinforced plastic (GRP) are excellent alternative materials for body panels, and they’re only a fraction of the mass.
Switching To Aluminum Driveshafts
One of the most significant parts of your vehicle that you never think about is the driveshaft. Two-wheel drive vehicles have one large shaft that runs from the transmission to the rear axle. Four-wheel-drive cars have one shaft running to each industrial axle. The driveshafts’ rotational torque is what powers the axle and causes your tires to spin.
Since these parts are so crucial for your car to function (in addition to the fact that it runs along the bottom of the chassis) durability is of the utmost importance to manufacturers. So, the material they most often use is steel, which is heavy and reliable.
You can cut around 20 pounds off your vehicle’s total weight when switching to aluminum. When comparing steel vs. aluminum driveshafts, it’s easy to see how the decreased weight can lead to increased performance. Also—as an added bonus for those who live in areas with harsh winters— aluminum will hold up better in cold and snow conditions.
Strip Your Interior
When we think about removing weight from a car, we might immediately imagine replacing the parts, but there are some ways to impact the weight without upgrading your vehicle. If you’ve ever watched car racing, you’ve probably noticed the inside of cars are stripped down to their essentials. There aren’t any leather accents or cup holders, just a wheel, seat, and seatbelt. So, while stripping your interior will rob you of the luxuries they provide, it’ll give you the speed you want. Just be aware that eliminating luxury accessories off of your vehicle will decrease its value. So, if you plan to resell the car at one point, make sure you can reinstall the parts.
Now that you know some of the effective ways to reduce the weight of your car, you can make the modifications necessary to reduce potential hundreds of pounds from your vehicle, improving its overall performance.
