Some parts for the club car TeamW116 #2 450SE

[B13]

Discuss.

 

[Andrew280SEL]

Nice, you've been on quite a shopping spree.

How easy do you think it will be to fit the seats?
My dad and I will be doing a similar thing with a manual 280SE down the track (no pun intended...), so I'm just curious.

 

[Des]

Ian some questions,

what are you going to do to lighten, if anything your car? gut it?

rollcage?

rip off the bumpers? lights?

rip out the aircon?

 

[B13]

Hi Des,

So far I'll be gutting the interior and in the boot removing the OEM petrol tank and boot floor.

The boot floor then gets replaced with aluminium chequerplate and the race fuel cell in the picture.

Fuel cell weighs 5kg... the original weighs (?) (your guess is as good as mine, but its more than 5kg)

Interior gets the two pictured race seats (7kg ea).

Yes the air-con will be given the flick as well. The electric window motors will be replaced with hand-cranks up front and nothing on the rear windows. The door trims get replaced with 0.5mm thick aluminium sheet.

The wheels are lightweight Rial alloys and the Yokohama A032R race tyres weigh less than same-sized street tyres.

The whole exhaust system is cheap thin-wall (ie lightweight) piping and small mufflers - its nothing like the quality system MBs come with - and is both lightweight and makes the right loud V8 sound.

Just be deleting the useless LH rear view mirror I've save a few kg.

It is a Mercedes-Benz S-class after all so I don't think a roll cage will be immediately necessary, esp. since I'll be running in "standard" class.

Good discussion this is turning out to be, however.

I.

 

[Des]

Hi Des,

Good discussion this is turning out to be, however.

I.

mate check out the fuel bulkhead as well, I hear these are quite heavy, see if you can remove that, or replace it with a reworked lightweight version,
the yankie 300SD's used a lightweight version of the fuel bulkhead.

being a racer I'm sure you don't need to be told that shedding weight = more power,

considered getting some lightweight panels from the US from the 300SD model?

considered drilling out weight from the chassis?


considered lexan? sp? for the windows?

need to send your 450 to Jenny Craig for a few months

 

[B13]

How easy do you think it will be to fit the seats?
My dad and I will be doing a similar thing with a manual 280SE down the track (no pun intended...), so I'm just curious.

Fitting the seats to any car is always a bugger if there are no aftermarket seat mounting kits available... (if I wanted to fit these two seats to a Honda Civic or Nissan Sylvia then no problems, the mounting kits are available off the shelf, $89ea). What important is that the seats are CAMS / ADR approved and the rules are that we are allowed to adapt the seat rails which held the old seats into the 450SE. Beware of those cheap seats on eBay under $100, you don't want to be told you can't compete with them installed.

A manual 280SE! Sounds awesome! And plenty of room on either side of the engine for forced induction!

 

[Andrew280SEL]

Fitting the seats to any car is always a bugger if there are no aftermarket seat mounting kits available... (if I wanted to fit these two seats to a Honda Civic or Nissan Sylvia then no problems, the mounting kits are available off the shelf, $89ea). What important is that the seats are CAMS / ADR approved and the rules are that we are allowed to adapt the seat rails which held the old seats into the 450SE. Beware of those cheap seats on eBay under $100, you don't want to be told you can't compete with them installed.

A manual 280SE! Sounds awesome! And plenty of room on either side of the engine for forced induction!

Thanks Ian.

And yes, the 280 will be fun - I'm thinking forced induction as well

 

[SELfor50]

Like the new aquisitions for whitey there Mav!!

I'm very keen to see how the fitting of the seat(s) goes.
I'll be stripping all the interior that's not required in the next 2 weeks. And was then hopefully gonna swap the drivers seat for something a 'little more comfortable'. Does it look like the seats will be able to be swapped straight out at all?


Fuel cell looks like the shiznitch!! Is the fuel bulkhead the barrier between the back seat etc?

 

[Des]

Is the fuel bulkhead the barrier between the back seat etc?

Yeah....its what saves you when some idiot rear ends you, part of the safety cell structure.

The W116 300SD's had an alloy version,