Will I regret stripping my truck down?

[bobs86silv]

Just at the point where I am considering stripping un needed weight from my truck. It is all original so things like the un functional heater and air conditioner parts. Heavy bench seat. Where do I start. Where do I stop. Am I going to regret tearing up my truck later? Just want to go faster and know I could get it with less weight. thanks, Robert

[Your41Plague12]

Unless you're drag racing for a living or something, I'd leave it original interior wise. I'd just build a motor/transmission and re-gear it if necessary to make it faster. It's only original once. Is it in your budget to buy a cheap one to make fast? It would be nice to have an original one and a quick one, in my opinion.

[N2TRUX]

Will I regret stripping my truck down? Yes, you will. Unless its a track only truck, the weight saving vs. creature comforts is not worth it.

[bnb0221]

x2

[sumran]

If you are at the point that you are shedding a few pounds to gain speed you are getting serious. It would take many pounds to gain very little speed. If you are racing at that level the truck probably won't be a street truck. Find a shell that you can strip down and tow it to the track with your nice original driver. And when you are towing it around, don't be surprised if it is the original truck that gets most of the attention.

[babyJay]

time is money and money is time. The time will drastically outweigh the benefit. Do you have a lot of money to replace all the steel with aluminum? Your gas mileage improvement will not be noticeable either.

[Pyrotechnic]

It's just not a good move. Make sure you are running light weight wheels, that's a place where you can save a lot of weight. At the track you can run pizza cutters up front to save even more. An aluminum or carbon fiber drive shaft can also help a lot too. Run a light weight gel battery at the track. They have some that are tiny, very lightweight, but pack enough punch to crank the motor over.

Remember, the general estimation is that every 100 pounds is a tenth of a second. You're going to have to remove a lot of weight to make a big difference. It's much easier to work on your engine to get the faster ET's.

EDIT: I just saw you have 3.08 gears. You have a lot to gain by switching to a 3.42 or 3.73. That's really where you need to start if you are concerned with your 1/4 mile time.

[swb85]

I'm a big drag racer too......if it sees any street time leave it alone. Race cars/trucks are awesome, rowdy & fast.....but not very much fun to drive around in for very long. If you're itching to go faster, it's time to put a motor together that can handle nitrous or boost. Then when it's time to go even faster, all ya gotta do is crank up the boost or up the nitrous shot.

[fun in dirt]

Originally Posted by Pyrotechnic

Remember, the general estimation is that every 100 pounds is a tenth of a second...You have a lot to gain by switching to a 3.42 or 3.73.

Excellent points
And rememnber too 10 lbs of unsprung weight = a tenth!

[jitteryguy]

are we talk'n drag strip fast or street fast, it's a waste of time and money to build a fast street only car/truck. if were talk'n drag strip, leave this truck alone and find an old S10. cheap, small block will fall right in with very minor mods,somewhat light , and fun to drive when done .

[DBLSPRT68]

Yes you will. Don't do it. Build another lighter, faster truck........

[trixter99]

Sell your small block and build a big block and forget about stripping your truck.

[bobs86silv]

Wow thanks for all the great input. Its just that I drove a buddys car the other day that has a mostly stock motor but is stripped down to like 2500 pounds, about a ton less than my truck. Needless to say it would smoke my snorting beast. There are many things I will be doing to my truck, especially gears, (about a grand for posi 3.73 setup and swap) Just was thinking about things I can do for free now. Just hard to think I would ever spend the money to get a new compressor and hook my A/C back up. And I put a heater core in 4 years ago. It started leaking so I bypassed it, really really dont see me going back into that dash to fix it. I only drive the truck on super nice days, so its just a toy anyway.

But thanks for the push for originality!!

Robert