jreiter

iTrader: (6)

Is there anyone on this board who is getting a 350Z and has access to a vehicle scale? I'd be interested to see what the actual weight of the car is. (Car weights are often not quite what the factory says they are.) There is a free scale here in my town of San Luis Obispo, CA, so if anyone in the central coast area is getting (or has gotten) a 350, we should head down to the scale and weigh it with a full tank of gas.

Subw00er

I'd love to know this too. I have a g-tech meter that needs to know an exact weight! There are no car scales in my area...
Thanks
-Doug

Thunderbolt

Go to your local speed shop and see if anybody has scales you can use. You want the ones the have four pads to read each wheel weight. weight the car with a half full tank of fuel with no driver, with driver ,and with driver and a passenger. With this info you will have a good insite as to how your car will handle .

NissaNZ

My bathroom scale only goes up to 300 lbs., Damn.

Thunderbolt

A friend of mine sets up his 3400# street modified stock car with 4 300# bathroom scales, 4 long boards and 4 patio steps. Kinda hard to explain here but it works.

jreiter

iTrader: (6)

I might take a slightly different approach to weighing your car: I would say weigh it with no people in it, and a full tank of gas. If you want to know the weight with you sitting in it, just add on your own weight to the measured weight of the car. (I'm assuming most people will know their own weight and can use a standard bathroom scale.)

The mainreason I say to use a full tank of gas is because it's much easier to accurately duplicate a full tank of gas than a partial tank of any sort. (Due to gas gauge calibration differences, etc.) This is particularly handy for people who have things like G-Tech meters and want to measure performance before and after modifications.

For example, fill your gas tank and all your fluids, and weigh the car. You now have a weight which is very easy to get back to in the future as needed. (You just have to fill up the gas tank and check all the fluids and you know exactly what the weight is.) Now go out and do a few G-Tech runs to measure your horsepower. Then let's say 6 months later you do some modification to your car and you want to use your G-Tech meter to check the power increase. (or decrease!) It's very easy just to run down to the nearest gas station and fill up, and thus know exactly how much your car weighs. You can now go and do the same runs on the same road with your G-Tech and get some decently precise power readings for comparison purposes.

Granted, a G-Tech isn't nearly as useful as a full dyno graph, but it's handy for checking peak power readings. It's power and time measurements (while they might not necessary be *correct*) are quite reproducable and thus good for checking changes before and after mods.

Also, with your gas and all fluids full, you know the *heaviest* weight your car will reach. It only gets lighter and better performing from there.

jreiter

iTrader: (6)

Really? Weird. But I'm assuming he's not doing that just to weigh the car, but to actually corner balance the suspension, correct?

Thunderbolt

I was thinking of racing setups when i wrote.

You do want the drivers weight in the car because it will change your side percentage weights and both of your cross weights. The half tank of fuel is for an avg weight so you can get a better set up.

Do your set up with a full tank of gas and you will be pushing through the turns very early in the race.

As for te G-force a full tank would be best.

Thunderbolt

Yea, and he wins quite often. Next time i see him i will get more details on how he does it

jreiter

iTrader: (6)

I totally agree. If you are prepping your car for a race, adjusting suspension and so forth, then you definitely want your weight to be included, and a half tank of gas provides the best average.

But I think most people won't be doing that with their Z, so I figured the G-Tech example might be a bit more useful to the masses. (Get it... masses? Double entendre... ah heck, nevermind.)

Thunderbolt

Corner balancing requires a coilover suspension and is a major PITA that only very skilled drivers can feel in the handling of a car on a track.

Its not a major PITA if you have the right tools and know how to use them. There are about 250 race teams here in Nashville and all of them know how to set a car up. Coil overs, leaf springs you name it the rules are the same when doing your set up. The key is to keep good notes. Also it helps if you are good at math too.

VaGentleman

How about this to weigh your car?

Measure the foot print of each tire (put a piece of paper next to each of the four sides (actually only need two sides, i.e., the front or rear and the outside or inside) of the tire and run a pencil across where the tire meets the ground).

Multiply the 2 lengths and you get the area of the footprint in square inches.

Now, take the air pressure in that tire. You will then know how many pounds are exerted by that tire per square inch.

Multiply the air pressure for the tire x the foot print area.

Do this for the other 3 tires. Add up the figures and...Ta Da...you get the weight of the car.

Thunderbolt

That works quite well but then we might as well use Nissans numbers and save a whole lot of time

MaximumHP

iTrader: (1)

I had a couple of ideas on this also. One I heard was to find a moving company, some of them have scales to weigh moving trucks. Another I thought of was going to the dump. At least where I live you MUST go on the scale to go into the dump and you are charged for how much crap you bring by weight. I don't know how accurate they are, but I think they are within ten pounds. I also like the idea of going into a weigh station. Most are closed when I go by them, I wonder if I went in then, they would weigh my car.

94 TA GT

Anyone else yet?

Dr Bonz

iTrader: (1)

300 x 4 = 1200

I don't think you can weigh a 3400 lb car this way.

I suppose if you had 12 300 lb scales you could do it. Stack them up 3 high (4 stacks of 3, one for each wheel) and lower your car onto them. Then take the readings from all 12 scales and add them up.

The above is just a joke in case anyone actually was considering doing this or flaming me!

Loaner

Interstate scale is a great idea. What a kick next to those 18 wheelers. I used to run a lumber yard in Oregon and we would use a local trucking company when we were really loaded up. The ticket was a big fine. Call local trucking co. if you want to find out. One of them in your area will have one. Good luck.

fdao

What about your vehicle registration paper? Don't they put the actual weight of your car for tax purposes on there? You can check that out without going to the scale, right?