I have an STM Blade which weighs about 440kgs which is fairly light but not Caterham Fireblade light (399kgs). Does anyone know what diff they used standard? Besides the possibility of an extremely light weight diff I don't know where else they shaved the extra weight.

The orginal fireblades were made by James Whiting and they had a live axle. http://www.jameswhiting.com/page10.html

In addition the Caterham chassis does use lots of smaller tubes and the suspension is also more delicate....


Cheers

Ian

Lightweight wheels, smaller Alcon brakes, carbon bit and pieces, lighter/ smaller dia springs I think the lightest was 380 :-o.

I swapped my front brakes out for Wilwoods which dropped the weight a massive 5.9kgs and am using RS2000 wheels at 4.5kgs each. I read about the CR500 tyres they were using and compared to my current R888s they would shave 12kgs off the car for a set of four which would bring the weight down to 428kgs which would be nice, pity they don't make the CR500 tyres anymore. I could probably shave another 5kgs by changing the current seats to carbon items which would bring the weight down to 423kgs. I think unless I can find a lighter diff to use I won't be getting under 400kgs.

Other items you could

- Gun drill your drive shafts, make them hollow....there is a figure for the amount you can take out compared to the reduction in strength.
- Skim discs, use plastic nuts and bolts for non structural items instead of steel,
- Drill holes in anything without compromising the strength of the item......accelerator pedal pad for example,
- Cut the rear side of the front cycle wings off to 70mm above the wheel centre (MSA regs, so you could go more)
- The above can be done with the rear arches
- Strip to gel coat and spray with one coat
- Get a daytime MOT and have no headlights
- Light weight battery

Most of these are a few kilos and below its major engineering thats going to drop the weight even more, but carbon nose cones and arches etc do shed weight off quite a bit.