Hi all

Someones must have gone through this process of lightening a megablade.

Where do i start?

Its a factory megablade chassis.

I am changing the seats to lightweigh ones soon, fitting a cage (bolt on).

Am looking at lowering the unsprung weight etc

Any tips?

While im here, do they all have quick racks as standard?

Adrian

ps. also already considered a diet!!!

hi my standard megablade has 2 1/4 turns lock to lock

you already covered the cheapest method in your ps.

Have a look at Ed Cane's old website here, his Orange Megablade was pretty light. Also Graham Finlayson had an uber light Westie with an R1 engine in it, but that did have lots of carbon panels / bodywork etc so would be expensive to replicate.

The usual suspects are lighter wheels/tyres, 4 pot calipers, ally hubs, Freelander diff rather than Sierra, ditch reverse box etc.

Light weight alloys are easy to fit and rotational mass is the best to reduce. OZ superleggeras are very light.

It's actually quite difficult. If the car is a genuine 'mega' chassis/kit then you've got everything pretty much as it needs to be. It'll have alloy hubs, etc., etc., all there. If 'real' then it'll have Image split rims..
In my opinion, worth nothing, replacing alloy with carbon, etc., just isn't worth considering. Swapping out the Sierra diff (if its 7" for the Freeloader, just is not worth the trouble for the few Kgs. To really make the difference with this swap you need to junk Westfield's Freeloader brackets and weld in a few bushes to the chassis. I only did this simply to get the gear ratio (3.2) for purposes.
A few Kgs can go on the battery, you don't need the 625 brick that Westfield put in for those M25 night time park-ups. Other thing is the fuel tank, get one made for 10-15 litres if you only do short runs.
Other than that, tyres. Ditch the camber, junk the radials and go ACB10, saves a real lump.
Westfields TRT rear prop is a massively stupid thing, Bailey will do something much more acceptable, something you need to do 1st I think.
Anyway, it's a great package as standard. To give you some idea, my GSXR750 powered Mega, road going, etc., comes in at 432Kg. It's often quicker than far more exotic machinery, also look also at the way you're driving if you're after speed.

[Edited on 24/8/08 by motorcycle_mayhem]

thanks for the rplies, i will investigate when i get back from wales....

cheers