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ALL YOU NEED TO PASS SUPERCARS IN A SUBARU WAGON IS WEIGHT REDUCTION... AND A RACE DRIVER.

Published: 2022-09-12 09:13:12 Last Updated: 2022-09-12 09:42:21

In the channel’s continuing quest to answer the weirdest and most wonderful motoring-related ponderings, the crew from Driven Media decided to try and make their project car, a Subaru Wagon faster without spending any money. Well it depends on your hourly rate of course, because all you need is a few hours to do the same things to your car as was done to theirs. It’s an obvious fact that lower weight means a faster car because the racing world is all about power-to weight. In theory if you don’t fiddle with the power but you decrease the weight you should have a quicker pull away and have improved cornering because there’s less weight to shift during a turn. If you add in a set of decently sticky tyres and a driver who knows what he’s doing then the simple process of removing parts from the car to be faster cannot be matched for value, because it’s free and if you’re not planning on returning the car to stock then you could even make money selling off the bits you strip from the car.

There’s a lot of extra things in a car that add to the overall weight, and when you’re on a quest for faster lap times and better performance one of the easiest things to do is take things off that you don‘t need on a racetrack. The first thing would usually be the rear seats, although while that lends more to the aesthetics of a racecar, rear seats don’t have that much weight to them as in most cases they’re simply leather or material covered foam. You will save a fair bit removing front seats, especially on a more expensive car that has electric seats full of motors and things. Most things you remove don’t have a lot of weight but things can add up to a decent amount. If you have a mate driving with you, especially in a normally aspirated car, you can feel the effect their weight adds. I tip the scales at just over 70kg, and as you’ll see in the vid, over 130 kg was relegated to the trash pile.

With the weight stripped out and a decent driver in the only seat left in the car, the Subaru's performance looked to have improved during the track session to test things, the JDM wagon was seen overtaking a pair of Porsches and some other fast street-track cars. Was it the weight saved or the driver going all-out because that's what race drivers do?

Take a look at the YouTube video where the crew from Driven Media strip out their project Subaru wagon to see the effects of weight saving on the car's dynamics and performance: How Much FASTER is a LIGHTER Car? | Driven Media

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Article Tags: Cars Free Speed Lap Times Laps Fast Testing Weight Reduction SXdrv Weight Saving Wagon Subaru Project Car