The Golden Rule For Going Fast In "NEARLY" Anything - Power To Weight 

Here's a pinned comment for anyone wanting to discuss gravity's effect on the speed of a rolling object based on weight.

Hey Tony, Tim here, NA cars WANT no weight as u said......i was runnin 11:60's in my Poncho yrs ago......put the car on a major diet, (350 or more lbs)......and was rewarded with low 11:30's.....consistently.....now for NA that works, ur explanation of what Nitro/turbo cars want....i totally get.....they want load, like how a turbo car has STUPID mph, but no 60 ft.....its not just spoolin up, its WEIGHT!!.....they dont 60 ft, but BOY do they run out the back door!!!!.... LOVE THIS!!.......you are correct, (of cors) and i just LOVE how you present the info......backyard guy can get it.......wonderful stuff!!......Peace my brother....

Sometime in the mid-'60's Hot Rod magazine (pretty sure it was Hot Rod) had an article where they took an old Caddy and ran it down the quarter, something like 20 seconds. Then they pulled the back seat, spare and jack, and a few other things, it ran 19 seconds. Then it was carpet, remove the front bench and put a light racing seat, radio, inside door panels, just really taking stuff off. And each time they shaved some more time off the quarter. I think they eventually got it into the high 12's. And not a single engine modification. They did a calculation how much horsepower they would have had to increase to get to that point without shedding all that weight. And it was a LOT. And they calculated how much that would have cost to gain that horsepower, in the thousands. The moral of this story, like airplanes, if you want more performance, add more lightness.

Thanks Tony! Chuck in Florida.

as a honda boy, power-to-weight is what I live by hahaha nice vid Tony!

I love my 2600lb ford probe,I RWD swapped it with a fox body chassis,threw some heads,intake carb,cam,headers on a 302 and its damn near 400 hp,2600 lbs... my little gocart that could😎

Story corner and Reality with our Uncle Tony..

Yep! we used to say Pete's idea when we were12yrs. old.....saw it in a magazine....He was a hero!

Some of us have an extra hundred pounds hanging around us! 😂 There’s a motivation to cut the beer gut! Loose weight, go faster!

I believe I was one of the guys that was faster than you in the 70s going down Armstrong Ave....😆 🤣 .... I lived right around the corner on Elmwood ave left out of there 94 for the great escape!

In the 80s Hot Rod magazine did an article called Caddy hack. They took a big old Cadillac to to the drag strip and kept taking body parts off. It lowered et by about 5 seconds. They didn't touch the motor. One of the greatest car mag stories ever.

the torque load on the motor mounts won't change between solid and rubber only the initial shock load to the cast block will change.

An old Street car I bought way back when for cheap; 62 Plymouth Sport Fury, 2 door sedan, 440 push button auto., 3,91 posi. I gutted the hood, doors, qtr. windows all with fiberglass windows, even made a lexan windshield. welded (home made) sub frame connectors, 6 point roll cage, single seat (from a blank from a Monte Carlo Swivel bucket, ALL wiring from Chrysler Corp was Gone! with some ancient (dry rotted) Bucron 7" cheater slicks the car as FUN! 440: comp. valve job, blended the valve job, (myself)2.84-4.84 Mopar Purple shaft cam and lifters, Wieand Open Plenum & an 850 CFM holley, the car seemed to work good!

Big engine, small car... That's why I'm a Corvette guy. Back in the 60s, they were basically go-carts with big blocks.

Very interesting discussion on power to weight.. Love it..

In 1995 I was dating my future ex wife and in my future ex mother in law's driveway sat her mother in law's old car: a 1986 4 door Tempo. Interesting looking car for a hooptie. 90 horsepower, nothing fancy, 30k miles on it, but the transmission was toast. I offered $300 for it and towed it away. One month later I cobbled together another transmission, but in the process decided to see what I could do to give the little beast some go-go so I shaved the head about .020" but didn't shim it so the compression went up. Set base timing 4 degrees ahead and dried out the fuel system so I could run super (92 octane) which it really needed. The car was light as could be and looked and sounded bone stock. It was when you put it in gear and touched the gas that it would reveal its hidden evil nature. Massive torque steer off the line. Barking tires in the second gear shift at 50. Booger would do 100 in a heart beat and off the line would keep up if not just dust any big V8. It was squirrelly like a pecan grove in November. Complete and utter sleeper. No hints or clues as to what it was capable until it started rolling. Weight is horsepower and for a naturally aspirated throttle body (and at least one solid welded motor mount) this 2.3 liter had it in spades. It flew like the space shuttle that it looked like.

Light makes Might my 80 Monte has aluminum deck lid, aluminum radiator core support and aluminum bumpers. Also swapped in aluminum rear drums, aluminum master cylinder and front hollow sway bar. All factory GM parts too 💪....oh yeah and an aluminum LS block

Its underappreciated in the usa. Not anywhere else

We took our Latemodel Sportsman on 1/4 mile clay oval and build a full tubing chassis. The 74 Duster was skinned and we installed a Haldbrand aluminum quickchange rearend. Moved the engine back 10 inches. 383 Mopar running Methanol. The car was 600 lbs lighter. We went from 16.1 seconds to 14.999. It was unbelievable how much a difference those changes made with the same engine.

Next video: UT acid dip tutorial. 😁

When Tony said " utterly meaningless" I was thinking " NO NO NO, I love all this stuff. It brings back SO MANY MEMORIES. Just keep rambling on Tony, that is why many of us love these videos ! ! !

My "gravity kart" had four cast iron hand truck wheels 10" diameter. Each one used roller bearings with zerk fittings and solid rubber tires. Dad made two axles from square stock and machined the ends to fit the wheels. That thing was kick ass fast! No brakes whatsoever!

Great Video... Thanks for Sharing

Ettore Bugatti, Colin Chapman - "Add horsepower through Lightness" Big change in my '78 Elky handling was moving the battery from High and in Front to Low and Down behind the passenger seat. No weight change but noticeable handling change

The hill in my neighborhood was Bonnie Briar Dr.

A saying I remember is "wheels up and winning" was a Mopar saying back in the day tell us who coined it Tony ?

Super fun video Tony, thanks! Great stuff for guys like me building a 318 car!

I've got a 74 Nova at 3k pounds with 500 hp . Think it'll run? I give lessons in Arkansas,

I just picked up a 1984 Chevy Corvette on Friday. The car has a bad misfire so I was going to drain the gas put fresh gas in it give her a tune up for starters. Hopefully that does the trick. The nice thing is parts for that 350 are cheap and it's easy to work on.

ball bearing shopping cart wheels, "coasters" in San Francisco's hills. some all thread, a 2x4 and a plank, front axle pivoted for steering with feet (rope too!) and old tennis shoes nailed to the front 2x4 "axle" was your scrub brakes to the ground for your heels to dig through. dangerous fun!

If you push the dinner table away you can lose a few pounds too

It’s crazy what weight does to power. I got a 99 Corolla with a 4 cylinder and a stick, I know absolutely nothing special. But with just me in there it actually feels pretty snappy, but you throw my 265 pound brother and his 100 pound son and my 170 pound son in there and holy leather ass I gotta bout turn the air conditioning off just to get up to speed.

Hey Uncle Tony I'm Greg and I ran GTA automotive and Speed Shop in Greenville South Carolina for 35 years my son runs it now he's still a little wet behind the ears. I'm 56 years old I've been around racing all my life I raced track till I got hurt which is about 10 years and the doctor said it was going to kill me if I kept on so I went back to drag racing which is where I started. I started drag racing when I was 16 built my first drag car when I was 17 it was a 68 Chevrolet full size station wagon with a big block Chevrolet in it I ran it for 2 years good night's tomorrow and was able to get 7:40s out of it I took the engine out of it into the transmission and the gear out of the rear end and put it all into a Chevelle body I was able to locate I had a 12 volt housing in it and from there it ran a best of a 6:20 but I had always wanted to go around track racing so I sold all my drag stuff and went round track racing until I got hurt. I agree with you about wait and 100 lb equal to 10th equals car length and it's a whole lot easier to take a hundred pounds off then to put attention second back into your motor if you are building a motor on a budget I mean it's hard to find a tents of a second if you're already spent your limit my point though is are my question to you is have you took the door bars out of your car they normally weigh 30-40 lb each and there would be 120- -160 lbs. You know they're like a a factory roll bar and you know if you took if they're 30 lb a piece which is what they are on a Mustang I built the Mustang for my son is now I'm totally disabled and can't even drag race anymore but I've built for Mustang for him before I ended up in a wheelchair. So just cutting those out would save 1.5 tenths or so. Anyway I thoroughly enjoy watching the program and at least like a lot alike I think we've been down a lot of the same roads and there's very few things that I don't agree with you about most of the time we're dead on thank you and see you next time see you tomorrow. Greg Pratt

I can remember the days of loosing the spare and jack. Stripping out the carpets and sound deadening. An anything else not needed. Those were the days.

Just 2 days ago I was talking with an old time friend from Staten Island about building go carts from baby carriage wheels and junk lumber!! Grymes Hill had some good runs. Good snow sledding too!!

My first ever car when I was 16 was a 1974 Chevy V8 350 Vega , great video uncle .

In a world that's obsessed with big horsepower numbers power to weight ratio is still the only thing that matters.

CLASSIC CAR CULT-URE LEADER UTG!!!

Great video. Best I’ve seen in a while.

I see what your saying. divide the horsepower of the engine by the weight of the car and that’s your power to weight ratio. For example - the Dodge Viper has a 450 hp engine to accelerate 3,320 lbs. of weight, making its power to weight ratio - .135 hp per 10 lbs. That means it can go from 0 - 60 mph in 4.1 seconds. Your claimed ratio for bottle rocket is higher yet because of the way the vipers power/weight is utilized it would “win”

I had a LX 5.0 mustang back in high school. Man, I pulled the spare tire out, took the sound deadening out from under the carpets, took the trunk lining out, pulled the rear seat out. Everyone always wondered why that little car ran like it did! Of course I put aluminum heads on it and put a lighter k member later on. I never put it on a scale but I bet it was super light for a daily driver.

Uncle tony is an absolute legend. Please write some books

Used to have alot of fun with 140hp in a VW rabbit while beating up on later model same brand cars with 320hp. 1300 pounds is worth alot of HP.

There is just no substitute for experience... Lots of applicable lessons here

ALL OF US GEAR HEAD'S BUILT GO CARTS . GOING DOWN HILL OR FOUR STROKE 3 TO 5 HP HORIZONTAL SHAFT MOTORS ....THEY WE'RE GOOD TIMES ....MINI BIKES WERE COOL TOO.

Colin Chapman referred to it as ‘added lightness’.

I ran modified production "B" class in a 55 Ford with a 427ci. My biggest victory came over "Carl Fischers fabulous 52". He held the spot for three years before I got past him.

I wonder what my Toronado weighs now. The seats were cooked by the sun. I took out the back seats and door trim. Took out the gross original carpet. Lighter parts in the engine.

Bill Cosby had a bit years ago about baby cart wheels on soap box derby cars.

Carol Shelby agrees that lighter is best, you don't need as much HP and heavy-duty parts. If your lighter car needs more load, use a higher gear ratio, light cars really move with high torque and high gears, heavy cars need low gears.

My electronics geek brother was talking about some kind of capacitor that can be used to eliminate a car battery.

Did it Gain a Pound all of sudden that's was Awesome

great channel tony educational,entertaining and interesting what more could you what

I think it was Art Whipple who rocked the funny car circuit by going to a midsized car. He cleaned house. The narrower body with reduced drag cut through the wind stream much easier than a wider body. My point is: wind tunnel testing would make a difference to many racers if they were to embrace it.

... by the late 70s, the street racing scene on Armstrong Hill has progressed to where the fast guys were using old real go carts with no motors, carrying cinderblocks between their legs and people were pushing from the first apartment building... You could cross Amboy road and pass Lewers MG if you dared, but that slight right turn just after the finish line caused many a problem for those aspiring kings of the hill... Our hero found a glorified pedal car called a Mattel Sizzler that weighed a ton and had hard plastic tires, after pulling the cotter pins and disconnecting the pedals,which were it's only brakes, it was fast but the Chuch Tayor brake technology of the day just was not enough to stay out of Amboy road...and the potholes in the shut down did not help matters at all.... it was a sad day when our hero's Uncle Gene took a sledgehammer to his beloved Sizzler... Cars Illustrated destroyed my brain.

If you "polish" the block with flap disc's, how much weight could you grind off?

Like it. The old rule of back of the cam to the rear tire patch is the line at the chassis where the rear springs or ladder bars should be mounted yes?

Great video Tony! Most street racers didn't know these things back in the eighties when I was pounding the asphalt. I had a '67 Camaro 350/350th that weighed in at 2900# with a spare tire and an 80# tool box in the trunk. Full interior and the only fiberglass was the hood. I spent a lot of hours, just like you, finding those ounces to shave off. I didn't have all the horses my challengers had, but I still had the advantage. I never took it to the track, but it was king on the street for some time.

Good lessen you gave 👍. How much does it weigh, where is the weight, how much weight do I need and where do I need it along with when.

Uncle Tony, I'm building a Square body suburban for snow wheeling up in Montana. Everyone on the Internet says it will be 6000 lbs but when I put it on the scales I was down to 4500 lbs and still have 100s of lbs I can get off this thing. I'm leaving anything that screams structural integrity and everything else goes. Losing weight is the single most important aspect of all this crazy stuff we do

Not only will you go faster, but you'll stop better and get better fuel mileage too. A lighter car is almost always a plus.

"make it light. if it breaks, redesign it, and make it lighter". The Colin Chapman doctrine. And you brought back memories of my childhood; I lived on a stretch of road, where there were no sidestreets, and it was all just slightly down hill. But that stretch was a mile long, and by the time I was a quarter of the way down, I was going over 40 mph on a board with just the bottoms of skates on it, steered by leaning left or right. But falling off was terrifying to consider. So we had to be really careful to never fall over.

UTG is fantastic. His themed rambling is right on. When he adds is experience to the how to, I get smarter. Never forget - ATF dump in the carb to descale the carbon build up in the engine. Keep it up

Replace panels shave panels add torque boxes an cut out bracing as it should have a roll cage

Added lightness the Colin Chapman (Lotus) philosophy.

Ball bearing baby buggy wheels were the highrise aluminum intake / headers of the day?

In the summer after 2nd grade, my father supplied me with a 2x10 and a couple of axles applied to 2x4 boards with the rear fixed and the front through bolted in the center, and the requisite clothes line steering. We lived at the top of a hill with little traffic on the side street, and I spent the summer modifying my rig, and many trips back up the hill with bloody knees and an aching head from curbs. Eventually I learned that the tires were too tall, of course because they were on the axles that were underneath the frame board. Those caused a sudden and catastrophic stopping if you should let go of the steering. Still, after mastery of all this, I nailed wooden crates all over it as seats and remember giving as many as seven kids a ride several times one evening--without incident. Thanks for prompting this memory of 1963, the waning days of Camelot. A point of engineering clarification: the engine does not make any additional power torque without the rubber mount. What the rubber mount does is slightly increase the time it takes for all of it to be applied to the connection of the body and frame, reducing shock, comparable to padding in a football helmet. My neurologist neighbor will tell you that it is the acceleration of the brain from the hit that causes the trauma, not the presence or absence of padding. Accordingly, your theory is sound, that the trauma of acceleration then goes to the soft tissue, which is the soft mount and the back tires, which is what you want.

Power to weight is everything as long as you can get the traction. I had a 250cc 2 stroke Honda dirt bike, it was only like 54 horsepower or something like that but it had an aluminum chassis and weighed nothing and it would only go about 70 mph or so but there was nothing around that would beat that bike up to 70 mph. Just lay on the handlebars and rip gears as fast as your hands and feet can work together and it was just ridiculous.

Speaking of turbo cars how's Stuby's project coming along?

I remember reading about the superstock guys filling their spare tires with concrete

I have been talking about this for years. My 3,000 pound Fox body with about 350 - 375 hp can beat the new mustangs with 420+ horsepower because they wight 3,700+ pounds. Whats the story on that hood scoop?

Always the weight, cheaper budget you can spend less on your motor, less issues with trans and diff, better to push around the lanes if ya have to , used to read old mopar books they always emphasise weight in them.

AWESOME vid...MOPAR 4 EVER.

Something else must have been going on with those gravity cars. A feather and a rock fall at the same speed in a vacuum. That's just the physics of it.On a flat dragstrip weight does come into play.

My head calculation was the same as yours.

Colin Chapman founder of Lotus said to gain horsepower is to lose weight. Any Miata content coming?

Aircraft design follows this philosophy for one reason, it works.

I've never been a drag racer, but find all of this entirely fascinating. I'm beginning to understand why so many people like Tony get hooked on the pure physics of it all, trying to understand why one thing works and why something that in theory should work does not. The challenge through trial and error to understand all the variables and figure out how they work with or against each other.

How about the placement of the drivers body weight ? Forward or rearward ? Towards the door or towards the middle of the car ?

Why not have glass fieber trunk hood then? Saves a lot.

I always had mini bikes mainly I would get them out of pieces and parts. But prior to that I tried building a go-kart they were always building in my subdivision this is back in 1962 and they would always have a bunch of wood they were throwing a pile and they would burn it and I would scarf it out and I built this go-kart. And I had a little teeny motor and a belt drive I didn't understand the weight thing also. It probably weighed as much as a Volkswagen and I was trying to push it with a two-horse motor LOL the good old days of simplicity and not knowing a dog on thing.

Tony i will tell you what Kills me. I have watched these guys build Fox Body Mustangs for Drag Racing, make them as light as possible and RUN A 300 lbs. DRIVER......I weigh a160 lbs and Can Run Circles around them....

And I reckon your not interested in the aluminum block slant six I told you about. 😕 When I saw it the first thing that popped in my head was Uncle Tony and Plan Z

I've always thought that big blocks love a load and small blocks loved weight reduction. With big blocks it's about torque with small blocks it's horse power.. I learn every day. 😊

That hood could lose a few pounds. Replace the springs with a support rod. Your welcome, now send me a T-shirt.

84 4 door sedan: 2300lbs 3.8l supercharged weights about the same as the 2.0 lq5 so that is 500hp 2300lb 4 doors Should stomp 99% of anything road registered in the usa

It dont matter how fast she goes, as long as she makes it to the track is a win in my eyes!

OK, NOW I think I understand what you mean by "dynamic" weight transfer or distribution. So is the best place for adding weights, which are intended to aid rear traction, going to be between the leading rear suspension pickup point and the axle?

Personally I blame squirrels

Ever watched the 100 yard dash in the Olympics ...? See any fat guys...? Power to weight ratio...ftw

we had gravity racing here too my key to wining was some old solid cast wheels like a forklift with solid tires about 100lbs , frame was a old oxy/ acete cart and push pull steering beam axle with toro front tires, it cooked going downhill

For every 100 lb reduction in car is like adding 10 hp to engine

Newton's second law: Force = Mass x Acceleration (squared) or Accleration = Force / Mass. So reduce mass, but keep force the same, acceleration will go up exponentially (squared). So if you half the mass, your acceleration will go up by 4x

Uncle Tony on both front and back bumper brackets swish cheese all four of them that should take a couple #s off her for ya. l mean who needs bumpers so you could loose some more behind where the licence plates go swiss cheese there too.

Bumper brackets and motor plate instead of engine mounts , seats find lighter ones .

I bet Uncle Tony never saw those Ford 427 aluminum Can Am engines with the reinforced main webbing and valleys or those all aluminum 494 Boss engines . Hay Toni, did you ever see a Hemi with the flat plane crank ? Smokey had 3 types of Boss 429's back in the esrly 60's each for a different track type.

RU-vid! PUT BACK THE FORWARD AND BACKWARDS ARROWS!!!!

thank you

An extremely gutted 1990 Festiva, 1600# with me in it, and a 240 HP Mazda turbo DOHC engine was the most muscular car I ever had. A bit dangerous but really fun.

you are the Jenny Craig of the car hobby. On top of everything else.