Some thoughts on some things........

As we prepare for our trip out West, I was looking at our steering wheel, and had a few thoughts...





First, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the stock Challenger/Drag Pak steering wheel. It steers the car, and has a nice feel to it. And there is no air bag in it, so it won't accidentally go off at some inconvenient time. Then, why did we replace ours? Mostly, because of our quest for weight reduction, (which I will talk about shortly), we felt the need to change it, and we could do it, so we did it. Having made the decision which usually consisted of me looking at the wheel, looking at Chris, him nodding his head, and me nodding back in agreement, I went on a mission and found the Longstreet 15 inch aluminum steering wheel.

In addition to the wheel, I also opted for the quick connect/disconnect which, interestingly cost about $50, which was also about the same price as the wheel (or pretty close, I forget now..)

But like everything else, putting on the new steering wheel was a bigger project than it looked like it would be. The wheel connector needed to be welded onto the steering column. So, we could pull the steering column and weld the adapter/connector to it outside of the car, which probably would have been the "right" way to do it. But we had a colorful way of doing things, so we wrapped a welding blanket around the column, also protecting the dash, and Chris welded it right in the car.

Benefits: It looks cool, and it is easily removed for the driver, or the kids we invite to try it out at the track, to get in and out of the car. The kids (and more than a few adults) do love the opportunity to sit in the car for pictures, and I love to see people smile. But when your driver needs to get in and out of the car, especially when the car is in the trailer, removing the wheel sure seems to make it easier.

Now for more of the thoughts, on other things:

Weight reduction.

Some things are obvious, like the stock carpeting. It really doesn't fit anyway, but it is obvious heavy, and should be replaced with lighter material (We used ozite, which weighs little and with scissors, major labor fitting, and cutting, and a lot of carpet tape, it works great)

But there are lots of other items where weight reduction may, or may not be as important as you might think.

If you car is already around 3100 pounds when you get engine, cage, tranny, rear end, (almost done), you probably aren't going to find many more pounds to discard. And, if you do, each pound you lose costs you more in effort or replacement costs. And the truth is that a few pounds aren't all that critical when you have a car with an engine like the new hemis.

In retrospect, we probably obsessed about weight reduction. We discussed it constantly, we made almost every decision with weight reduction in mind. We spent hours and hours, pulling 40+ pounds of sound deadening out of the car. We went with a 904 instead of a 727, partly because we couldn't get a Pro Trans 727 in time, and because the 904 is lighter overall. Same for the rear end, a Mopar 8 3/4 instead of a Dana 60. Gun drilled axles in it too. Nothing but the lightest...

But I recently had a bit of an epiphany about all of this. Although I still believe that we are the lightest Drag Pak out there, I don't think it is by all that much. And I also don't think it is all that big of a deal. I think some of the other Drag paks, have lighter weight cages than we do, or their chassis mods are lighter than ours. (Not that I would change that at all, because I like the safety and security of our cage, and I like our chassis.) But seeing them cross the scales, leads me to believe we are pretty close on weight.

What I am saying here is, do the right things, take out or replace obvious overweight items, and weigh the car ocassionally, but don't obsess over it. Unfortunately, there is no award for the lightest Drag Pak car, or I would still be pulling things out. But we just added some weight, so we don't get more horsepower added to our combo.

With the power these engines can make, "close enough" on the weight, is generally close enough, for now.....

David