The hand book says my car weighs 1800Kg, which is the same as my old Range Rover. Which is a lot. The power to weight ratio is 299bhp/1.8tonne = 166bhp/tonne, or put another way, a similar amount to a Fiesta XR2i. Hmmm. Something has to change, the car is going on a diet.
The regulations are quite strict on what I can remove, for instance I am not allowed to remove any metal from the body work, not even the odd hole here and there. Also, most of the trim has to be kept so that it still looks standard. The only exception is that trim can be removed if its in the way of the roll cage, by a stretch of the imagination it is said that the whole of the back seat is infact in the way! So then, its out with the chisle…

By the way, you know in the Haynes manual it always starts by saying ‘first disconnect the battery’, even if they are describing how to empty the ash tray, well this is the time to listen to them! You would be amazed how many opportunities there are to drop a spanner on something live or short connectors out whilst stripping a car. For safety I remove the battery and put it somewhere safe, with tape over the terminals.

I didn’t get too carried away with stripping every last ounce out because I have limited spare time, for example I took a day to remove 50Kg but the next 50kg took a week. Also, I will take out most of the interior to get at the sound deadening material and to check the structure of the car, then put it back in as needed.

Starting inside, because its work I can do sitting down!
The radio has to go, don’t need a radio when you have a V12 anyway! Getting the radio out was a ‘non-trivial mater’ that involves removing the centre console, heater controls (one was very stiff and sustained some damage in the operation) and a radio retaining box thingy which is riveted into the dash and had to be drilled out.
The next item is the front seats, they have four torx head bolts fixing the runners to the car body and come out quite easily. The front seats on my car weighed 15kg which is relatively light, the race seat weighs 5kg but I will add another 4 kg of mounting system so there is only a 5kg advantage, but every little helps. The regs let me replace the drivers seat only, so the standard passenger seat will go back in later.
Next out is the rear seat, but again it proves to be disappointingly (9kg) light!
At this point I successfully locate the rust! There was a bodged repair to the inner wheel arch which let water into the seat pan which had rusted along a seam. Another thing on the list of things to do!
Now I remove the seat belts from the parcel shelf, the bolt is behind the reel and quite tricky to get at unless you pull out all the belt.
The back part of the parcel shelf has a steel backing and weighs a fair bit, but the main part is made of cardboard and doesn’t!
The side pods contain the rear speakers and have a plywood support which is in turn held onto a leather trimmed steel panel that then fits on to the main trim piece. I decided to keep the main part and discard the centre steel and wood centre part thus saving weight but Keeping the look of the car.
I remove the interior carpets to discover a distinctly aquatic theme, the underlay is soaking all over the floor! I trace this to the drivers A pillar, some part of the window seal is leaking and water is dripping down the electrics in the foot well! As a temporary fix I tape up the lower edge of the windscreen and over the vents ahead of the buttresses (these let the stale cabin air out and are vital for air flow, so the tape is removed prior to driving).
Sound proofing on these cars is quite remarkable, both for its effectiveness and for what a sod it is to remove! There are different types in layers. There is a heavy tar like sheet which is tenaciously attached to the metal, I found the best way to get rid of this was on a really cold day attack it wit a sharp chisel (as it is more brittle when cold it tends to flake off in bigger chunks), this leaves a sticky residue which can be removed with solvents (being careful not to set fire to yourself of inhale the fumes, of course). The layer above this is a light foam which is again glued on. On some parts of the floor there are denser foam strips which can be pushed off with a blunt chisel. Under all this glue and matting is the main wiring! So I had to be rather careful with the chisel!
The drivers foot well as often come in for criticism for the lack of left foot room. It turns out that under the carpet on the side of the transmission tunnel there is half an inch of matting and a similar amount of sound deadening sheet, all of which is glued over the top of the large wiring loom, thus standing the whole assembly up to an inch off the tunnel. Having removed the sound deadening sheet and moved the loom up slightly, I refitted the carpet and now have plenty of clearance for my size 11 shoes!
Doors present a few challenges. The trim card has the usual press fitting round the edge which can be prised open with a flat blade screw driver, it also has two screws on a steel plate at the top front corner (the plate is for the door light switch to press against) plus some screws hidden under the cubby box thingy. Once all these are undone the thing was still as solid as before! There was a screw hidden under a cover at the front of the interior handle one behind the release leaver and the whole card is sitting on a metal tag which comes out of the arm rest so that you have to pull the whole assembly up before it will come off.
The central locking solenoid is located behind the anti intrusion member (big bit of steel running along the inside of the door) and is a sod to get at, once removed I was rather non-plussed to discover it only weighed half a kilo! I also removed the speaker, which was considerably easier and also weighed about half a kilo.
At first I was going to remove the electric mirrors and fit lighter racing items. However I discovered that they hardly weighed anything, again about half a kilo, and the saving with the racing items was negligible. Later I would find that having electrically adjustable mirrors whilst I was harnessed in would be invaluable.

Now the interior is demolished it is time to turn on the engine bay.
Starting in the middle I unbolt the air con pump and its silencer, yes the air con had a silencer and the whole lot weighed in at about 15kilos! The return pipe from the cabin to the pump goes through a fuel cooler; this cools fuel returning to the tank in order to keep evaporative emissions down. It also weighs something and we don’t need it. So I disconnect the fuel unions, remove the cooler and reconnect the return hose directly to the fuel regulator output.
Turning to the front, the condenser radiator was suffering ally rot and fell apart when lifted out!
Right then, what’s next for oblivion? The visco fan unit wastes a very small amount of power and, again, weighs something so it must go. As does the big heavy fan bearing and belt tensioner assembly, this comes out as a rather decorative complete assembly. Mine is in the garden as an ornament now, very fetching.
There is sound deadening foam on the bonnet, whilst this does not weigh very much it does reduce air flow round the ignition amp and might constitute a fire risk, so it’s a gonner. It is held on with glue and riveted plates round the edge, I drill out the rivets and attack it with a garden hoe. Job done. Neighbours looking at me a bit odd, wondering why I am hoeing a classic Jag…

It then started raining so I sat inside the car looking for bits to remove. It was time for the after market alarm system to be relocated to the bin. It is an amazingly complicated device with wires everywhere, ultrasonic detectors in the cabin, radio link under the passenger seat, siren under the bonnet and it has an immobiliser function (definitely not needed on a race track!). It is with some trepidation I start to untangle its web of intrigue because immobilisers often cut into the starter, ignition, fuel pump and other circuits in complicated ways. But this one amazingly just had a relay in the ignition feed at the coil, swapping just two wires completely defeated the system! All that complex computer controlled sophistication had been completely compromised by the monkey that installed it, unbelievable.

Finally, the boot was stripped of 4kg of trim, the 19kg spare wheel, 2kg of tool kit and 4kg of jack.

That lot together amounts to a saving of about 200Kg, so it still weighs the same as two MK1 Fiestas!
However, it is 11% lighter and so the power to weight ratio is 11% better, and all its cost me is the price of a chisel!