I have a 71 malibu I am working over. Does any one have some numbers on the weight reduction on going to a fiberglass hood and front quarter panels. if you can break it down that would be great. I am looking at running a 383 stroker at 420hp and really wonder if the expense of weight reduction for this week end cruiser is worth it.

Thanks guys

Gurdy,
At 420 HP, you're probably looking at mid-to-low 13's, depending on traction. The weight difference is really not gonna help all that much.
Also, You didn't specify if you were going to use the lightweight race fiberglass or the heavy duty street use fiberglass...Yeah, you guessed it; there really isn't that much weight savings if you go with the heavy duty stuff, but it holds up on real roads.

Check out USBody for specs on both types of these parts.

www.usbody.com (http://www.usbody.com)

Crankshaft

I just took off my Fenders, inner fender wells, and hood and weighed them. the weights are as shown:

Original parts:

Hood ~ 80 LB
ONE Fender ~ 35 LB
ONE Inner fender wells ~ 12 LB
Trunk Lid ~ 35 LB

Fiberglass Parts:

Hood ~ 10-15 LB
ONE Fender ~ 10-15 LB
Trunk Lid ~ 10-15 LB

Roughly 150 - 200 LB Saved by switching to fiberglass, and no inner fender wells.
Sorry for the iffy weights I was using my dads "needle" Bathroom scale, but I'm thinking about switching to fiberglass on my Chevelle.
Hope this helps.

Hey.... Dont forget the front bumper!!!

No inners with fiberglass fenders? You will be making more trips to the body shop than down the street. Every rock that your tire flips up is going to crack that fiberglass. I'm not positive on these numbers, but I think I remember something like every 100lbs is good for maybe .1 seconds off your quarter mile. Think of it this way, say you spend 1000 dollars on these new glass parts. Then you spend an extra 20 hours aligning these parts and getting them to look decent (this is not overkill on time either, these things look like hell from the factory), then down the road they may need repairs. Look at all the time and money you just sunk into shaving .15-.2 seconds off your quarter mile time. Even with just the 1k of buying the parts, you could've bought a 500-600 dollar nitrous system (or other speed part), spent 5 hours installing it, saved 400 dollars and 15 hours of your time. And you will easily shave .2 seconds off your quarter mile. My opinion, take it for what it's worth.