Can I remove the front bumper on my 91 GT without the cover saggin?
 

I'm lookin to strip all unneccessary weight off my daily driver and I already got 292 lbs out of the ole girl with a full interior still in place (you couldnt even tell by lookin in it). The rear bumper is gone! I'm thinking that maybe the front bumper should be my next victim and I was wondering if that flappy, loose bumper cover is going to make a sad face in short order or if it will retain it's shape on it's own. BTW... I have the fogs clamped directly to the cover

That may not be a good idea, if you hit anyone, or anyone backs into you at ANY speed, it will destroy the front end.

Also, it may affect your airbag, so be careful.

friend of mine took em both off ,the front looks fine ....the cover itself can support itself ,but my friend added a few small sheet metal supports so it didn't sag after time

but .....my friends car is not a daily driver ......on a daily driver i wouldn't recommend it ....if sombody backs into you at 2mph it'll destroy the cover and probly bend up the radiator supports or the radiator

another option is to take a 1 inch drill bit and drill a few hundred holes in the bumper ..........it'll cut its weight in half and you'll still have a little protection agianst the soccer moms in parking lots

Oh, I've already encountered this phenoma on the rear bumper when I backed into my fence at like 1/2 a mph and a huge chunk of paint flaked off the rear bumper. Some imbecile painted the bumpers with rigid paint so huge chunks of paint fall off all the time and this flexing might help me to get rid of it so I can paint the rubber black. Whadda think, purple/black 2 tone?

Hey, look at it this way, I've got EXCELLENT crumple zones now! =P

I have done this to several cars. What i always do is get some of that spray foam stuff that expands as it drys from the hardware store and spray it in the bumper cover to support it without any support i have seen them flatten out against the radiator at the big end of the track on fast cars.

Fiberglass
 

Unless the 91's are different, my '87 LX has a fiberglass front bumper. The pair of late '80's GT's that I've been robbing parts from at the Junkyard also have the 'glas bumpers. Not really enough weight to lose on a daily driver to be worth the risk. I was thinking of removing them until I discovered this (and thought about what a crash would do to my $7000 engine without the bumper).

Yeah, but those bumper supports are solid metal! I have the pair of them out and they are heavy as lead. My nose actually rose up a bit, which make me happy after my motorsport c springs dropped it to the ground.

I'm working on the rear supports and the passenger side one is a real stubborn little &*%#$. I stripped the bolt and now trying in vein to drill through it or grind it off

So how did you drop 300 lbs outta of the car? Can you explian in detail?

I drilled 5 holes 1 inch in diameter in the front bumper, for better air flow to help prevent the bumper cave in at the end of the track and also to help with cooling while driving on the street. I left the rear stuff in because I want that weight to help me hook. I have the hardest time hooking already. With all that I have for suspension, the best 60ft I can pull is a 1.9 on the drag radials.

My front bumper has been gone for quite a while, with no side effects.

Hate to be a downer kind of guy, but... think of the liabilty. You have to rear bumper removed already, what if someone hits you? Well your ok, it your choice, but what about your ol' lady? friends? You think they won't sue after they're laid up in a wheel chair? put the dam things back in. Its just asking for trouble. besides, I think you'll probaly go faster with back one on, like USMC302 said. Your only looking to gain, maybe 10-15 pounds on the front. Probaly not that much. Whats that? 10 to 15 thousands? Not worth it.

this is for you rpm427

This is what I've pulled so far

removed a/c compressor
removed all tubes and hoses for heater core
removed hood heatshield pad
battery to the trunk
rewired entire enginebay and dash, no wires hangin out anywhere!
moved ignitionbox, coil and most vacuum lines into fender
stripped cruise components
Stripped airbag sensors and airbag and brackets
Stock fuel pump removed along with all relays and wiring
stock EEC-4 removed with all relays and 25 lbs of wiring
Pulled all soundproofing except under carpet
Removed frame for dashboard (doesnt need it)
pulled entire fan and heater tract assembly including parts in dash
Installed 130 cfm pc fan hooked to central vents with tube pickup off headers
disabled rear defroster assembly and pulled all relays and wiring
Pulled radio support bracket
Pulled shifter boot plate
cut all wiring to console
Replaced armrest unit with 90' convertible plate
removed back seat support frame flipdowns
removed back seat support bars (it's SO soft now!)
removed rear bumper I-beam and supports
removed rear axle damper
removed pinion snubber strike plate
removed spare tire + jack + iron (never came with one)
removed tire well plate
removed front bumper and support beams

-315 pounds + tire/jack/iron (65 lbs?) and still going (~380 lbs)

with all that weight off the front, the nose rose up in the air, so a set of motorsport "c" springs really helped out. Yes, the rear seats are perfectly usable and they are so comfy now. If one leaves the center pivot and has the luggage cover bar, the seats stay put. The entire heater tract was removed and I hooked up a 130 cfm pc fan (than uses practically no power) to the central vents and snaked a tube from the back of the fan through the old evaporator core drain location to the back of the headers so it sucks in hot air off the top of the pipes. Works great, saved me about 80 pounds and cleaned up the enginebay a lot.

The carb conversion helped greatly. Wow, there's almost 25 lbs of wiring in these cars, most of it goes nowhere. I only have 1 intake now and I love the throttle response.

As for liability and so forth, would that crappy fiberglass board really make any difference, I dont think so. Besides, there's still tons of iron inbetween me and whatever it is that I'm colliding with. As for the rear, there's an entire cabin that has to collapse before I get hurt. I think I'm ok. Besides, I usually hit things sliding sideways anyhow =P

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention for all you soundsystem freaks....

If you hollow out the interior under the plastic, the entire body acts as a woofer box. I have a plain jane $150 single speaker jbl woofer hooked to a medium nothing special kenwood amp with bridged outputs and the speakers just hooked to the stock amp.

It SHAKES the house! I can make the garage doors violently flap against their hinges. This is with the amp gain turned down to .7 out of possible 3 and the bass on the stock radio turned to midway.

GRIN GRIN GRIN

Your my kinda guy.

That fiberglass bar makes a huge difference !!! A 15 MPH parking lot crash without an impact bar can total that car before you can blink ! Any kind of major crash with what you have removed from the car could be fatal to you or anybody you have in the car with you. Cars today are engineered to collapse in a very controlled and specific way. You start pulling pieces out and it totally screws up the engineering. That ton of iron you talk about is mush to another 3500 lb car. What you're doing may be ok for a track car but its suicide in a street car ! Oh and if you wreck that thing and the appraiser who inspects it sees the missing bar and all the missing braces, which he will, you won't get squat because you've violated your insurance policy. I'm not talkin out of my *** either, i look at wrecked cars for a living ... every day all day long. From Saleen S-7's to old Hugos ... Hit in every conceivable way, from every conceivable angle.
You're driving around in a thin sheet metal skeleton, and if some old lady suddenly turns left in front of you, your car will probably end up just another twisted hulk with a body cover and a pair of discarded latex gloves laying on the seat and bio hazard scribbled in grease pencil on the side ... i'll be lookin at rows and rows of em bright and early tomorrow morning. Do yourself a favor, don't get lulled into thinking that stuff you're taking out of your car don't make a difference, because it could easily cost you your life !
Geeze that looks like i should have called it structural secrets #1 :rolleyes:

yeah i thought the plastic bumper was weak to before i was in a bad wreck and ran into a car that pulled out in front of me going about 70 mph, checked the plastic bumper, not even a crack. i also don't think it is a good idea, but its your car and your life, myself i would look for another way to add horsepower to make up for removing the front bumper which wouldn't be much.

Just my 2 cents to add to this post. Wouldn't it be a lot safer to try and add a couple extra horse power, or hookup better to lower E.T.'s I cant imagine the extra 15pounds of weight is worth the consiquences in an accident on a street car. Always remember accidents are never planned!

Yeah, ok

I guess all you guys are right. It's only fifteen pounds anyway and the way people are driving these days...it's like noone else pays attention to the road

Man it's up to you, it's your car. I was about to do mine and I wasn't worried about the saftey thing, only reason I didn't do it was because I didn't want it to screw up the front paint on the bumper. My friends have done this and they kind of flap going down the road and with you having rigid paint on it, it'll probably look like crap in a bit.
I just thought I'd throw this in here though, mustangs aren't very tough anyways compared to other cars. This is what happened to my last car when a 16 year old girl decided she wanted to drive down MY SIDE of the road.
http://pages.moparalley.org/HotRod/dead/May20$02.JPG
The Cavalier won that battle easilly, it amazed me how easilly it killed my stang.