Windshield wiper motor delete

Wipers are not required.  Rain-X is your friend.

The miniscule amount of time that you save by removing that pound of weight will be offset by a magnitude of time in the penalty box if you have an off and penalty because you couldn't see the track properly. Especially if it happens during an all-course yellow, which happens more frequently in heavy rains. IMHO, that math don't add up, and as a result, my MR2 still has both wipers. YMMV. Good luck.

saturday at stafford last year ended with a big downpour.  we had done the wiper removal and rain-x/defogger on the windshield did nothing.  driver couldn't see crap.  good thing they called it early for the night or he woulda ended up in the wall

At T-Hill someone went 4 wheels off and splattered bits of mud on our windshield. Our driver hit the wipers and watched the harmless dirty bits get smeared into a nice tan layer of "@#$% where did the track go".

Wipers without washers are not always a good thing.

Adding to the drama, our wiper linkage is jacked and the 3 blades (THREE!) barely move, taking 15 seconds or so to do one swipe. So he got to see the upcoming blindness arrive in agonizing slow motion detail!

Ugh.

I meant this mostly in jest, and mostly because the wiper assemblies get in the way of access to the rear spark plugs. (Ok, everything gets in the way of everything else in said engine compartment.)

Your point about washers is well taken. That leads me to a question. If you're going to have a removable hood, where do you relocate the washers to - the fenders?

The '09 Lamest Day's Friday practice is a perfect reason to not only keep the wipers, but make sure they work properly.  It rained like crazy all day and night.  We got rid of the steering column stalks, so we replaced the wiper switch with a toggle to turn them on to high speed.  They no longer autopark, but that's not really a problem.  Along those lines, we did the same thing with the HVAC system.  We have no dash, so the cables and control panel are gone.  Since the race was in October and rain was likely, we locked the heater box on defrost and full hot, then we used a toggle switch to turn the fan on to high speed.  This could also be used in case the engine gets too hot.  The driver suffers, but it adds cooling capacity.

the weight saved on wipers could be negated by taking a large dump before the race.

better to have them since we race in rain too.

OK my reply is two fold...

We raced Toledo a few years ago with a lexan windsheild and Rain-X worked VERY well.  Didn't have a problem with visability.

But on the other paw we ran Nelson with a new car WITH wipers and that was so much better.  My advice is to just leave the wipers in, the small amount of weight is more then worth it when the car in front of you sprays your windscreen at 80MPH.

It will, but maybe more important, unless the Lexan is very thick and/or backed up with lots of bracing, the windshield will distort a little in the wind, and it can be hard to get a consistent sweep....of course the wiper will refuse to make contact directly in the driver's line of sight...I've known very weight conscious rally guys who run glass for this reason.

50 is cheap for a PC windshield....used glass is about half the price of Lexan up here...