Heh... well mines gonna be a daily-driven street car. The windows roll down nice, they shut nice, and i'd like to keep it that way.

So what you're saying as that there is NO structure in the door?

The majority to a doors structural strength at least as far as the early B-bodies is the inner door panels themselves and two cross bridge gussets at the doors inner front hinge areas. I suspect that the other year and make doors are more or less the same except for the safety crash bar doors of 73' and up.
Now as DVW has done, his car is a one purpose car that sees little to none hard usage in opening/closing of doors and functional windows and such, so no worries there. His effort as a race car is the extreme of weightlessness (done beautifully) without adverse impact to that type of usage. Could it be used in such way on the street? maybe, but not without a concerted effort by the driver to be gentle with it and taking into account the grind of your teeth on the integrity of the door in a high usage environment as time goes on.
If you are using doors and windows as in a street car, I would keep the inner door metal panels in place, but gut them strategically so as to keep 'em strong and functioning and give a little teeny, puny, itty-bitty, petite, level of safety in a collision.
Just keep in mind that doors before the mid 70's were relatively light in structure. It is the inner workings of window rooster cranks, window glass,frames, lock mechanisms and even the crank handles/levers themselves that are heavy, not to mention the crash beams.
Crash beams are for just that, crashes. Do they take away from the doors ability to keep shape/form, no. unless of course, a crash like with any other door.

Thats all i needed to hear. I can be nice, and i'm not worried about crashes (i drove a rusty Pinto for a year, and i'm driving a 2500lb Toyota right now.... I'm a gambler). As long as the things dont warp just driving/closing/operating windows i'm fine.

FMJ,when you come out,,,,,,,,,bring your hole saw collection!!In the easter/passover spirit lets get HOLY!

That's cheating!!! A Hemi and a blower...You don't need no stinking holesaws...

LOL.
The Holy water will boil when we step into the room. I feel like most cars need an exorcism of some sought.
I have every size of saws available.

talk soon.

Take your sweet time cutting at the beams. I've heard that they tend to come out in two parts. Also heard the spot welds are to be drilled out and the beams cut down the middle vertically with a small die grinder or cutting wheel.

What exactly is involved w/ removing the crash beam from a door? Can you get in there to cut it w/o butchering the door itself?
Do you cut it in 3 places....at each end to separate it from the door and the down the middle to make it easier to remove?
Or do you have to drill spot welds out? Then you're left w/ holes in the door?

On my Challenger race car, I removed the glass drilled the spot welds out then cut the beam in the center with my plasma cutter. I slipped some sheet metal between the skin and beam before I cut. Worked fine.

On another note I have been looking for plastic headlamps for years and have never found any. The car has to have headlamps. Someone has to have a source.

Is it possible to do the inside of the doors and retain the window regulator>>

I have a little Jenny Craig wispering in my ear 32 hrs a day,,,,,,,,,,,

This thread is so large that people either have forgotten some of the picture posts or never got to catch up. I have gutted my inner door panels to the point where I removed about 4 Lbs from each door IIRC and the window regulators and lock mechanisms work just fine.
Some may not do it because of the amount of work and planning that goes with it, but every ounce counts as they say.

When I get a moment, I'll re-post my inner door pictures. The Lexan windows go up and down fairly well with a little guidance when they reach the top channels. This is of course, on a post sedan type of door.
Yes, I've heard that the beams in some cases had to come out in three parts and with care. Spot welds do need to be drilled out.
I removed the ones out of my Diplomat in two parts and it did not take out so much weight, but then again, Dippy doors are smaller than those mile long landscape Challenger and Charger doors.

Yeah he does, Full size Elephant are heavy
N/A Wedge motors rule Hook and Book

Cab,you know cause you been there & done that

What's better than a boosted HEMI?

And setting the block back a few inches,what's that worth?

Here's a door again, though it was done somewhat crudely, once the interior dress panel was installed, it all disappeared.
This was the furthest extent that was capable of shaving some decent pounds, but still keep the door functional like stock.

My hat is off to all of you street racers that have done all that work to make the cars lighter
My Duster weighed 3450 lbs. with me in it, I did not build it to be light I never thought that car could or would run 10.00 on pump gas at that weight through the exhaust system on Oregon 91 octane pump swill
The next one will be a lot lighter than the old one
the new "pump gas" motor will make a lot more power now that I know what a good set of heads will do to make more power

Rather quite impressive to go that fast on pump corn and at that ballast back in the day. Combo's in the modern era are so much more obtainable and manageable with great heads on top of relatively small cubes like Cab mentioned

I personally built my rig to be light based on a few reasons.
First was the love for the factory hot rod effort back in the day which were turned too expensive for my wallet and sanity to own one of those gems. In the interim, what crawled into the project was the arts.
This project has turned a leaf in concept and process and has become a rolling sculpture of art to be exhibited in the future believe it or not. It's just a long process in the research, planning and development in order to reach that point.
Second was for reliability in a small package while it loiters out in the public.
What turned out was a fast package in an even lighter set up compared to the factory hot rods themselves and probably at the price point of insanity. LOL
What I can lay claim to is that it has been fun while it was incognito back in the day, but where it has been more fun is trading idea cards with y'all and only getting more funner and funnier as a civilian funny car.
The one thing that I can not lay claim to is that it moves its own weightlessness on pump since it's on a steady diet of Mo-jo.
Carry on guys, just don't carry the weight. LOL.

Im building a 68 Dart with 426 and looking for any way to lighten it,reading everyones post is very interesting... I'll admit to going too far (timewise) but it was a challenge. I bought one of the Mopar crossram intakes and was surprised how heavy, just a click under 47 pounds. OUCH. So I looked it over and decided to put it on a diet, after many hours on the mill I pulled off over 7 pounds of aluminum. There are parts of that manifold that are over 3/4" thick, they dont need to be. I happened to have a mill so off I went whittling away. At first it was pretty straight forward, trim a little here and there then it got serious. I did this a few years ago and am looking for the photos of the aluminum pile that stacked up around the mill. lol

I started using GreenLee knockouts instead of holesaws for most of my hole cutting...less chips and cleaner holes.

I had to buy some of Greenlee Chassis punches for my pay Phone guy back when I supervised the pay phone guys many years ago.
Those punches are the cat meow Not cheap though, but no good tools are