Compact Armor:     $13 and 6 lbs. per point

Ram Plate (Heavy): Costs 1.5 times front armor $
                   Weighs .5 times front armor wt

Ram Plate (Light): Costs .75 times front armor $
                   Weighs .25 times front armor wt

Gunner:            150 lbs., 2 spaces

Links:             $50

Examples:

The Napalm and the Dagger are very similar vehicles-- they are both compacts mounting light ramplates.  The Dagger has slightly better armor, but only half the firepower.  Both cars have equally poor handling, but the Dagger has twice the acceleration.  Let's see if we can heighten the contrast between these two vehicles.

The Napalm schematic does not illustrate the light ram plate.  To make a variant model without it, we subtract $283 and 44 lbs from the cost of the original stock Napalm.  Then we can add 21 points of armor for $273 and 126 lbs.  Note that this puts us 126 pounds over the original weight.  Without the full design rules, we don't know for sure if this impacts the vehicles acceleration or chassis limit.  Additional "reverse engineering" could settle this question.  This variant costs $4,988 and weighs 3,676 lbs.

The Dagger is pictured as having a gigantic ram plate... but the designers of this set gave it only a light one.  We can drop 23 points of armor on the vehicle and drop $299 from the cost and 138 lbs from the weight.  Then we can upgrade the ramplate to a heavy for $292 and 135 lbs and have a final cost and weight that is only a little bit shy of the original values.  We can have a fairly strong confidence that this variant would be consistent with the unpublished 5th edition design rules, but the confetti number may have dropped a point or two. This variant costs $4,987 and weighs 2,914 lbs.

Note that messing with the ramplates can be a little math intensive-- and we may not know for sure if we're following the rules or not when we do that.  Let's try a couple of variants that don't fool with such things.

Start with the stock Napalm.  Remove one FT and the link.  We can now make an up-armored version that adds 83 points of armor to anywhere but the front.  I would probably move the remaining FT to the side and load up a great deal of armor on that facing-- the side is easier to hit.  We end up with a car running $4,993 and weighing 3,359 lbs-- slightly less than the original design for both cost and weight.

Suppose a duellist wins an Amatuer Night event and wants to fix up his car.  He'll be taking it on the road, so he needs a more well rounded vehicle than an arena car.  He could remove one FT and the link, and then add an SD (explosive), a gunner, and 15 points of armor added to anywhere but the front.  His car would cost $4,994 and weigh 3,498 lbs.  He could still take it into a Division 5 duel if he wanted to.