My goal is a street legal and relatively comfortable car that is as good as it can be on track for the occasional DE (NOT for racing).

My suspension meets that objective right now, and my focus for this Summer is going to be dropping weight but keeping the car comfortable. Here are my priorities. Input welcomed:

> Front and rear fiberglass bumpers. (-50#?)

> Swappable lightweight battery (Deka or similar). (-15#?)

> Yank out cruise control. (Doesn't work well anyway.)

> Pull radio and speakers. (Bring iPhone for entertainment.)

> Yank carpets, pull out insulation, re-install carpets. (How much weight will this save? I'm seeking an original look. Can carpet be put back in easily?)

> Rear seat delete (offset by roll bar).

Longer-term ideas:

> Sunroof delete.

> Lexan hatch.

 

Find the euro front and rear bumpers. You can save a little more than 15lbs per bumper for a total of roughly 35lbs over the stock bumpers.

I put in a an Odyssey PC680 in my n/a and had no problems even in the winter with it daily driving. Just have to remember dont sit for a long time with the car off and the radio on. This cut off about 27lbs from my stock sized Diehard battery which weighed about 40+ lbs.

My stainless 2.5'' SFR catback cut another 15lbs or so from the stock one.

The rear seatback i think was 10-15lbs, i removed it also to offset the weight of the Redline rollbar.

I also took out the spare tire, compressor and associated bits. I had no use for them anyhow because the spare didnt fit over the turbo brakes i had on the car anyhow.

If you still have stock seats in the car, think about an aftermarket recliner or a fixed back (even lighter). I had 4-way power sport seats in the car originally which weighed about 50lbs each.. an aftermarket recliner comes in about 30lbs with adapter base and sliders.

Those are just some things i did with my car, in total i knocked about 175lbs off the car adding up all those little things like carpet underliner...etc. I also did an a/c delete but only got as far as getting the compressor and bracket out.

 

Thanks. I did the seats (found Recaro recliners, but saved a lot of weight).

Where would I find euro bumpers?

Did you pull carpet liner out in the whole cabin? How hard was it to do?

 

Look on eBay.uk . I was able to find a rear for just under $225 shipped. the bumpers go for pennies over there, you end up paying the shipping essentially.

I did most of the underliner on the rear half of the car. The rear hatch carpet took forever, there is also another rubber mat that is glued to the chassis of the car that i took out (about 3lbs worth). I took the rear seats out also, but ended up putting them back in because the weight loss was not worth the amount of noise that was introduced into the cabin.

 

Be prepared for a _lot_ of noise if you pull the carpet and sound deadening. I just sold a street legal '83 track car that was stripped bare, and the thing was loud and HOT. I drove it to and (mostly) from the track only.

 

Hey Atomic Potomac, clean out your glove compartment. You might be carrying around a lot that you never need. Also pump out your window washer fluid. You can save up to 5 #. Go to lighter wheels.

 

easiest things: get rid of top of the back seat, get rid of the spare; light weight battery

my next stop is going to be a lightweight battery, but my computer crashed and I lost my link to the battery thread (and I can't find it again) - it had Odyssey, Braille, Decks mentioned in there

 

lol, excellant! I never thought of that one. I pulled a full reservoir out of a 931 once, and I'll bet it weighed at least 15lbs.

Pulling the rubber mat and fiberglass insulation from under the carpets is pretty easy, and I didn't notice much difference in noise after replacing the carpet. Just remove the seats, take off the plastic door sill trim, peel back the carpet, and yank the mats. I don't know what they weigh, but my passenger side mats were wet from a battery tray leak, and they must have weighed 30lbs soaked.

I would suggest leaving the lower part of the rear seat in. It only weighs a couple of pounds, and the difference in transaxle noise is frightening.

 

there are a lot of little things you can do. It just depends on far you want to go.

In addition to the euro bumpres you can remove the heavy bumper shocks and get lightweight aluminum brackets fabbed up. this will save you maybe 15# on a very bad location for weight.

you can also replace the glass sunroof with either a fiberglass one or better yet a CF one.

there are more but you get the idea.

 

leave the speakers and pull out the radio at the track, your iphone does not have enough power to keep you jamin' between DE's. Especially if your pulling the rear seat bottom and the carpet insulation. Hell i put a subwoofer box in place of the seat and it still gets more roadnoise than it did with the seat, i just can't hear it most of the time

 

I found a cool and very small iPod speaker set that's loud enough to hear above motor/road noise, so I took out the radio and speakers. Then I took the entire centre console out - will keep the glove box so I've still got somewhere to keep stuff.

Other stuff I did:
- removed under-carpet padding in hatch and at firewall
- converted powered items to manual - windows, mirrors, hatch release, and sunroof. There's so many German, typically over-engineered, and therefore heavy, servos in this car!
- removed spare wheel, tools, jack, etc.
- removed cruise control

Still a work in progress, but it's getting there. This is a street car, and I need to tote kids around so I need to keep the rear seats. I'm looking for a pair of rigid and lighter front seats, but my motor swap is taking all my funds right now.

 

with euro bumpers, don't forget that you can also replace the bumper shocks with little brackets. I would estimate that you save ~30lbs per bumper by replacing the metal piece with fiberglass, for around 60 lbs total, not to mention the improved aesthetics

You might want to also consider swapping torsion bars out for coilovers - some more weight to be saved there too

 

Convert sunroof to manual and remove the now unnecessary motor, track arm, cables, guide tubes, etc.

MN

 

I was forced to drive my car, as its my daily driver, while i was doing my interior swap. Driving the car without insulation and carpet was borderline unbearable. It was very stressful and uncomfortable to drive. The girls hated it lol. Driving on the street would not be a pleasurable experience. I would start with less drastic things. Like the power window motors, those things are heavy. Air con assembly is also very heavy. But if your not going to competitively race it, whats the point?

 

I've been driving without carpet or insulation due to the battery tray leak (almost fixed!), and you do get used to it, but your passengers don't. I was told that they practically had to yell at me so I would hear them, but I'm used to the noise level so I just speak louder. It's really up to you. You could save a few pounds taking out old stuff and putting in a new lightweight sound dampener in only a few spots, instead of covering the car in it, that might help. You could take out the hatch release motor, mine doesn't have it anyway, and I've been fine dealing with it. Also, there are two skid pans underneath the engine. The front one protects all the important stuff, but CG says in the oil change section that most people take off the rear one and leave it off because it's a hassle to get on and off after oil changes. I don't believe this would hurt, might take off a few pounds. Also: Removing bumperettes and filling in holes, then painting would help. You could take out the hood shocks, put in a metal arm somewhere. Could switch to euro lights and remove the motor and such stuff for your heavy normal headlights.

Depending on waist size, you could go on a rigid diet and make the car lighter that way too I remember seeing a thread about that a while back. The driver's in the car, so the lighter he/she is, the lighter the car is.