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weight reduction?


Guest gimpy21
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Guest gimpy21
is there anyone on CR that can help me with reducing the weight of my car? i have an acura legend and the damn thing wheighs almost 2 tons. and im not talking about just removing seats and such, i want to know if there is stuff i absolutly dont need? air conditioner, and other components? so if there is anyone that can help me, it would be appreciated..... thanks......
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Well, you could start by taking out the spare tire, jack, but not the lug wrench (you never know when you'll need it). And then if you want to get a little more extreme, but want to be able to put the car back together easily you take out the seats....all but the driver's seat. You could take out all your stereo equipment, and if you still want to listen to some music take out everything but the deck and front speakers.
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I've found quite a bit of extra weight in my car so I will give you a list of all the stuff I removed for ideas.

 

Spare tire, jack, and rear seats took almost 100lbs out. Plus this is something you can put back in when your done racing or whatever.

 

I have those gay electric seatbelts that run on tracks so there are tracks, motors, and all kinds of other neat stuff in there that is useless (just remember to put some kind of useful restraint in its place if you actually have that crap and remove it ;) ). Might want to pull up your carpet also and look for sound deadeners. There were small sand bags and all sorts of noise coating stuff under there in my car. I've also had my dash out and ripped every uneeded wire out from in there. I have a huge pile of cruddy radio wiring and factory alarm wiring, and other stuff that wasn't in use any more anyway.

 

Convert any electric options such as windows and mirrors to manual and pull out all the wiring and motors etc that go along with them. Remove your seat heaters and associated wiring if you have them or switch to a nice light set of seats.

 

Removing the A/C got rid of about 60 more pounds of junk. The compressor and condesor alone weighed quite a bit. Also if you have a factory electric fan you could check the weight of that. I just pulled one and replaced it with an aftermarket fan from jegs which weighed about 1/10th as much as the factory unit, and pushes quite a bit more air too.

 

I have some other things that I am going to do but they dont really fit the description you were looking for since it seems you want a nice comfy driver too. I think in all just removing those things listed was close to 250 pounds of junk.

 

-jeff

 

[ 16 October 2002, 08:21 AM: Message edited by: fush ]

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slim fast works well, or if your an extremist you can do the !arm and !left leg mod. could drop 50lbs with those mods. only do those if you have a automatic transmisson, you'll be screwed if its a stick.

 

i need to put my pig on a diet too.

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dude, remove allt he seats, including the drivers seat. Pick up on of these:

http://www.jegs.com/photos/57017400.jpg

$84 from Jegs w/o the cover, cover is another $50.

You're a clever cracka, you can make up a bracket for it. You can swap seats in and out as you please.

If you're serious, race car serious, tear every interior peice out (carefull with the air bags). You dont need much of a dash, just the gauges, center console, sound dedening material, get it da hell up out.

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you can also gut some other stuff look for bracing in the doors (you have to cut it out) there will also be bracing between the trunk and rear seat cut it too then look at the brakcets that hold up body panels and bumpers remove the unnesecary ones and drill a bunch of half inch holes int the ones you have to keep rip out the headliner HTH
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Originally posted by VTEC Wheels ®:

Well, you could start by taking out the spare tire, jack, but not the lug wrench (you never know when you'll need it). And then if you want to get a little more extreme, but want to be able to put the car back together easily you take out the seats....all but the driver's seat. You could take out all your stereo equipment, and if you still want to listen to some music take out everything but the deck and front speakers.

What good is a lug nut wrench with no spare tire? :confused:
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Originally posted by bigbabyjesus:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by VTEC Wheels ®:

Well, you could start by taking out the spare tire, jack, but not the lug wrench (you never know when you'll need it). And then if you want to get a little more extreme, but want to be able to put the car back together easily you take out the seats....all but the driver's seat. You could take out all your stereo equipment, and if you still want to listen to some music take out everything but the deck and front speakers.

What good is a lug nut wrench with no spare tire? :confused: </font>in case you have to smack someone down when you sandbag them and they want to whip your ass at 2 am and your all alone :D;)tongue.gif

 

[ 16 October 2002, 05:13 PM: Message edited by: BROKEN BUICK ]

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Originally posted by bigbabyjesus:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by VTEC Wheels ®:

Well, you could start by taking out the spare tire, jack, but not the lug wrench (you never know when you'll need it). And then if you want to get a little more extreme, but want to be able to put the car back together easily you take out the seats....all but the driver's seat. You could take out all your stereo equipment, and if you still want to listen to some music take out everything but the deck and front speakers.

What good is a lug nut wrench with no spare tire? :confused: </font>Because you can always find someone with a jack, just not always someone with the same size lug nuts.
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One of the simplest ways to reduce weight is to get headers to replace the stock cast manifolds, and to get a light stainless or titanium exhaust. Replace the cat(s) with test pipes. They're heavy.

 

Lightweight battery (Optima, Hawker Genesis, etc) will cut some out also.

 

Lighter rims and tires are a given.

 

Some people remove bumper supports, but I'm not a big fan of that.

 

Have less gas in the tank when you race. A gallon of gasoline is pretty heavy.

 

Lighter seats are also a good one, as mentioned.

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Dude, you have a luxury car. Why remove the luxury? Thats like me taking the climate control, power windows and locks, TV, DVD player, stereo, and leather out of my cadillac. Why? Doesnt make much sense to me. I understand the want/need to go faster, but why ruin a nice car for a few tenths?
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Nick....it isn't "your" Caddy. smile.gif

 

Mark, Optima's are far from light, sadly.

 

Really, it depends on how much you are willing to spend, and how extreme you really want to go.

 

Let me give you an example. My car is a freaking pig; EASILY weighs more than stock (how much, I dunno). My only weight reduction would be the Fiberglass Ram-Air hood, yanked spare, jack, and lug wrench, and removed rear seats and belts. BUT, I've added a full stereo system, nitrous bottle, cage, heavy ass subframe connectors, heavier than stock torque arm, etc.

 

So, what are my options?? Well, I'm yanking the A/C this winter; there goes around 65lbs. Gonna run skinnies at the track next year; easily 50lbs, plus that is unsprung weight and less rolling resistance. Gonna do lightweight K-member and upper/lower A-arms next year (that is another 42lbs). A guy I've been talking to on another board may be fabbing up a new alternator/PS bracket for people who yank their A/C and don't want to just run a 1LE pulley, which would save another 5-10 lbs. If I would run Percy's Speed glass ($1000, ouch), it is safe for the street and shaves ANOTHER 64lbs. Wow, add all that up, and I'm already at over 200lbs, in all the right places I might add. Yanking the airbags would put me even further, though I doubt I'd ever do that. BMR created a lightweight front bumper support; that would shave another 7lbs in the extreme nose of the car. A REAL lightweight battery can save another 20lbs or so.

 

See, and that's not even going nuts; all of that stuff and all I would loose is my A/C that I never use anyway. If I were to make some REAL sacrifices, I could loose a LOT more weight (yank my Corbeau seats for some aluminum seats, yank the power steering, all of the carpet insulation (or hell interior for that matter), and countless other things. Personally, I'll be happy if I yank 200 lbs off of my car.

 

Basically, you just have to think about what you want and don't want on the car, and what you are willing to give up. And some cars just have more weight they can shave than others (depends on the aftermarket of available lightweight parts too, which is very strong for F-body's).

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