Car weight

[lip]

[Hidden_Hunter]

Originally Posted by lip

I made my stock 1.4 corsa sport (90PS) lighter some months ago:

Garbage, books, CDs, tools you never use, and all the other stuff lying around
-30 kg

Backseats
-60 kg

Rear speakers
-10 kg

Wheel caps
-4 kg

Stock front spoiler
-1 kg

Sure, it doesn't look like much, but the car had only around 850kg with the stuff, without it is down to 750kg. Needs 1Liter/100km less. I drive 25000km a year. Saves me 425.- Swiss Francs per year. Not bad. Thats 30% of the insurance costs or 4000km driving "for free".

If you wanna make your car lighter for the same reason, then good for you. If you wanna make it lighter to put some ricer shit on afterwards... go to hell. Like all the other wannabe lookatme Iamsooo-individuaaal idiots.

Greetings, lip

I kinda like using my rear speakers and my rear seats....

Obviously those sorts of financial gains are only going to be realized in countries with really expensive petrol

[fbc]

Originally Posted by Magnet

This from a while ago:

http://www.daleholley.com/nissan.htm

Thanks for bringing that up from my memory - gold.

[JipJopJones]

^^^ HAHA!!!!!!!!! THAT'S HILARIOUS!!! I love how well it worked!

[hansvonaxion]

Originally Posted by lip

I made my stock 1.4 corsa sport (90PS) lighter some months ago:

Garbage, books, CDs, tools you never use, and all the other stuff lying around
-30 kg

Thats a lot of garbage!

Originally Posted by lip

Backseats
-60 kg

Are you sure? 60kg?! Seems like a lot to me, but I never actually pulled them out of my Corsa (Barina GSi). Is it because theyre split/folding?

Originally Posted by lip

Rear speakers
-10 kg

Surely not stock rear speakers, you must be talking about subs, right? They were only little 4" speakers in the back.

[bone]

^i wrote a similar post, and then realised the numbers where so exagurated, he must be joking

a backseats weighs 6kg, at most, not 60

[lip]

No ricers here
I love the fact one of you first made some harsh response, and later edited it a bit to tone it down, because he realised the ricer-joke only after some time.

Seriously:
Of course the numbers are far to big, I took all those the things out, but all weigth saving was of course way less in total. The backseats were split folding, and had some steel plates in the back, but one person could lift all three bench peaces together without problems. And I don't listen music often in my car. Infact I don't like it. Hence the rear speakers had to go. But in reality they are very tiny and light, like hansvonaxion said. The main reason for throwing the back seats out was simply the need for load space during holidays. Two bikes and the stuff for two people needs space. And since I bougt the car I allways hated the fact that the seats could not be fully folded down. So I took them out. After the holiday, I threw them away. Corsa station wagon.

Greetings, lip

[hansvonaxion]

The second part of your post about fuel economy made it seem like you were serious. I thought maybe youd never been to gym!

The rear seats in my Corsa, first the back folds down, then you you lift a tab on the floor and the bottom lifts up so the whole seat sits behind the front seats. Know what I mean? Made it pretty spacious. I like that car until my wife rolled it!

[lip]

I drive a 13 jears old Corsa B Sport. No modern rear seat folding. You could only fold the two backrests down. But not flat. They still had some steep angle and used a lot of space. But thrown out togehter with the horizontal bench piece, and the load space now goes the full lengt down to the car steel floor. A real station wagon, now.

Greetings, lip

[zenkidori]

you could drill speed holes, that makes your car light and fast.

also if you're in the US you can cut off the rebar on your bumper, cut the hood support out, gut your body panels, remove the AC, heater core, power steering, audio system, brakes and differential. you also want to remove unsprung weight by getting rid of half the lug studs and nuts, get smaller wheels(like off a wheelbarrow) and fill the tires with less air. drain your blinker fluid(you don't need it anyway) and remove the muffler bearings.

[Ottobon]

real weight savings, as in taking 800lbs off a 2300lb car, comes from literally ripping the car apart and doing away with whatever doesn't need be their,

Its they addition, or should i say subtraction of many little peices that leads to super-light racecars.


Some realistic options?

Battery-If your engine doesnt require to many cranking amps switch to a 15lbs battery like a Odyssey PC680, its about 20-30lbs lighter then most standard batteries, and seeing how batteries are usually mounted up high and far from the center of the car it can really help to loose some weight there. My PC 680 never let me down unless i didn't run the car for a week in below freezing weather, more importantly though it seemed to fully charge in just minutes!

Tubular Header: Besides possibly giving the car a better sound as well as better perfomance tubular headers can usually be good for a 20-50lb reduction depending on engine type and size, just dont buy OBX/Ebay headers, those things sound like shit


Spare Tire-Jack- Replace with a can of "fix a flat" and a good insurance agency, easy 30lbs

Aluminum Bumper Reinforcements- If you have old steel bumpers you can save about 40-50lbs by going aluminum (ive heard steel bumpers can be as much as 90lbs on each end), this requires a bit of fabrication and precision work on your part to make it work safely, BUT bumpers are at the far ends of the cars and pretty high up, making them "dirty weight."


A/C- I wouldnt take mine out as i like A/C too muc, but it can be worth 40+lbs if you remove all of the A/C related systems. The heaveist part of the A/C, the compressor, is usually mounted very low in the engine and near the center of the car, so its rather "clean" weight

Sound Deadening- Not worth it in my opinion (especially as i drive rather niosy cars already), but if you chip out all the hardened sludge and take out the matts it can be worth 25-100+ depending completely on the car


ill post some more later when i remember them, but thats basically the jist of all the reasonable stuff you can do to a road car without effecting any of its drivability (a/c, and sound deadening removal not withstanding)

Originally Posted by epp_b

I think I see where this is going

says the man who thinks fartcans looks cool, i call bullshit on you sir

stripped cars dont have to look stupid, this is Steve Hoelschers 1750lb (with ballast!) mki MR2, the car started out at about 2300lbs!

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Lambos r4ever

So removing that and the backseats are probably the only way to loose weight without going extreme right? (ex. removing airbags, carbon fiber components). Also how much weight loss will that amount to?

I once stripped a 1982 Jetta of the entire interior except for the dash shell and the two front seats and it only got me about 45 pounds. The real question in this case is what are you trying to achieve with this lightness? Sometimes you can save up to 50 pounds simply by changing to an aftermarket exhaust!

Give us some details on your goal here and it might be a bit easier to help you with what parts need to go or be replaced. I will tell you though that is most cases it is hardly worth the effort. If I remember correctly the general rule of thumb is every 100 pounds lost equals a tenth of a second on a drag strip, so it is a lot of work for a very small reward. In most cases the easiest place to lose weight is your waistline and just leave the car alone!

EDIT: That DP Solo-2 car above looks HOTTTT!!!

[MadCow809]

Originally Posted by Ottobon

and despite all the weight saving, all the stickers made it heavy again XD

[thedguy]

Originally Posted by zenkidori

you could drill speed holes, that makes your car light and fast.

also if you're in the US you can cut off the rebar on your bumper, cut the hood support out, gut your body panels, remove the AC, heater core, power steering, audio system, brakes and differential. you also want to remove unsprung weight by getting rid of half the lug studs and nuts, get smaller wheels(like off a wheelbarrow) and fill the tires with less air. drain your blinker fluid(you don't need it anyway) and remove the muffler bearings.

The blinker fluid is very important! If the self cancellation fails it's there to keep the bulb from over heating and causing the car to burst into flames.

Whatever you do, DO NOT REMOVE THE BLINKER FLUID! It's a safety thing. Race cars can do it because they don't need their blinkers and just remove them.

[Lambos r4ever]

Thanks guys, I was basically just curious about weight saving techniques and wanted to get a general idea. For the immediate future atleast, I won't shed any weight.

[Ottobon]

Originally Posted by MadCow809

and despite all the weight saving, all the stickers made it heavy again XD

we'll its worthwhile when people actually pay you to have their brand and or in the case of Terrie Howard, their name

[Steve Levin]

Originally Posted by Viper007Bond

Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows true horsepower comes from stickers.

Dude...don't you know:

[sonza68]

While not a standard car, a pretty thorough breakdown of the Federal Elise is given in this thread.

[Lambos r4ever]

That's what I was looking for, thanks. Wow the A/C and seats weigh a lot less than I thought.

[sonza68]

Keep in mind that the Elise seats are essentially just fiberglass shells with minimal padding and some fabric stretched over them. No power adjustment (I don't think they adjust at all, except that the driver's seat slides fore and aft) or side airbags in them which would add a lot of weight.