I just took 20 ounces off of the front end...
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DIY King
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I just took 20 ounces off of the front end... Yeah, that's right. I'm into weight reduction now. Hey, it's practically free! 
What I did was take off the brackets under the headlights. The ones that let the front bumper cover slide under the headlights and snap into place. They weigh 11.1 ounces each. Since my Tsunami front bumper doesn't use those at all I decided to get rid of them. Although I needed to fabricate a bracket to hold up the headlight in one corner. It was pretty easy. I made it out of a thick piece of aluminum and I drilled some holes in it. Each of my brackets weighs 1.1 ounces. That means I got rid of 20 ounces of weight from the front of the car. 16 ounces is one pound. I'm happy. More weight reduction to come...
What I did was take off the brackets under the headlights. The ones that let the front bumper cover slide under the headlights and snap into place. They weigh 11.1 ounces each. Since my Tsunami front bumper doesn't use those at all I decided to get rid of them. Although I needed to fabricate a bracket to hold up the headlight in one corner. It was pretty easy. I made it out of a thick piece of aluminum and I drilled some holes in it. Each of my brackets weighs 1.1 ounces. That means I got rid of 20 ounces of weight from the front of the car. 16 ounces is one pound. I'm happy. More weight reduction to come... Last edited by Grey; Jun 12, 2003 at 01:39 PM.
I read the other post and all i was thinking was (are you serious grey? acid bumper? )
Anyways, 20 ounces of weight sounds good, but what it is gonna do?( i think my wallet weights more than 20 ounces) How about taking the back seats out.
-deck and speakers, if you don't want music
-powersteer unit
-abs unit
-spare tire
Anyways, 20 ounces of weight sounds good, but what it is gonna do?( i think my wallet weights more than 20 ounces) How about taking the back seats out.
-deck and speakers, if you don't want music
-powersteer unit
-abs unit
-spare tire
Autocross Junky
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There is a saying from race car builders "Shave off the ounces and the pounds will take care of them selfs." I.e. every ounce counts.
go for it grey, but save every thing you take off so we can find out how much you've saved.
go for it grey, but save every thing you take off so we can find out how much you've saved.
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DIY King
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Rep Power: 418 Originally posted by Zzyzx
There is a saying from race car builders "Shave off the ounces and the pounds will take care of them selfs." I.e. every ounce counts.
go for it grey, but save every thing you take off so we can find out how much you've saved.
There is a saying from race car builders "Shave off the ounces and the pounds will take care of them selfs." I.e. every ounce counts.
go for it grey, but save every thing you take off so we can find out how much you've saved.
Yeah, I'll save it, but it'll be hard to gather everything up all at once. Especially if I drill a hole and have to collect the shavings. LOL I'll weigh things before and after modification. I've been modifying my front bumper a lot lately, so I'll weigh that against my stock one. So far it's 20 ounces from this mod, 0.3 ounces from the gas door mod. LOL Although I think the Tsunami front bumper weighs a lof more than the stock one. Then again, I could be wrong. The stock one has that rubb piece underneath it.I also took off exactly 15 pounds with the CF hood. I need lighter wheels though. Those are next on my list of things to get. Well, those and an exhaust system (a light one mind you). There's no sense in taking off the weight if I get some sort of aftermarket accessory and put the weight back on again. I know that my current wheels add 3 pounds per corner. That's 12 pounds right there. My front sway bar weighed more than stock. It's thick walled. I need something thinner! I hope that I can get something thinner soon. My rear one is a whole lot of weight, but I didn't have a rear one to begin with.
I need to get rid of my trunk springs and just get heftier trunk shocks. I have those in there now anyway, so that'll save me a few pounds.
I'll start swiss cheesing some stuff soon. I'll have to talk with my father (the mechanical engineer) before I do that though. I'll have some pictures up of this modification a little later if you guys want to see it... 
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From: cincinnati, oh
Rep Power: 0 every ounce does count...just so long as you keep on doing small stuff like this to your car. if you just took off those headlight brackets and were ranting about the 20 oz.s you saved, we'd all think you were crazy...but its worth it if you keep going.
i think you can take out the AC unit pretty easily, if you can take the heat...and as yoyoio said, you can also take out the power steering unit (i think that if you just take the belt out, you add something like 5 hp anyways), so you can add hp and lighten up the car.
i think you can take out the AC unit pretty easily, if you can take the heat...and as yoyoio said, you can also take out the power steering unit (i think that if you just take the belt out, you add something like 5 hp anyways), so you can add hp and lighten up the car.
can repalce your rear windows with plextor (I think it is called) glass...much lighter then regular glass.
remove spare tire and the tools, any loose change in the vehicle, floor mats, heck all mats. The possibilities are endless. lol
Remove the opil from the enige and run around with little to no gas in the tank!
remove spare tire and the tools, any loose change in the vehicle, floor mats, heck all mats. The possibilities are endless. lol
Remove the opil from the enige and run around with little to no gas in the tank!
Autocross Junky
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Rep Power: 380 Other things you can do to reduce weight, thats more effective then static weight, is to reduce Unsprung weight Specifically of the Rotating variety. Every thing from Wheels and tires to Axels, gears and rotors.
Like I said every ounce counts. Lightened axels you'd have to buy. but To lighten the gears, there is a lot of extra metal in a gear that dosn't need to be there, a good machine shop should be able to drill out the unneeded metal and still balance the gear out. other places to lose weight is in the contol arms. you could also get lighter calipers, and possibly drilled rotors (Dont blame me if they crack).
You may also want to think about static weight distribution. If you have access to a corner weight scale then you can adjust where the weight of your car is and where it would be most benificial to remove weight. this will greatly help handling. (one of the things is battery relocation to the trunk.) less weight on the nose and more on the rear (get rid of that 60/40 weight distribution.) It will aslo tell you were your at Vs stock.(for total wieght) I know our SCCA club has one but I heard that its not working right now.
Like I said every ounce counts. Lightened axels you'd have to buy. but To lighten the gears, there is a lot of extra metal in a gear that dosn't need to be there, a good machine shop should be able to drill out the unneeded metal and still balance the gear out. other places to lose weight is in the contol arms. you could also get lighter calipers, and possibly drilled rotors (Dont blame me if they crack).
You may also want to think about static weight distribution. If you have access to a corner weight scale then you can adjust where the weight of your car is and where it would be most benificial to remove weight. this will greatly help handling. (one of the things is battery relocation to the trunk.) less weight on the nose and more on the rear (get rid of that 60/40 weight distribution.) It will aslo tell you were your at Vs stock.(for total wieght) I know our SCCA club has one but I heard that its not working right now.
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DIY King
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Rep Power: 418 Originally posted by dirtEsanchez
can repalce your rear windows with plextor (I think it is called) glass...much lighter then regular glass.
remove spare tire and the tools, any loose change in the vehicle, floor mats, heck all mats. The possibilities are endless. lol
Remove the opil from the enige and run around with little to no gas in the tank!
can repalce your rear windows with plextor (I think it is called) glass...much lighter then regular glass.
remove spare tire and the tools, any loose change in the vehicle, floor mats, heck all mats. The possibilities are endless. lol
Remove the opil from the enige and run around with little to no gas in the tank!
FAL makes them for the RSX though. Damn it! Yeah, I should ditch the spare tire. I've never used it while in motion. Plus the damned thing flops around back there 'cause the part that holds it down broke on me. I fixed it twice with epoxy, but it still breaks on me. Bah, stupid thing! Thread Starter
DIY King
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From: Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, US
Rep Power: 418 Originally posted by Zzyzx
Other things you can do to reduce weight, thats more effective then static weight, is to reduce Unsprung weight Specifically of the Rotating variety. Every thing from Wheels and tires to Axels, gears and rotors.
Like I said every ounce counts. Lightened axels you'd have to buy. but To lighten the gears, there is a lot of extra metal in a gear that dosn't need to be there, a good machine shop should be able to drill out the unneeded metal and still balance the gear out. other places to lose weight is in the contol arms. you could also get lighter calipers, and possibly drilled rotors (Dont blame me if they crack).
You may also want to think about static weight distribution. If you have access to a corner weight scale then you can adjust where the weight of your car is and where it would be most benificial to remove weight. this will greatly help handling. (one of the things is battery relocation to the trunk.) less weight on the nose and more on the rear (get rid of that 60/40 weight distribution.) It will aslo tell you were your at Vs stock.(for total wieght) I know our SCCA club has one but I heard that its not working right now.
Other things you can do to reduce weight, thats more effective then static weight, is to reduce Unsprung weight Specifically of the Rotating variety. Every thing from Wheels and tires to Axels, gears and rotors.
Like I said every ounce counts. Lightened axels you'd have to buy. but To lighten the gears, there is a lot of extra metal in a gear that dosn't need to be there, a good machine shop should be able to drill out the unneeded metal and still balance the gear out. other places to lose weight is in the contol arms. you could also get lighter calipers, and possibly drilled rotors (Dont blame me if they crack).
You may also want to think about static weight distribution. If you have access to a corner weight scale then you can adjust where the weight of your car is and where it would be most benificial to remove weight. this will greatly help handling. (one of the things is battery relocation to the trunk.) less weight on the nose and more on the rear (get rid of that 60/40 weight distribution.) It will aslo tell you were your at Vs stock.(for total wieght) I know our SCCA club has one but I heard that its not working right now.
Axles would be interesting, but I'll need stronger ones for the turbo and later for the swap, so I can't make them weaker. Lightening usually means weakening. Usually... The transmition gears are an interesting idea. That's a lot of work though, plus I'll be getting rid of the D17 after I turbocharge it, so that's a no go.Weight distribution is a good idea. I wish I had a scale like that. The battery is pretty heavy. I should have gotten a lighter one (like the Spoon one). I wanted cranking power for cold starts though... There's a trade-off to everything. I'de prefer weight reduction with no trade-offs.
Well, off to work I go again to lighten the front end. I'm about to get creative on the front bumper and on the front bumper cover.
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Rep Power: 300 Originally posted by Shaggy
Of course when it comes down to it you could just also take off the body kit you threw on....that is if you are serious about performance over looks and weight reduction.
.
Of course when it comes down to it you could just also take off the body kit you threw on....that is if you are serious about performance over looks and weight reduction.
. 
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From: Oklahoma
Rep Power: 304 What I think is funny is the guys who spend mucho time trying to get their car down in weight, but totally are overweight themselves. If you drop 20lbs yourself, your car is 20lbs lighter when you are in it...
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From: TX
Rep Power: 0 Originally posted by Grey
I'm getting lightweight 16's, that's for sure.
I'm getting lightweight 16's, that's for sure.
If you are serious about saving weight, try something else:
Volk TE37 (14 x 5.5) 8.5 lbs
SSR Comps (15 x 6) 8 lbs
are a couple examples. Any sub 10 lb wheel would be great. But they are hard to come by in a 16" size.
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From: St. Pete Beach, FL, Florida, US
Rep Power: 0 Originally posted by Grey
Don't have those. I have the all season ones now. Guys! I don't want to remove things that serve a useful purpose!!!
Don't have those. I have the all season ones now. Guys! I don't want to remove things that serve a useful purpose!!!
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From: SF, California, US
Rep Power: 0 There are a couple of panels (under the glove box & drivers side) that serve no purpose, apart from hiding wires etc. Those weigh a noticable amount as well.
A lighter RSX/ SI steering wheel will help, in addition to having a smaller diameter & better grip (& you will have an airbag)
apart from the suggestions in the other thread..
A lighter RSX/ SI steering wheel will help, in addition to having a smaller diameter & better grip (& you will have an airbag)
apart from the suggestions in the other thread..
