put your car on a diet
 

What do you guys do to your crxs, or any other car, to make them lighter without compromising the structural integrity of the car?

Some things I have heard of:

mild
-----
take out spare tire, rear seat, a/c, rear interior, exterior trim, sound deadining, carpet
add fiberglass hood, fenders, front end, dash

extreme
--------
remove front and rear bumpers, heater, weld a plate in place of sunroof, completely strip interior(radio,dash,door panels, pass seat)
add fiberglass doors, fiberglass hatch, plexi windows

I want to make my 89 si about 2000lbs full of fuel and with me in it. So thats about 400 to take off, but NIRA minimun is around 1700 I think...

Re:put your car on a diet
 

my 87 crx weights 2000 with me (220 pounds) and gas

with everything in it. and sub woofer and lots of misc ---- all over the place (its a mess)

Re:put your car on a diet
 

ah the 1st gen advantage...

Jeff

Re:put your car on a diet
 

Jeff, you ever put your white CRX on a truck scale when you finished stripping it?

Re:put your car on a diet
 

oh it isnt done getting stripped yet... still working on the doors and other crap.

JEff

Re:put your car on a diet
 

what are you doing to the doors? just cutting stuff out and welding in bars?

you should get those fal windows thats 50 lbs saved, and then there's fiberglass fendes, door, hood / frontend

Did I pretty much mention everything possible to save weight?

Re:put your car on a diet
 

I am cutting the ---- out of the doors, no re-inforcement either.

FAL windows are ------- overpriced, I am making my own from lexan.

Jeff

Re:put your car on a diet
 

ya really, theres no point in buying the FALs, lexan sheets are cheap, and cutting em is easy

Re:put your car on a diet
 

Ah this ones for me!!!

Im building a 69 fiat spider.. Iknow none of you have heard much of them.. Its a turbo project.....
Anyway to lighten it i started by building a custom tubular/channel frame. Used fiberglass front fenders from a company called smoothline. each weighs less than 6 lbs. cost $375 a pop, I made a carbon fiber hood for it. "another story" this weighs less than 11 lbs and cost me $120 to make.. the fenders wrap around the front so the valance is real small. I got one with extra venting in it so its even lighter... Now this car used to sit with the springs somewhat loaded even without the engine in it, it now sits at the top of the coil with out an engine in it. I can lift the car myself from front or back. I also used alluminum diamond plate for all the floorboards, inner fenders, and firewall. ;)

Re:put your car on a diet
 

As far as putting my car on a diet.. that comes after my fat ass.... but anyways... the sound deadening material on the floor is it just used to kill the outside noise. or is it used to insulate the interior cabin and protect it from the heat? (tailpipe runs right under your ass)? whats the best way to remove it? Heat gun and a spoon or just start scraping off chunks while its cold?

Re:put your car on a diet
 

I used a putty scraper, heat gun, wd-40 on my truck to take the stock sound deadning stuff out. Then I installed dynamat. Just dont use the heat gun WITH the wd-40 you could have a bit of a fire.

Re:put your car on a diet
 

are lexan windows (not winshield) street legal?

Re:put your car on a diet
 

i think its the drivers and passenger windows along with the windshield need to be stock glass to be street legal (you could aways take out the side windows and roll on the street)...

Re:put your car on a diet
 

Ive heard of people cutting out the spare tire well in their cars and then bolting or welding aluminum diamondplate over it in the trunk... is that a dumb idea? How much weight does that save?

Re:put your car on a diet
 

So how much wieght can you take off your car before traction becomes a promblem? If your putting like 175 hp to the wheels in an crx or si hatch how much wieght loss would make it worst to get traction?

Re:put your car on a diet
 

lighter wheels i am sure could save u a bit to.

Re:put your car on a diet
 

The best way to remove the sound deadening tar is to get a bunch of dry ice and ------ the chunks around the floor, let the deadener get really cold, then move the dry ice and start smacking it with a hammer. It comes off in really big clean chunks. I did my whole CRX in a few hours.

Total weight savings was 8-9lbs.

Re:put your car on a diet
 

Ive heard of people cutting out the spare tire well in their cars and then bolting or welding aluminum diamondplate over it in the trunk... is that a dumb idea? How much weight does that save?

my friend did this to his neon, and it saved a lot of wieght, the backend is so light, i can lift the backend up like 3 inch off the ground...

~henry

Re:put your car on a diet
 

You would be suprised to see the difference .. that much sheet metal is actually quite heavy.. The same amt of area can be covered with alluminum sheet at a fraction of the weight.. To max the gain of this you should do it all or nothing.. Trunk, floor, firewall, inners, e,t,c any place you can replace a "dumb" panel, do it.. By dumb I mean to say non load bearing area's like floors, and trunks.. ;D

Re:put your car on a diet
 

My Rabbit weighs 1800lbs with half a tank of gas and me in it. No spare, no back seat, no package shelf, no stereo. Full carpet, full sound deadening, heavier than stock seats and big brakes.

It was a factory stripper with radio, lighter, rear defrost, and package shelf delete.