Well lately I have been reading a lot of car mod magazines, quite often they say that the cheapest and one of the most effective mods you can do to your car is to lighten it. The problem is they never refer to how to lighten the car specifically and safely.

I was wondering if anyone knows how to do this, I mean I would love to lighten my car by about 200kg-imagine how much quicker my car would be. Having a kg/kw ratio of about 6.5kg/Kw rather than about 7.7kg/Kw.

Anyone got any good suggestions?

takeout your back seat would take off some weight, spare tyre and any other unuseful shit in ur boot thats all ican think of, never done this before so yeah dunno what else could be taken out

maybe you could start by taking out the spare tyre and carrying a space-saver type ,

possibly take out the passenger seat? i dont think the rear seats would make much of a difference

i dunno what else ay

im interested in a response from this question too hehe

later 8)

change your bonnet, panels, bumpers to Carbon fibre, chain saw your roof and make it into full time open top convertable, Use light weight alloys instead of Mags, don't let the exhaust go any further than the rear of the CAT. Change all your glass into Fibre Glass plastic, or Glad wrap or nothing at all. HAHA.... Change your 70L fuel tank into a 30L tank. Shorten all piping where possible. Don't bother with side mirrors, and just get small clip on mirror for driver's side. Remove all speakers and sound equipment, since you got no speakers, take out your radio and cd player and Antenna. Oh i've left out the spare wheel. Also remove all the carpets in the car and kick panels and trims, remove material where ever possible to create openings. instead of using standard radiator fluid, use less dense fluid. Never offer rides to anyone, they would probably not want a ride anyway.

that's about all i can think of, there's probably more you could remove, but i'll stop here, as it's gone a bit far already.

If you take out the back seats you are going to hear alot of slushing sound from the petrol tank (directly below the back seats)

The seat isnt just there for passengers, its also there to dampen road and petrol tank noise.

Just reiterating what's been said + more:

- Remove spare tyre
- Fit light forged alloy wheels + downsize if you have anything bigger than 17"
- Remove interior door trims + but retain handles for legal/safety
- Remove rear seat (requires engineering certificate)
- Remove roof trim, boot interior trim
- Strip all sound deadening from interior panels + inside the boot
- Remove aircon system if fitted
- Replace main battery with compact sized lightweight deep cycle battery
- Remove all speakers, head unit
- Fit lightweight one-piece reclining racing seats
- Titanium Exhaust from cat-back

If you did all that you could probably save 200kg, but have a very uncomfortable car for everyday driving. Having no door trims etc may be a roadworthy issue as it is dangerous in an accident.

Car would be quite fast without increasing engine power though :D.

i was looking for ideas that are realistic, i will not take out seats and stuff, i do have friends that need to sit somewhere.
I was a littl sceptical about posting this as I thought I would get a bunch of suggestions that just say "take everything off your car".
Anyone got any good ideas lol

Anyone got any good ideas lol

Problem with this is if there was a way to lighten the car considerably Mitsubishi would have done it already.

Lighter car = less fuel used = great marketing stategy..

Im pretty sure the cars are as light as they can go without spending big $$$ on them.

i was looking for ideas that are realistic, i will not take out seats and stuff, i do have friends that need to sit somewhere.
I was a littl sceptical about posting this as I thought I would get a bunch of suggestions that just say "take everything off your car".
Anyone got any good ideas lol

Well I thought that the above emails were very reasonable. You just can't tlighten a car by much these days as they are an iteration of design for over 100 years. Look at a V8 Supercar - Its the standard shell, some bracing(more weight), the engine and drivetrain. Realistically the only way to lose 200kg is to ride by yourself and go on a diet.

Here's an unrelistic one if you want. Fill your car with air bladders and fill them with helium, for a big bang fill them with hydrogen and !!pop!! No V8 will ever match you.

Seriosly there is no way of losing that sort of weight and keeping a street legal car. There is a reason why maserati and porche are so expensive.

if your gonna take out the back seats the door trim and so on you might aswell drive a garbage bin with a motor.

haha. Manufactories don't put dead weights in our cars to borg us down, if that's what you're looking for. hehe... good luck in finding them... as one thing is for sure, there's always a weight target they want to meeting with as many assessories fitted as possible... so you decide what goes in and what goes out... good luck, have fun. ^_^... Remove your bonnet and replace it with See through Plastic, that'll save you 20kg.
hehe....

make a paper mashay(dont know how to spell that word) car and drive it like barney rubble. now thats light wieght. i dont think you can remove a significant amount of wieght unless your going to go to ridiculus extremes. then you would have an inpractical car unless your gonna race it

i was looking for ideas that are realistic, i will not take out seats and stuff, i do have friends that need to sit somewhere.
I was a littl sceptical about posting this as I thought I would get a bunch of suggestions that just say "take everything off your car".
Anyone got any good ideas lol

Well I thought that the above emails were very reasonable. You just can't tlighten a car by much these days as they are an iteration of design for over 100 years. Look at a V8 Supercar - Its the standard shell, some bracing(more weight), the engine and drivetrain. Realistically the only way to lose 200kg is to ride by yourself and go on a diet.

Here's an unrelistic one if you want. Fill your car with air bladders and fill them with helium, for a big bang fill them with hydrogen and !!pop!! No V8 will ever match you.

Seriosly there is no way of losing that sort of weight and keeping a street legal car. There is a reason why maserati and porche are so expensive.

Here's an unrelistic one if you want. Fill your car with air bladders and fill them with helium, for a big bang fill them with hydrogen and !!pop!! No V8 will ever match you.


You'd have no freaking traction!!!

damn it, you thought of it before me, helium will give you say 1kg of lift and you'll need to buy a 10L oxygen tank for you to breath from. :lol: :D

"Here's an unrelistic one if you want. Fill your car with air bladders and fill them with helium, for a big bang fill them with hydrogen and !!pop!! No V8 will ever match you. "
-- AllPaw

This wouldn't help, as it only increases the Mass of the car. It would probably worsen your situation actually, as you'll get less grip.

The idea is that you have a 1500kg car, which the road is supporting 1500kg of. If you add 100kg of helium, your car now has a mass of 1600kg, 500kg of which is suported by the road, 1100kg of which is suported by the helium (techincally it's supported by the heavier-than-helium atmosphere, but we can say it's the helium).

If you try to accelerate your car, you're still accelerating 1600kg of car (use Force = mass * acceleration).

I like the hydrogen as an extra fuel source idea though... you would fly! :) :)

The way I see it, reducing 200kg from the car is like increasing power by 7.75%, except with lowering you have the advantage of better handling as well.

It would cost you a lot less in terms of $$ and comfort to increase engine power by 7.75% instead. $1000 for example on an extractor back exhaust and air filter, CAI would easily give you 10%.

to keep the car practical the only way u can shed weight is getting CF bonnets, guards etc made up

i was looking for ideas that are realistic, i will not take out seats and stuff, i do have friends that need to sit somewhere.
I was a littl sceptical about posting this as I thought I would get a bunch of suggestions that just say "take everything off your car".
Anyone got any good ideas lol

As someone else mentioned (too lazy to scroll up). Replace bonnet lid and
boot lid with light weight aluminium alloy panels. Replace you cast alloys
with forged alloys. Replace the heavy stainless steel exhaust with light
mild steel exhaust whereve possible

double

It's a good point you raise though about car weight. Reducing weight is a valid form of increasing performance. To put it in perspective, my Ralliart (or any Magna for that matter) would only need to produce 213kw of power to have the same power to weight ratio as an XR6 Turbo (240kw). Thats because Ford and Holden build lard arsed cars.

Body kits can also add substantial amounts of weight to a car (so why did I buy a car with the biggest body kit in the world on it!!!??).

For Track days, I run a half empty tank. Don't know what the specific gravity of petrol is but water weighs 1kg per litre. You can save about 50gk by having less fuel in. Not very practical for day to day driving but good for track days/drags.

Some of the others were right though, reducing weight in a practical way is expensive and it's cheaper to increase performance instead.

hey RallyArt, you know something, your rear wing weighs 10Kgs. hehe... So does mine!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

What setting do you have your top fin set to when you race? upper or lower position? does it even do anything for you? I know it doesn't do anything for me.

hehe... I like the looks though, makes it look tough.

hey RallyArt, you know something, your rear wing weighs 10Kgs. hehe... So does mine!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

What setting do you have your top fin set to when you race? upper or lower position? does it even do anything for you? I know it doesn't do anything for me.

hehe... I like the looks though, makes it look tough.

I read somewhere that the rallyart magna's rear wing is not adjustable. It
is set for optimum downforce while reducing drag.

hmm, dunno if it's just a fake slot or not, looks like mine from his avatar, if the slow is real, then it must be adjustable. else why would you have a slot there. you can just make it out if you look at his wing.

;)

what about loosing your own weight? :lol:

I read on a sight once that even when stripping nearly your entire car out, you dont really feel much difference? although i could be very wrong.

No, the wing's not adjustable. I'm not a big fan of wings myself but there's no arguing the benefits of it at high speed.

And it weighs how much?? 10kg?? I'm going to have take it off!! And my clothes must weigh at least 5kg, and then there's the paint not to mention all that heavy glass, all of it uneccessary.

Reducing the weight in your car may make it quicker, but it will also make it awful to drive.

More noisy (Tyre and road noise. Petty tank noise. Rattling noise and wind noise of you start removing panels) :D
Crap ride as weight keeps the car on the road :)
Heaps Noisy :oops:
Just friggen too noisy! :x

Hehehe.... :?

all i've done it take out spare tyre, jack,
flaps and tow bar will go next
i drive a maual and i really do feel a small difference

about the rally art wing,
i read in the mag that it only works after you going 210km/h
take it off and save 10kg

i run my car on 1/2 cause it all i need :)

Reducing the weight in your car may make it quicker, but it will also make it awful to drive.

More noisy (Tyre and road noise. Petty tank noise. Rattling noise and wind noise of you start removing panels) :D
Crap ride as weight keeps the car on the road :)
Heaps Noisy :oops:
Just friggen too noisy! :x

Hehehe.... :?

well even if you reduced 200kg of a magnas weight, with a propper suspension setup it woiuld handle ALOT better, as the tyres won't need to work as hard to hold the cornering line. Look at the Lotus elise(base version) all its performance comes from low weight, cause the engine is only about 89kW, 1.8L I think.

about the rally art wing,
i read in the mag that it only works after you going 210km/h
take it off and save 10kg

i run my car on 1/2 cause it all i need :)

wheels magazine said: "the northern territory ralliart wing proved there is noticable downforce above 100km hour"

ill try find the article again.. quite a intresting read ;0

The wing works, like Booya said, above 100kph.

Ive been to a couple of track days at Wakefield Park which only has a relatively short straight, but by the the first bend (see link below) I'm doing about 160kph and still accelerating. I think I'm doing 170kph by the sharp right hander at the end of the straight but it gets too busy to be looking at the speedo by then. The car is unbelievably stable at this speed and gets around the first bend on the straight faster than just about any other car on the day (read WRX's, GTR's, Integra Type R etc). Admittedly, they have an advantage on the slower, tight stuff, but I'm working on that!!

http://www.wakefieldpark.com.au/site/frameset.cfm

Take out all the trim in the boot area, but leave the spare in there.

Also take up your carpet and remove the sound deadening material that is under there, then put back your carpet.

Remove the sound deadening from under your bonnet.

That will save a few kgs, but nothing spectacular, unless you want to spend money, or have an uncomfortable car.

a possible way is too go to a fibre glass person and get them to make u a new bonnet that might cost a fair bit and its probly not worth the money

[quote:7bdd160680="thehkway"]
about the rally art wing,
i read in the mag that it only works after you going 210km/h
take it off and save 10kg

i run my car on 1/2 cause it all i need :)

wheels magazine said: "the northern territory ralliart wing proved there is noticable downforce above 100km hour"

ill try find the article again.. quite a intresting read ;0[/quote:7bdd160680]

yeh, thats where i read it from too! wheels
but it was a mag from like 1-2year back or something

i think ur prob right tho
because 200km sounds stupid
i'llsee if i can find it again
hand another read

wot is the angle of the top wing n e way?