weight reduction - any ideas?

[Wheelman_13]

Originally Posted by glacialmoraine

Another option on defrosting, is to roll down the windows. Frost is caused by the inside of the car being warmer and moister than the outside. If you roll down all the windows, the temperature and humidity equalize, and no more frost. I drove a VW van in the winter for years with no heat, I just opened the vent windows and directed cold air at the windshield, and dressed really warm. Since the MR2 doesn't have vent windows you would have to roll down the main windows to equalize temp at the windshield. brr.

you could install some ducts that would direct outside air at the inside of the windshield. If you shaped them right you should be able to avoid water spray on rainy days.

[Medusa]

I love driving in the morning with my windows down, it is so refreshing. I live an hour or so north of seattle, and it is around 40 degrees in the morning. Driving to school at 6:30 is really chilly, but it feels so good.

[mr2parts.net]

It really is refreshing and I love the cold. I miss Seattle And people look at you when you do drive with the windows down lol.

[Medusa]

Haha true. It is getting ungodly hot here in the afternoon though.

Also, back to weight reduction, the stock 91-93 wing is heavy as hell. Does anybody know the weights of the 91-93 wing, the 94+ wing, the 98+ wing, and the TRD wing?

[Wheelman_13]

T-Tops off + heater on ftw.

[dirocyn]

The biggest weight savings if you want to keep a streetable car is probably the wheels, I bet you save over 50 lbs right there and it's unsprung rotational weight. If you get run-flats you can lose the spare and jack. The next place to look is the muffler--the stock muffler is heavy. And the AC, of course. Replace power windows with manual cranks (they work better anyway). If you can apply Rain-X every month you can live without wipers & motors. I bet this stuff saves you over 200 lbs. I'm sure you could also make a lighter-weight engine cover, hood, and trunk lid--and possibly save another 100 lbs.

For racing--definitely lose the spare tire and jack, spare tire bracket, windshield washer, and replace the fuel tank with a fuel cell just big enough for your needs. Glass is heavy, so replace the window glass with Lexan, you can probably fasten it permanently up (you don't want drag, do you?) with less weight even than a manual window. Back window and Targa too. Although, for the targa--just duct tape in some corrugated cardboard. Oh, remove the headlights and headlight motors, radio, speakers and wire. Lose the passenger seat, use a racing seat for yourself. Strip the interior down to the bare metal. Lightweight steering wheel. Yeah, lighter pulleys and flywheel. Now, what else to toss, to save weight? Gearshift boot, parking brake & cables, rear-view mirrors (who needs to know what's back there?) and of course all the carpet & insulation. Get the cross-drilled brake rotors, those are lighter. You could lose the body kit and spoiler--but not sure that will help once you factor aerodynamics. That's about all I can think of, I'm sure there is some other stuff too.

[Wheelman_13]

Yay for commentary:

Originally Posted by dirocyn

The biggest weight savings if you want to keep a streetable car is probably the wheels, I bet you save over 50 lbs right there and it's unsprung rotational weight.

Stock MR2 wheels are really rather light, particularly the early year 14s. (like ~15/16 lbs). The lightest substitutes I have seen weigh 9/10 lbs for same widths for the 14" wheels. So really only dropping a total of 20 lbs. However, as dirocyn points out, that is unsprung weight and weight that directly impacts the drivetrain, so it definately will make a positive difference in performance.

If you get run-flats you can lose the spare and jack.

The problem is that the run-flats themselves weigh significantly more than a normal tire. Just chuck the spare/jack/etc. and keep your AAA up to date. I shelved mine in the garage long ago, and I just take a real jack and usually a complete set of race tires when I am at the track/autocross.

The next place to look is the muffler--the stock muffler is heavy. And the AC, of course. Replace power windows with manual cranks (they work better anyway).

True, but easier to replace the whole door vs. just window hardware if you can find a parts car.

If you can apply Rain-X every month you can live without wipers & motors.

Not advisable or legal in some areas, check your local laws. Rain-X can only do so much. This is prolly a So-Cal/AZ/TX thing.

...I'm sure you could also make a lighter-weight engine cover, hood, and trunk lid--and possibly save another 100 lbs.

Yeah, the hatches are all way overbuilt. Great if you like to set your groceries, tools, girlfriend, etc. on them. Not-so-great for weight savings.

...Get the cross-drilled brake rotors, those are lighter.

Not enough-lighter IMO to offset the tendency to crack. Slotted will do just fine. If you are really talking about weight savings, find an adapter to fit some Porsche "PCCB" rotors on there. You'll need at least an 18" wheel though, the stock 14"s won't quite get it done:

[1stgen]

The real question is why. Why do you want to lighten your car. The mr2 already comes as an almost basic package to begin with with a very simple interior. If its for racing just gut the interior and buy an aluminum seat. If its for the street just get a better job and get a better motor to overcome the weight.

[boycelaforest]

Weight savings is pretty pointless with mk1... Like everyone said, ditch A/C, no more cheeseburgers and maybe swap in a lighter engine w/more hp. 20v, 2zz-ge, etc?

[Raptor13x]

Originally Posted by boycelaforest

Weight savings is pretty pointless with mk1... Like everyone said, ditch A/C, no more cheeseburgers and maybe swap in a lighter engine w/more hp. 20v, 2zz-ge, etc?

Weight savings is never pointless. It improves every aspect of performance, without compromising reliability. Granted, some of the suggestions presented so far have been a bit silly... but there are tons of little things you can do, depending on how streetable you need the car to be, how much money you're willing to spend, and how hardcore you plan to go.

In my mki, I need it to be usable as a daily-driver, but I still made some effort: I have no A/C, a BT 20v, lightweight flywheel, super-light exhaust (the whole thing weighs like 5lbs), light wheels, no trunk/frunk garbage, removed jack/spare, lighter steering wheel, removed a couple useless bits from the interior like the center console storage box, and I'm also ripping out the security system. I'll try to get a weight on it as soon as I have it up and running, but I'm hoping for somewhere around 2100lbs, 2200 tops.

[328FTW]

I notice a slight difference in handling when I take a passenger in the car. I'm not serious enough to kick them out because I want to do slightly faster times, I will even take strangers for rides if they ask nice.

And the little things add up, once I removed the stick on sound deadening, all uneeded wiring, uneeded brackets, the heater/ heater lines, AC lines etc etc the car weighed a lot less. Unstreetable but light

[boycelaforest]

Originally Posted by Raptor13x

Weight savings is never pointless. It improves every aspect of performance, without compromising reliability. Granted, some of the suggestions presented so far have been a bit silly... but there are tons of little things you can do, depending on how streetable you need the car to be, how much money you're willing to spend, and how hardcore you plan to go.

In my mki, I need it to be usable as a daily-driver, but I still made some effort: I have no A/C, a BT 20v, lightweight flywheel, super-light exhaust (the whole thing weighs like 5lbs), light wheels, no trunk/frunk garbage, removed jack/spare, lighter steering wheel, removed a couple useless bits from the interior like the center console storage box, and I'm also ripping out the security system. I'll try to get a weight on it as soon as I have it up and running, but I'm hoping for somewhere around 2100lbs, 2200 tops.

There is a guy on here racing solo that got his down to 1820lbs I believe. It doesnt even have a dashboard anymore, just a sheet of aluminum with a tach. I believe he is running the stock 16v.
Full race? Yes.
Street Driven? No.

[Raptor13x]

Originally Posted by boycelaforest

There is a guy on here racing solo that got his down to 1820lbs I believe. It doesnt even have a dashboard anymore, just a sheet of aluminum with a tach. I believe he is running the stock 16v.
Full race? Yes.
Street Driven? No.

Originally Posted by Raptor13x

there are tons of little things you can do, depending on how streetable you need the car to be, how much money you're willing to spend, and how hardcore you plan to go.

Nobody is suggesting that you should strip out the interior and run an aluminum dash in a street car- especially a daily driver. That's silly. I mean I've done it... just for fun, and it made my RX-7 stupidly quick for a stock motor, but it's not practical. You can, however, pull of probably close to 100lbs of stuff that doesn't really harm daily driveability. Hell, cleaning out your trunk will save an average driver 40lbs.

[dirocyn]

Originally Posted by Raptor13x

You can, however, pull of probably close to 100lbs of stuff that doesn't really harm daily driveability. Hell, cleaning out your trunk will save an average driver 40lbs.

You can lose more than 100 lbs, if you're willing to spend some dough. And 100 lbs is enough to make a measurable difference in both acceleration and fuel economy. The online 0-60 calculator 0-60 mph Calculator - 060calculator.com (ok, I know that's a fantasy) says a 2380lb car with 130 hp (a stock AW11 is in that ballpark) should go 0-60 in 7.398. Drop 100 lbs and it's 7.164. 0.23 seconds on a 0-60 is significant, if weight stayed the same you'd need to add 5.7 hp to get the same gain. At the same time, reducing weight by 100 lbs should improve fuel economy by about 2%. Now, I'm not about to go spend $5,000 to reduce the weight of my daily driver, but I will consider weight as a factor when I replace my muffler.

[Madlife]

Regarding removal of spare tire? How does the can of Fix-a-flat work? I hear not great, but good enough to get you to a shop to get it patched/plugged. I carry one of those and a small dc airpump which probably only weights 5 pounds... gives more room in the frunk also.

[Raptor13x]

A can of Fix-a-Flat is not the greatest option. It'll only be able to temporarily fix a small leak, so if you shred the tire or otherwise put a big hole in the tire, you're **** out of luck. Basically if you get a blowout- you're ****ed. Plus, tire shops HATE Fix-a-Flat. It makes a HUGE mess, smells awful, and makes the tire harder to repair. Some shops actually charge you more if you used it.

[Medusa]

If you want to go disgustingly extreme with weight savings, you can cut off the trunk behind the aft firewall, you can save tons of weight. Plus, taking weight off the back wheels will always improve performance on an MR2 because they are so ass-heavy. There is somebody on this forum who was doing this, but I can't remember where I saw it.

[328FTW]

Originally Posted by Medusa

If you want to go disgustingly extreme with weight savings, you can cut off the trunk behind the aft firewall, you can save tons of weight. Plus, taking weight off the back wheels will always improve performance on an MR2 because they are so ass-heavy. There is somebody on this forum who was doing this, but I can't remember where I saw it.

I do do some hardcore weight saving on my car like removing every unused wire in the loom tracing them to each junction box to remove them but there is a point where I am worried about aesthetics.....and getting rear ended. Alloy engine brackets can save heaps of weight if you can be bothered making them.

[Wheelman_13]

the trunk amputation might help with autocross-like low speed agility, but some consideration should be paid to aerodynamics (if not also aesthetics) before drastically altering the body shape/dimesions. The MR2 is pretty slippery (very low Cd) in stock trim, without some good modelling software or a wind tunnel it will be hard to improve on that much.