2400 is fairly reasonable for a car with stripped down interior, especially if its an s4 with no power crap. Much lower than that involves a lot of time and money.

 

Or a high tolerance for discomfort. You could remove more by removing door glass for instance.

 

I can tell you that being light has its disadvantages,like the back end floating at high speed and lack of highspeed stability.

 

you guys are nuts why would you ever want to butcher a car like this?these cars are gettin old but not outdated arent we supposed to be tryin to fix them up rather than strip them down....if you want a lightweight drag car build you one out of something else like a 240 or something....leave the 7's alone....my personal opinion

 

opera racing S2000... 2100 lbs after all was said and done started as a stock yellow one pure racing solid aluminuim bushings in the suspension. but for stock output engine it's damn fast. hole saw will only get you in trouble with chassis rigidity. you have to know exactly what your doing. a mechanical engineering degree would help.

 

i thought I remember reading on here about a guy who swapped out almost every bolt on his car to stainless steel and it dropped like 50 lbs

 

Steel and stainless steels have very nearly the same densities, so unless he forgot to install a lot of parts, then no weight will be saved.

Light weight is better for all aspects of performance, cornering, braking, acceleration. That's why people want to go lighter. I disagree with the fix it up mentality, sure make it nice, but if you want to strip it out then fine, do it, these cars aren't that special, it's just another car.

The floaty back end would probably be because it's easier to remove weight from the back than from the front, and if you don't change the suspension to compensate it'll change the handling balance. With a properly set up suspension it shouldn't be an issue.

 

lol if you want light and fast get your self a crotch rocket

if you want to be an enthusiast drive your rx7

if you want to have the best of both worlds do both

 

Removing weight doesn't just help in a straight line. It also helps in turns. Which, for me, is more important.

Why do you think I want an Elise?

 

Remember, removing weight improves your cornering along a path of diminishing returns. The more you remove, the smaller increase in cornering performance you get.

The Elise works well not only because of it's lightweightedness, but also due to a planted rear-end since the engine's in the back and a well-designed suspension geometry.

If only FC's had double wishbones front and back....

 

has anyone suggested just buying a miata and putting your engine in it?

 

heres a good way to loose some of that wieght
go on a diet.

 

i have a s5 gxl and a bucket seat 4 the driver side, rear interior removed, al hood, spare and jack removed, removed ac pump and condenser, and manual belts on driver side got me down to 2665 low on gas. I still have powersteering and most of the interior on the front still. Weight balance was at 53/47 but i changed the battery to a pc680 to help that out since then.

 

theres no way for me to prove it, that car long ago met its death. i still stand by what i said no matter if any of you believe me. i weighed it at a rock quary where the scale was calibrated once a month. i dont know what else to say. call bullshit if you please but i saw it with my own eyes

 

I actually would love to see what thats like. The fact that Mazda hasn't tried it yet makes me wonder if theres some problem with it fitting. But I guess if they could fit a V-6 in it you can fit a rotary.

 

Rotary Engine In A Miata

 

The best answer to a light weight rotary car.

An Rx7 anyway.....

 

wow that kit is expensive, i have always wanted to do that

 

Shoot, my earlier post didn't actually get posted.
Anyway, I basically said that its pretty damn expensize, but it makes sense when you see the amount of work that goes into it. I think it would be absolutely awesome to do sometime, but its too expensive ATM. This my have become may major project once I can afford it instead of a 13b-RE swap.

 

man what a pain to do this tar thing, it takes way too long i already fu.... up the car trying to hack metal in front on the shock towerin the back to shed the weight, but that metal is too thick and nothing i have is cutting it. what sucks is when mom comes out and sees what im doing and says that car use to look nice, that tar isnt that much weight. i dont no how many of you go this far for weight but if u do i would like to see pics

 

well im almost done with breaking up all the tar, then im going to cut the metal right n back of the doors in front of the shock well

 

Sounds like a lack of proper tools and skills?

Keep in mind this car is a unibody design so simply cutting out steel is not a good idea without some thought and preperation.

If you have found a good place to remove metal, one of the easiest ways to do this without compromising the rigidity is to use a hole saw or punch tool, and hole flaring dies. In the end you have a flared hole that keeps the piece still quite strong while shedding weight.

Simply cutting out steel, leaving sharp unfinished edges exposed and without flaring them is a good way to just ruin the car. At least prime and paint the exposed metal, and preferably put flares on all the cuts.

You'll notice all over the unibody there are little steps formed into the sheet metal from when the parts were stamped, they arent left simply flat. This is to improve the rigidity, if you cut out stuff like this without putting even a single flare in place of what was once a compound curve or some other formed shape that added depth, you're not doing it right at all.

This is one place I've found online that carries the right tools for this job:
http://www.irvansmith.com/catalog2/punches.shtml
I think aircraft spruce also carries a simpler hand flaring tool that is really just two ball bearings on the end of a bar... it's better for sheet aluminum than steel because of the softness. However, the handheld flaring tool has more freedom, it can follow any shaped edge you create, good for when removing material from a compound curved surface.