Well, this has been a rather obsessive-compulsive disorder for me as of late, being that there are only 2 ways to improve the power : weight ratio: increase power or decrease weight. Well, one is free and the other isn't, so being the cheap bastard that I am, here is the result:





Today I only hit the passenger side, and I left the carpet in and all. This is about half way through the noise deadening material on the floor. As of now, I have pulled the ECU, cleaned away the tar crap under it, and reinstalled it, gotten the floor laid back down, and cleaned out the stuff from the car. As of now, with the back completely gutted and the passenger compartment partially, I have saved an estimated 125lbs at least. I have also left the passenger seat out and I am thouroghly impressed with the handling difference as of now.

Tomorrow: The drivers side...

EDIT: Don't think that I'm tearing apart a perfectly good FC interior, either. The car came without storage bins, and therefor no way to hold down the rear carpet. Well, one thing led to another as the carpet flopping around was distracting, and now I'm here!

 

are you kidding me? your interior looks just like mine. lol. who needs floor mats? those things are heavy.

 

Just started this the other day too.

 

I took mine out because I needed the extra clearance to fit my jumbo size feet in the pedal box. Oh, yeah, and they're heavy and dry rotted...

 

I would suggest gettin ahold of a heat gun and a large paint scraper. Took me a good 2 hours to just do the rear of the car. only saved 15lbs on the rear so i never did the front. All in all you'll save ~40 pounds

 

Full tar removal is about 20-25 lbs max, search race car tech and thats the general consensus. I did 3/4 removal (stopped at the end of the seats and left everything from there up the firewall still on) and it weighed 13 lbs.

Also, this "estimated" number of 125, have you actually weighed anything? The stock panels and junk don't really weigh much, tar doesn't amount to a whole lot, and the seats are like 30 lbs each I think. I guess if you included the spare tire in this it could amount to that much, but I'm just having a hard time figuring out where that number came from I guess. I've gutted a lot of things and have probably the most reduction you can get while keeping the interior 95% intact and I know that what I removed (every item weighed individually) didn't seem to be that much. I could be wrong, though.

 

I removed my sound deadening material in under an hour with an air chissel, back to front. Are you doing it with a hammer and screw driver? My interior looks about the same. But what are you doing with those speaker grills in the rear....God they weigh like .4 lbs!

 

Get some dry ice......let that stuff freeze the sound deadoning. Flake it off. Dry ice works wonders.

 

DUde if you really want to save weight, remove emissions, your fuel injection, power steering, ac, and any other "luxury" just have essentials, throw a weber or holley on there, that will save you about 200 lbs im guessing...

 

Why exactly would a carb weigh less? I don't really see how it could weigh much less, if any at all.

Oh and I'm sitting at about 230-250 lbs removed on my car, and 200 is harder to get to than just those things.

 

Hey Falcoms, where in crystal lake are you? I live in Lakemoor which isn't too far away so maybe one of these nice days we can meet up.

 

carb is lighter if you lose most of the manifold components in the process, they are pretty hefty. you also lose a handful of efi components, air box, duct, afm, associated harnesses... it all keeps adding up. There are other ways to lose these components while keeping efi too, but usually tend to be expensive.

 

one is free and the other isn't, so being the cheap bastard that I am, here is the result:


i think that explains it

 

Pff, if your going to lose weight, go all the way

Here's our $2005 challenge car several weeks ago:


Thats just the start. Lexan rear window saves 35-40lbs, gutted doors saves about 25lbs/door, removed bumper supports are 25lbs front and rear, removed HVAC saved a bunch of weight I don't even want to count. The car should be on corner weights tonight or tomorrow (right before the challenge), so I'll let you know how much it weighs then. We didn't have time to do a lexan rear window, but I think its safe to say we'll be just under 2200lbs.

 

LOL!, dont mean to sound like an *** but all that work for 13lbs?...

My sarcastic suggestion is to physically lose the 13lbs yourself and keep your interior intact....

Using a friends account by the way, this isnt mine....

 

I always loved the idea of the yearly challenge Let us know how you make out.

 

why will someone leave all the carpet out? my buddy just completely ripped his 7 apart and all the carpet maybe weigh'd 15lbs w/o all the sound crap. I guess if your not gonna have any interior pieces than still having a carpet with look even uglier.

 

hey soundwavetsunami, i live in huntley, i dont know if u know where thats at but its about 20 mins from crystal lake. that would be sweet as hell if we could meet up somewhere chillout and talk about the wonderful world of rx7's, lol.

 

rear carpet is light, front carpet is kinda heavy. It has 1 inch foam padding on the bottom of it. Mine was wet and had some sort of mold when I removed it...gross.

Marques

 

eclipseaudio, I pm'ed you about a possible meet up.

And my front padding is all sorts of nasty and gross too. But I'm not out to remove it... yet. And I just ripped out all the AC crap so that's enough of a weight loss for me. Even though it's like 30 pounds, but whatever.

 

Well, you are right about the tar: 34.6 lbs weighed in with that alone. I also took out the foam under the feet of the passenger and driver side just to get more clearance in the pedal box area. You are correct, sir, also, in the fact that I took out the spare tire and various other parts. I have also removed all the tar from under the car, adding up to 58.5 lbs with the interior tar added in (I kept the bags seperated until this measurement, IDK why...). In all honesty, there isn't much tar under the car. Also, I have removed unnecessairy metal panels under the carpet up front next to the passengers feet where nothing really connects to. I checked the area near it, being that it is in such close proximity to the ECU for leaks and such, but could find none. All I've noticed is a little bit more road noise sneaking in through the lack of pannelage there. Also, the stock stereo was removed and replaced with a lighter weight unit with in dash single CD player. That removed a substantial ammount of weight (6 lbs in the stereo swap out alone: 10 lbs for stock unit, including the in-dash amp for the door speakers, 4 lbs new unit). The plastic panels have only added up to an estimated 10 lbs (didn't have a chance to weigh them in yet, but it wasn't much. Also, the rubber padding with fiber under the pannels around the wheel well and spare tire bay added up to another 3 lbs. I've removed peices under the car to save weight, too, such as the cats being gutted (not by choice, the front collapsed and clogged the rear, so that was a lack of options), and the peices for the exhaust system hangers that mount on the rear subframe (the mounts were pretty much rusted off anyway and the rubber falling apart). All in all, the total, with the passenger seat removed, came out to a roughly estimated 125 lbs. The next project is to remove A/C and power steering (properly, by removing gaskets inside the rack itself to make it true manual), as well as battery relocation. Most, if not all of these items are free of charge and improve the power to weight ratio. Maybe not by much, but every little bit adds up to a big chunk eventually. Eventually, though, I want to convert to an E-fan setup in the engine bay to remove the rotating mass of the clutch fan and shroud, as well as upgrade to underdrive serpentine belt pullies and belt with the alternator relocated to the drivers side of the engine and no air pump. In case nobody has noticed as of yet, the goal of this car is a fun track car for when I get a nice TII for the street.

 

Oh, pics of the drivers side, too! Guess it's time to start restoring the floor a little bit...

 

Sorry for the 3rd post in 15 min's, but where about's in huntly do you live. I live on the far west side of crystal lake, so maybe we all could meet up some time. In crystal lake we have a car show downtown every thursday night in the summer. Not sure when it starts but soon I think. Maybe we could just meet up there or something?

 

oh yeah, i have been to that car show deal. its pretty cool, kinda like a cruise night. that would be perfect to meet up somewhere around that area.

 

damnit, i am sry for not contributing to the thread. no more off topic posting.