Anyone removed their sunroof to save some weight or whatever? I've taken mine out but I'm having some trouble temporarily fabricating some way of mounting the sunroof back in place. If you use the stock mounting bracket, your not really saving much weight... any thoughts or suggestions?

 

Well, the entire track & lid I think are what cause so much of the weigh. I think if you take the original lid off and fabricate a fiber glass replica, you could put it in place and seal it with some body filler/sand it out evenly so it looked like a hardtop. Unless you were going for a fiberglass panel that could be removable, this would take more customizing, but I'm sure it could be done with enough time. How exactly to go about it, I'm not sure which would be the best way, using clips like you see on tackle boxes/musical instrument cases to hold it in place might work, but I'm sure that wouldn't be very stable. But something similar to that may work.

 

the actual painted part of the lid weighs almost nothing, its the track and tray and all that crap that weigh so much, just take off the outside panel and figure out a way to attach it into the hole, weld it in or something and fill the crak around the panel and paint it, but if you leave the track or the metal tray suround thing than its pointless cause thats what so heavy, I just recently had mine all apart, so i got to see how heavy everything was, take off the sunroof panel andyou will know what im talking aboutl.

 

Yeah, I think they are made of aluminum, because my old one got all bent up with the littlest of force! The track is the heavy monster of it all. It shouldn't be hard to rig up some fasteners for just the top portion to be held in place, and be removable, probably not the safest of things, but it would look good and be light!

 

matsrx7:
Well, I do have everything apart That's why I started this thread. I agree, the "lid" itself doesn't wiegh much compared to the tracks and the metal surrounding. I have thrown away the tracks and other crap, but my question was how to avoid the metal surrounding..because like you, SonicRaT, and I all agree, if the surrounding tray is not removed it not even worth doing it. I'm really trying to get ideas on how to rig this thing up temporarily because in the long run I will have some glass shop fabricate a moon roof or something..maybe out of plexiglass.

Keep the comments coming!

 

I'm not real sure of how to temporarly rig it up easily, maybe get a few strips of metal, drill some holes and bolt them to the holes that hold the lid to the tracks, and then bolt them into holes for the now missing track, that might work, not sure if it would hold well or not though.

 

Do you really think that the 39 or 40lbs of sunroof is gona make any difference to your performance - get real!

 

lol, any loss of weight will increase performance, even if it's too little to notice. But every bit counts. And why would you care what he does anyway?

 

hey taking weight off the roof is the 2nd most important area! it'll lower you center of gravity #1 part is rotating mass wheels/tires.

 

does anyone have a writeup on how to take that off because i have a glass one that I bought at the junkyard. and will I also need the glass bracket or is it the same as the metal one?

 

So far I have removed:

PS & AC and all associate lines (not messed with the dash though!)

Everything behind the seats are gone (with the exception of some carpet to cover everything up.

Custom exhaust saving me some weight too

removed all emissions crap--helps!

so next came the sunroof! What else is there? I'll be getting rid of the crap under the seats (sound deadening crap, etc)

 

Heres one for ya. I got done taking out all the carpet except for the hatch area and one bin. I have big floor mats that cover up the missing carpet and is hardly noticible except for the sides. Do this and get small interior carpet from a custom stereo shop or something to cover up some of the other areas. This took me like 4-5 hours just because some of the carpet was a bitch to pull but a little muscle and it comes out. Both seats needed to be taken out. That just took 4 bolts per seat.

All together this felt like it saved 30 pds totall including the bin and mat in the hatch. I compared them with a 30pd weight I have.

Another very very important mod is the SEATS. The passenger felt just over 30pds like I was told but the driver seat I swear was 10 pds heavier for some reason.
Two racing seats will save u 30pds considering each racing seat is 15pds wich is not uncommon.

If the battery weighs 45pds wich it might be from the factory battery , u can buy one of those 15 lb bats for like 180 and save 30pds right thier.

Another very important weight tip is the hood. Yours is most likely STEEL. I saw an aluminum hood at a junkyard for 50 bucks plus trade in. I think its 23-24 pds and the steel is 50pds that someone here weighed. The aluminum N/A hood can go down to 20 if u cut some of the supports off it and get hood pins and throw away the latch connectors. Thats another 30pds

Another good idea is to take the bumper off and rip the guards off. Your bumper will be flimsy after this I think but isnt that how the aftermarket ones are? Anyways , this will save u 22pds for the front and the same for the back. Thats 45 pds right thier

Single exaust with headers no cats and shielding. I have no idea how much u can save but it sounds like
50 lbs

The emisions including PS/AC----I have done this but didnt add it up. Sounds like 80 lbs.

Sunroof-30pds

Right hand side PW and plexiglass window. I only need my left side PW. Include the Rear wiper motor and fluid. Mabey 30 lbs

Expensive and should be saved for last. The rear hatch is 50 lbs weighed by someone here and a light one should be 10-20lbs saving 30pds. but costs 3-400bucks.

Convertable rims and light weight flyweel should save 20 pds or more.

I added all this up and it came to a whopping 400 lbs of weight saved. Thats a huge differenc I gaurantee even
Pric Ianbell will feel , and it should cost way less than a grand totall depending on if u do the work yourself and look at junyards and used exaust setups. But most people have thier own exaust. This will bring u down from 2850 to 2450. 100lbs equals 1/10 in the quarter. How much hp do u think it takes to go 1/10 faster?? Im guessing 10 rx-7 hp. So tecknically 400 lbs will equate to 40hp or almost half a second in the 1/4. Most civics barly get those kinda with boost.

I like the sound of that.

....400 lbs....

 

Take out the spare , wrinch and two little stopers. That should save 25 lbs and will make up for any exagerations in my guestimates. The goal here is 2450..
And is well worth it in my opinion