Besides putting on a carbon fiber hood and trunk (which would ruin the look of my I30), what other ideas do you all have for shaving excess pounds off your ride?

 

are you looking for track ideas or just everyday?

 

Last I checked there wasn't a law against painting CF parts... I would dig it if someone actually did that.

 

a) lighter wheels & tires
b) battery
c) coilovers
d) more radical stripping

 

I'll add:
e) 2-piece rotors (lighter than stockers)
f) removal of speakers - particalarly subs/amps
g) removal of soundproofing materials
h) removal of spare tire/trunk lining/trunk mats

 

so are bbk's like the cobra rotors super heavy? or are they 2 piece. cause i have light wheels and getting a carbon fiber hood but if i stick those rotors on and they end up adding weight im gonna be disappointed.

 

They can be two piece rotors if you buy the two piece ones.

 

Solely street ideas. Would like to keep it quiet and comfortable for guests, you know.

I've seen some CF hoods/trunks that had paintable surfaces on them, but don't know how well the paint would actually keep.

The other thing is that I'm not a big fan of hood clips, either.

 

Carbon fiber gets painted all the time without any problems.

 

well besides ur typical cf hood and cf trunk....

theres smaller rims. or simple lightweight 17's
useless crap in ur trunk u think u need but in reality u dont.
loose ur spare tire
2piece rotors
lightweight battery
if ur overweight urself....shedding some pounds wouldnt be bad
do u really need your back seat?
subs/amps/and speaker boxes.....
replacing ur front seats with racing seats??
the list goes on...it depends on what u want to take out of ur car and replace

 

OK, but can you get by w/o the hood clips?

 

yes u can. when i had my civic.......loooooooong time ago in my early ricer years.....ahem.....i had a cf hood on it and i hated the hood pins. so i utilized the hood latch. i dunno if its like that with all CF hood applications.

 

Its a crap shoot. Some hoods have broken and smashed the windshield/roof causing major damage. I have herd of Sentras being totalled out from a cheap CF and no pins flying back. I drove about a year with no pins, but I couldnt trust it anymore. I am totally happy with hoop pins, function over form right?

Anyhow, You can strip a boat load of weight in an I30. There is 30+ lbs of tar on the floor. The battery is about 40 lbs, < 15 lb batterys are easily found. Drill holes in metals, remove unneeded wires and brakets. Cut out metal..... the list goes on. Ditch the washer fluid, new wheels and tires.... so much stuff.

 

Thanks. Interesting suggestions.

Do they use 30 lbs of "tar" for soundproofing? What would you have to do? Chip it off? Also, what wires are in the I30 that are not being used? How much weight would be saved by removing them?

As for the battery, I was thinking of putting in a Miati battery for Summertime driving only, though, and putting back the regular one for winter use (since there's not a lot of CCA in those size 45's).


What would be the ideal wheel/tire combination? At what point would you be adding more unsprung weight to the car?

 

you want to get the wheels and tires as light as you can. I know the factory i30 rims for the 98 are something like 30lbs a piece. You could just get the 96 i30t bbs rims which are light and still look stock. There are tons of little batteries out there that are light. I'll try to get a picture of mine on here, you won't believe it actually starts the car. I haven't really had a problem with the battery but i don't plan on using it in the winter though. You live in FL so i don't really think that the little battery should be a problem at all.

 

I stripped the tar off my floor and it was about 30 lbs. I chipped it off but I later found out about dry ice. All you do is put some dry ice on the floor, let it sit (freeze the tar) then hit it with a hammer. It will break off so easy. If you plan on keeping all the acc. there really isnt much wire to remove. If you ditch the speakers, or something similar, you could remove the wires. That however is really extreme since in all it wont weight much. The factory BBS wheels are rather light but any 15" or 16" wheel could be had around 11-15lbs. and semi cheap. The original Miata battery is nice, but its really hard to find. Some of the replacements are hard to get too. If money is an issue just get the lightest lawn tractor battery at the store. If you want the lightest battery go with Dyna-Batt or simiar. This is a great site on light weight batts. http://www.stealth316.com/2-dynabatt.htm

 

thats easy... go to the gym and loose some weight...
take a dump before you go driving....

 

well they dont make a cf hood of trunk for our cars so ur beat in that aspect. remove the washer fluid holder and all the components to it, tar under carpet, speakers, rear seats if ur not driving a ton of people around, u could cut out some metal inside the doors and what not and inside the trunk and hood if ur so inclined. lighter rims and tires, 2 piece brake rotors, drive with less gas in the tank, go on a diet, all carpet out of inside of trunk, replace ur power seats with non power seats, take out visors, and thats all i can think of for now

 

How about I just find a jockey to drive the car and I'll stay at home?

 

ive done alot of weight loss on my track car, let me tell u, u really have to lose a lot of comfort to get any real gains. let say u do get a light battery and lose all the junk u dont need, ull lose how much? 100lbs, maybe, but then ur at the mercy of not having a spare which can/will be a bad thing, and the work to scrape off all the deadening is quite extensive. i used several methods,
1. dry ice. worked well but u have to work kinda fast and u have to be carefull with it. i understand its not poison but im accident prone.
2. hot sun. letting the tar get hot and scrape it off. worked well but messy and u have to have the tar exposed.
3. just cut out the floor where its not really needed for strength and replace it with alum. worked the best by far for me, but please dont hurt ur beautiful I.

imo unless u plan on ruining some of the features that make our cars great just stick with rotating mass weight loss, best bang for the buck, and u wont have to tell ur passengers where they can put theyre feet so they dont go thru the floor.

 

WELL SAID.

 

When it's race time, you take out the seats.

 

and sadly theres not much in our cars that weight lot, its more of a whole bunch of decently heavy things, so there not really any easy way to drop weight. check ur seat the whole back weights less than 10lbs.

u want a way to lose a lot of weight esp if u have a moonroof is replace everything with lexan. its not super $$$ if u make them urself. im doign this on my track car, btu havent had the time to make progress. the difference in weight is rather huge. its its weight up top. but again u give and take, theyre not legal that i know of, they scratch easy . and i figure it would take a bit of work to make them fit right. luck for me my track car uses 80s style non curved windows so its easier. with luck mine will even roll down if i decied to keep the heavy armatuer that allows them to do so.

once u start losing weight ull wanna keep going. i took everything out of my car stood on a scale and noted how mucht he car lost. in an afternoon with just basic hand tools i lost over 300lbs. and i did that two days ina row. amazing how much crap there is in some cars. tar. deadening, wires, lights motors, sensors, carpeting, just all kinds of crap a track car doesnt need.

i found it odd, the sun visors in my car weighted nearly 3lbs a peice. little things add up tho

 

your body weight!

 

I used to do that with my 1961 Buick. Removed the rear bench, passenger bucket seat, the spare, jack, trunk floor cover, floor mats, carpeting, wheel covers, glove box, and siphoned off almost all the gas in the tank.

 

does anyone have the weight of their maximas on hand, would be curious to know what other maximas are tipping the scales at

 

Well, according to my AirCare report, my Maxima has a curb weight of 1481kg.

I guess the 17" wheels I'm lugging around don't really help either

 

from what ive read most weight extreme weight reductions can lose up to 35% of the total cars weight.anything after that u start having to get into different body panels and $$$ leight weight stuff, ie no lights, rotors, lug nuts, just endless amounts of stuff that sheds a ounce here and ounce there. its really nuts when u start getting into it how much loosing extra pounds can be


from what ive seen 4th-5th gens can weight as much as 3500lbs, 35%=1225 so it seems a sub 2300lb max could be obtained. even with stock power that should make a noticabel difference in handling. id figure decent 1/4 gaisn too, but im not sure as to how much of an extent.

 

I would say that the extent is where the safety of the vehicle starts getting compromised. As long as safety stays the same, I can see bigger gains to be made in gas mileage versus performance.

Cars use most of their fuel to get going from a dead stop (zero inertia) to some optimal value...let's say 50mph, for argument's sake. Once a car is moving, it takes relatively little to keep it going.

 

wasn't there an entire thread about weight loss in the advanced performance section? Chrismax's car was a beast. Driven it. 3.5VQ in a max that weighed around 2550 lbs. SICK.

 

The stock seats weight 50 pounds each. There's 30 lbs of sound deadening. Your front and rear bumper supports weight 37 pounds together. The VQ35 block is 35 lbs lighter than the VQ30 block. Entire A/C system weights 33 lbs. PS weights 10 pounds and mated with a UDP and the loss of A/C it will net 10-12whp. Stock wheels with tires wieght 38-40 lbs each. Replace your stock suspension with coilovers, another 40 pounds. Spare and jack weights 40 pounds.

I forgot some but it's possible to get a full interior max down to 2650-2700 with some work (lightweight seats included).

 

I had a "Who's the lightest on the Org" thread but it's 11 pages long it has almost everything you need to know.
This was my 4thgen 3.5 with A/T when I did the 5spd swap it went down to 2669 with all factory leather seats and sunroof. So it can be done.

 

Well someone post that biatch up here.

 

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....t=lightest+Org

 

tight, but i dont think there are many people willing to take out their a/c and power steering haha.
i need to weigh my max...what do they call the places you get your car weighed, weigh stations?