[Lee Yoder]

Hey all,
With the gas situation as stands now, I am looking at ways to reduce the weight of my ride (without compromising safety) and with an eye towards not breaking the bank. I have thought about rear seat deletes and not carrying my spare and jack, but I am looking for some long term alternatives. Any help would be greatly appreciated:bigthumbsup.

Later,

 

[Guest]

get rid of the back seat hell and the passenger seat if ya dont need it i would probably keep the spare and the jack cuz ya just never know sometimes take off the a/c pump get cat less exhaust low profile tires go on a diet j/k

 

[FYouGitive]

I've heard losing 100 pounds car weight = one half of a mile per gallon. I've heard other values, too, and would like to know a verifiable figure.

Any road, there isn't a lot of simple, safe weight reduction in a modern car, beyond those things already mentioned. If you have big wheels and tires, go back to the 16s and worn tires, if you have the standard brakes.

Pity that most of the worthwhile mods also add weight.

Leave your pocket change home, if that will make you feel better. Hey, every little bit ...

 

[EVANLA_33]

Try A Small Fuel Cell, Fuel Alone Is Heavy!

 

[stlwagon]

Lightweight driveshaft, replacement K-member and radiator support can shave 75 lbs easy..

 

[FYouGitive]

Try thinking in terms of what you could do without. Remove the power window motors and levers. All that stuff under the driver seat could be eliminated. I know someone who would trade you a simple, light, passenger seat for your power driver seat. Mufflers are heavy. If you don't mind the noise and potential for citations, there's 30 pounds right there. Sixty if you have duals. Paint. Have you picked up a can of paint lately. Several pounds there, too. Follow the example of the all-conquering pre-WWII Mercedes team, strip that sucker and polish it up. Are you, personally, overwieght?

Keep thinking.

 

[JetBlack]

Lightweight driveshaft, replacement K-member and radiator support can shave 75 lbs easy..

+1. Drive shaft makes for a huge difference in acceleration too.

CAI and a tune will help a lot with economy.

If you have the front sway bar, lose that.

Lightweight wheels make a difference. Like 8 to 1. One pound off the drivetrain is like 8 pounds off the car.

That's $1200 in mods though... If you went from 24MPG to 30MPG, it would take you three years to break even. But you'd have more fun during those three years

Ditch the spare and jack and replace it with a can of fix-a-flat. It's what Porsche and the Mazda MX-5 did. The rear seat weighs about a pound. Seriously. Don't waste your time with that. There's a little clippy thing that you flip to remove it so you can see for yourself. Passenger's seat, I don't know about.

Swapping the DS and wheels, made such a difference, it felt like I had taken 100 pounds off the car. With the CAI/tune combo, I get almost 30MPG at 70 MPH and 36 at 55MPH (I have incredibly boring video to prove it).

 

[ckrebel910]

what are some good, reasonably priced lightweight wheels? I'd love to have some bullit 18x10s out back but if it's gonna kill my gas mileage screw that.

 

[JetBlack]

what are some good, reasonably priced lightweight wheels? I'd love to have some bullit 18x10s out back but if it's gonna kill my gas mileage screw that.

Discount tire has some good aluminum bullits with machined lips.

Mine weigh about 2-3 pounds less than the stock ones. If you get them, weigh the new ones when you get them, then weigh the old ones when they come off and let us know the difference.

Any reduction in weight of the rotating assembly will make it a lot easier for your car to accelerate. It's really amazing how much difference it made to take 25+ pounds off my driveshaft. It also almost completely got rid of my residual wheel hop.

 

[Steve McGreen]

Leave your pocket change home, if that will make you feel better. Hey, every little bit ...

Hey I never thought of that! I always have a bunch of Loonies and Twoonies ($1 and $2 dollar coins here in Canada) in my pocket, and I'm sure they drag things down.........
Like Frank says, there's not much in today's cars that you can get rid of to save weight. What about filling the tires with helium instead of nitrogen?

 

[mysticalsnake]

What about filling the tires with helium instead of nitrogen?

add some wings and let 'er fly! sorry, i had too

but in all seriousness, i just to the girlfriends V6 and it's now longtubes O/R prochamber with JBA true duals, and it feels like the stock manifold and cat from both sides together (there was only about 8" of pipe at the end of the cats for the JBA to bolt to) felt as if it weighed more alone than her entire exhaust system now. I cranked the car with it dumping after the prochamber and me and a buddy of mine that did it enjoyed the sound so much that i'm seriously thinking about buying muffler deletes for her vehicle as well, which takes even more weight off the car.

thinking about it myself: intake, full O/R exhaust (if you don't have to worry about emissions), light weight racing seats for the front (you can keep the factory 3 point seat belts), an aluminum driveshaft, light weight wheels and tires, full tubular suspension set up. I would be willing to bet that you could shave off in the neighborhood of 150-200lbs. in that stuff.

 

[FYouGitive]

Here's a start:
TinyURL.com - shorten that long URL into a Tiny URL
(URL of an article about Mondragon University's research project)

10% reduction in weight results in 7% reduction in fuel consumption, says there.

Somewhere else someone recommends use of carbon fiber body panels. I guess the cost would come down out of the stratosphere if enough manufacturers followed suit.

 

[Nikko]

You can replace your factory starter with a light weight one that weighs about 5 lbs.

 

[.boB]

Fiberglass body panels are considerably lighter than steel. And some of them look pretty good, too.

Along with light weight wheels, get narrow low resistance tires. Less drag is better. A V6 commuter really doesn't need big fat sticky tires.

Get a smaller high performance battery.

 

[Black05Pony]

Some people report an increase in MPG after switching to a good synthetic oil. I noticed no change in MPG when I switched from dinosaur oil to Royal Purple full synthetic and nothing still when I switched from Royal Purple to Mobil 1 full synthetic.

The motor does seem to run smoother on synthetic though and it purrs nicer, if you know what I mean. :bigthumbsup

 

[mrjimmy]

get rid of your a/c system

 

[mstangracer]

cheap mod - if you dont mind road noise or if you have aftermarket exhaust - pull out the front seats and center consol and lift up the carpet _ the sound deadening mat is about 1/2" thick and prlly weighs about 15- lbs- dont for get about trunk and under hood mat too!