weight reduction ideas 04 hatchback

As the title states, I have the 04 LS hatchback (see garage). I'm looking for weight reduction ideas beyond removing the spare tire. My criteria for removing excess weight is this:
* it doesn't significantly reduce functionality
* it doesn't significantly reduce the aesthetics
* it's either not terribly hard, or there is a guide already

Even if it doesn't meet the criteria, I'll take any ideas I can get. I'd just like to know what is possible, what has been done, and how you guys did it. Thanks in advance.

what are you taking the weight out for?

wheels/tire combos remove weight, rear seat, passenger seat, lighter drivers seat..

on my street "legal" race car i also removed all the unneeded glass, interior panels, sound deadening, accessories (a/c power steering, windows, locks, etc) then bought tubular suspension, and finally took a 1 1/4" hole saw to the jambs, interior of door, etc... overall i think it was 1000 lbs removed?

forgot, using a "braille" style battery, taking out all the pretty (useless) stuff under the hood, cutting back the rebars in the bumper to just being cover hangers, cutting out the truck floor for an aluminum (carbon was too much $$) floor, swapping out the iron block for an all aluminum engine, um.. think there might be more.

Put the driver on a diet if over 68kg...

Could move the battery to the back as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gclark8

Put the driver on a diet if over 68kg...

---

lol
driver = 77.11 kg @ 6' tall.

All good stuff, thanks. My motivation is to increase mpg in city driving. I don't have any money so this is one of those mods that I can do for free to gain fuel efficiency.
First thing to go will be the spare tire, as soon as my roadside assistance is paid up.

Beyond that, I think the next thing I'd consider tackling would be the sound deadening material, and perhaps the A/C. It doesn't work but if my mechanic can fix it for about $50, I might use it till the end of the summer. After that I might be able to sell it?

Wheels and tires are on the list, however I won't buy either until the current tread is low.

eliminating the power steering, and getting an under drive pulley will probably help as well.

if you want really good city mpg, best thing to do is buy a bike rack and park the car and pedal..

If nobody else is in the car with you ever and the car is purely for commuting, gut the interior. Take out the carpet, and put only the driver's seat back in. Interior bits are heavy!! If you remove the A/C, do it right and take out the evaporator as well in the HVAC box.

while you at it, the hvac weighs like 15? lbs...

I can see where this topic is going.....

If its an Auto, save 15-20kg by cutting off the left leg.

Well I'm just looking to see how far you're willing to go with this. There's a lot you can do, and lightening the car usually doesn't involve much money at all. You can often MAKE money by selling off the stuff you're pulling out.

True there shibbs

Well I'm not going to cut off any limbs thats for sure. I will take it as far as keeping the car nice looking, but gutting out any extraneous items. I'd say this means I'm leaving the upholstery intact, but sound deadening means nothing to me. The rear seats might get removed, I'd have to make sure though that I won't be having regular passengers first.

I'm unsure what to do about the radio. I use it a lot. Might get rid of the rear speakers, with the possibility of replacing those channels with tweeters in the distant future. Actually it would be switching the current front channel to rear, and running the tweeters on front channel.

I really like having the privacy screen in the rear. I sometimes carry a very expensive laptop in my car and it's nice that I can stow it out of potential thieves' view.

As for the engine compartment, well I'd say anything that can probably will go. The AC would be the first to go, and if I can actually get money for it, maybe I can use that toward wheels or something. It's all just theoretical right now as I'm still waiting for the money to take my car for maintenance.

Just out of curiousity - what's your main motivation for reducing weight?

I'm basically looking for the cheapest way to get started ecomodding. As money allows I'll attempt more. In addition to this site I've been lurking around cleanmpg and ecomodder with the same user name. I've already gotten the hypermiling stuff going, so as I improve my technique my FE will go up I'm sure, but I'm also looking to supplement that with mods. Weight reduction seems like a cheap easy way to start.

Ahh ok, yeah, get rid of the A/C and sell it, that is a good amount of weight, and you may get some decent money back.

I would still relocate the battery to the trunk to get that weight off the front, use the A/C money to get a re-location kit and a new under drive pulley :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by micman

Weight reduction seems like a cheap easy way to start.

---

Even easier when you drop the requirements that you not affect aesthetics or usability :D

Weight reduction is one of those mods that has multiple benefits - handling, acceleration & braking, economy.

Of course, you have read this article about extreme weight reduction... :)

How to get your Econobox into the 14's

Before:

Attachment 4381

After:

Attachment 4382

That was a fun read :D

Not only a fun read damn educational too. F = MA hence A = F/M. The smaller the mass, the greater the acceleration. I am sure they started with a partial tank and as they made their runs, fuel was used up reducing the weight even further.

if they took more time, had more tools, lift etc.. they could have kept going/continued to shave weight and probably got into the 13s.

the hvac is left in the dash, they are using the stock battery, all the accessories and bottles etc are still adding weight even though they are not hooked up to the drive belt, condenser and much of the rad support could have gone.

plus since they went really extreme the passenger floor pan (might have been left in because the fuel lines run to it, might have been made structural because of the way the cut the passenger side pillar), they could have taken a hole saw to the rest of the car.

but honestly just using something other than a 500 treadwear tire would probably helped too..

True and true. They needed you on the project, rabbit!

Since it's a drag race they could probably have replaced the steering wheel with a pair of vice grips, take a little getting used to, but should save a pound.

That was a good read though.

they could have just locked the column, removed the steering wheel and put a brick on the gas pedal.. 5 lb brick is lighter than most drivers.

that would have also saved the the weight of the drivers seat, and drivers side floor pan... now we are in the 12s.. :P

You'd only get one run at it though, haha.

add vtec and you got a 10 second car bruh

What would my insurance costs be like if I did those modifications to my car? :D

Should go down as it would cost less to repair if it is a wreck ;)

auto or life insurance?

my uncle lived in ohio, his neighbor had a car with no doors, no truck on it as a daily driver. he had a new caddy in the garage.

Keep gutting the interior till it looks like this:
http://img185.exs.cx/img185/1443/200...veo00080fg.jpg

That's what my old '05 Aveo 5 used to look like before I got rid of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by petrified.rabbit

auto or life insurance?

my uncle lived in ohio, his neighbor had a car with no doors, no truck on it as a daily driver. he had a new caddy in the garage.

---

I think I saw him on one of our family vacations years ago!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RoRo

Keep gutting the interior till it looks like this:
...
That's what my old '05 Aveo 5 used to look like before I got rid of it.

---

Wow, that's impressive. Did you ever measure how much weight was removed?

I think I might set my goal at 50 lbs give or take a few pounds. I'm not ready to sacrifice all of the interior quite yet, especially since I do still take my wife in the car with me. From there, and once we for sure have a second car, I might be able to bump it to 100 or 200 lbs.

50 lbs isnt much, you could just fill it to a half tank only, and that would save close to 50 lbs.. (not really but..)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by petrified.rabbit

50 lbs isnt much, you could just fill it to a half tank only, and that would save close to 50 lbs.. (not really but..)

---

Some say doing that is hard on your injectors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by micman

Wow, that's impressive. Did you ever measure how much weight was removed?

---

I kept track of everything. It was a project car. Stock weight was 2343 lbs and I had it down to 1803 lbs. That included taking the stock wheels off and putting on drag slicks on the front and skinnies in the rear. I only did that when I had it at the drag strip though. My best time was 16.6 @ 81mph.

You should easily be able to get rid of 50 lbs, just take out the spare tire and that should be 35-40 lbs right there. While you're taking out the spare tire, there should be a jack of some sort and misc tools in there as well. Take all of that out and then weight everything and you should be at or near 50 lbs.

I'm looking for the old journal I kept on that car because I wrote down everything I took out and how much it weighed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RoRo

Keep gutting the interior till it looks like this:

---

Wow - that's serious. :O

I would post the link to the message board that covered that whole project, but most of the pics have disappeared and it's not the same w/o the pics. I know I have those pics somewhere, I just don't know which computer they're on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RoRo

I kept track of everything. It was a project car. Stock weight was 2343 lbs and I had it down to 1803 lbs. That included taking the stock wheels off and putting on drag slicks on the front and skinnies in the rear. I only did that when I had it at the drag strip though. My best time was 16.6 @ 81mph.

You should easily be able to get rid of 50 lbs, just take out the spare tire and that should be 35-40 lbs right there. While you're taking out the spare tire, there should be a jack of some sort and misc tools in there as well. Take all of that out and then weight everything and you should be at or near 50 lbs.

I'm looking for the old journal I kept on that car because I wrote down everything I took out and how much it weighed.

---

That is really good, my fastest time was 17.3 @77-78mph with the CAI and exhaust (I am sea level though). I read something that gave an estimate of every 100 pounds loss equals .1 second off the 1/4 time. In this case it was a lot more, maybe around .14-.16 seconds or more off the time.

It's good to see another one brave enough to go to the track in this car.
That time I posted was at Moroso, down south of you in Florida.

I do miss South Florida (Moroso) because I could go week after week. Now i'm up here in Illinois and can only go during season.

That was a blast at Moroso that night. That night the skies were overcast, so almost nobody showed up. There were only like 20 of us there when they opened. I got 21 runs before people started to really show up.

That Aveo with the drag slicks on the front and skinnies on the rear would hook up very well. I only won 2 of the races that night, but I smoked everyone I lined up against in the first 60 ft. It was hilarious for the first 60-70 ft, then they would go screaming past me. The skinnies did make the car start feeling a little squirrely around the 1/4 mile mark though.