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Old May 22, 2008 | 08:18 AM
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What can possibly be removed from a miata that would cut down on weight? My car weights 2350lbs after I removed the a/c and the cat. What else can I do to lighten it up?
Old May 22, 2008 | 08:26 AM
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www.lightweightmiata.com
Old May 22, 2008 | 08:26 AM
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Spare tire/ jack. What are those wheels? They look heavy.
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Old May 22, 2008 | 09:42 AM
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my car is 2060 and I still have a rollbar. I removed my AC, PS, interior trim, and carpet. I also replaced both seats with lighter ones, lighter steering wheel, cut dash some, no speakers and radio. The list goes on and on. I also did lighter wheels. Lightweight batteries can also shed weight
Old May 22, 2008 | 10:01 AM
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Get rid of the big ticket items to start (Seats/Airbag/steering wheel/etc)... then if your really picky you can start cutting supports in the trunk and whatnot. From your small *** avatar... I see wheels, and dual exhaust.. Weight.

(PS - Where in schuykill? I'm from Reading)
Old May 22, 2008 | 04:58 PM
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Orwigsburg, like 5 minutes from Hamburg, I'll be at Maple Grove next Friday night. PM me or something.
Old May 22, 2008 | 09:25 PM
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Funny you should mention that.. I was born and my family still lives 10 min from Maple Grove.
Old May 22, 2008 | 09:45 PM
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Remember that you get more bang for your buck by removing unsprung weight. If you can remove 1 pound from each corner that is like removing 40 pounds of regular weight.
Old May 22, 2008 | 09:50 PM
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Remove the softop. Who needs a roof? It's about 50 pounds and up high.
Old May 22, 2008 | 09:58 PM
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Hit the treadmill and lose weight...good for atleast 10lbs or more.
Old May 22, 2008 | 11:22 PM
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Originally Posted by mr_mazda329
Hit the treadmill and lose weight...good for atleast 10lbs or more.
10 LB hell, I plan to lose 80+ ******* ARMY food.
Old May 23, 2008 | 04:03 AM
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Originally Posted by wes65
Remember that you get more bang for your buck by removing unsprung weight. If you can remove 1 pound from each corner that is like removing 40 pounds of regular weight.
Uhhh no it's not. It's 2lbs for every pound of unsprung weight, not 10.
Old May 23, 2008 | 04:47 AM
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Originally Posted by patsmx5
Remove the softop. Who needs a roof? It's about 50 pounds and up high.
I removed it last week with all the frame and it weights 40lbs. The better way to cut some weight is to cut your fat if you have too much. For me there is nothing to cut as I weight only 118 lbs But as other said lighter seat (stock ones are damn heavy, I'm pretty sure it's near 35-40 lbs) a/c, p/s.

As for the jack and spare tire, it's sure pretty heavy but i make 90% of my driving on a highway and I have not portable phone so it's not a pretty good idea to remove them...
Old May 23, 2008 | 01:49 PM
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Lot's of ways to remove weight as seen at the lighweightmiata site. The big question is how comfortable you want to keep it. Is it a daily driver? Track car?

If you still want some comfort get rid of the spare and jack, delete the power steering, delete Cruise control if you have it, lighter seats and definetely get some lighter wheels! If it's a track car then start looking at gutting sound deadening material, scaping off undercoating, etc. Losing that stuff makes it pretty loud and uncomfortable to drive on the road though.
Old May 23, 2008 | 01:57 PM
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Originally Posted by Savington
Uhhh no it's not. It's 2lbs for every pound of unsprung weight, not 10.
my memory is really shitty, i thought i remembered reading 10 somewhere.
Old May 23, 2008 | 02:03 PM
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I knew i wasnt crazy. Although, looking at the source, who knows?
http://hondaswap.com/general-tech-ar...art-2-a-29058/

The use of light-weight alloys in wheels reduces rotational mass. This means that less energy will be required to accelerate the wheel. Given that each pound of rotational mass lost provides an equivalent performance gain as a 10 pound reduction in vehicle weight, the benefits of light alloy wheels on vehicle performance cannot be overlooked.
For example:
A reduction in the weight of the rim/tire assembly of 5lbs x 4 (all around the car) is equivalent to a 200lb weight reduction in vehicle weight (thats worth 0.200 in the 1/4 mile)
Old May 23, 2008 | 03:05 PM
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I have heard the 1LB turning mass = 10 LB dead weight for years. Back in the day, when I worked on a few late model stock cars, we would do every thing we could to reduce turning weight in the engine, and drive line. We would even gut the transmission, leaving only 3rd 4th and reverse gears.
Old May 23, 2008 | 03:18 PM
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Sell your car and buy mine <G>! All the work is already done and it will be going up on CL in a few days...
Old May 23, 2008 | 03:26 PM
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I dont want to go into who removing weight at the corners or removing unsprung weight helps/hurts ride quality (yes, hurts due to damping effects) but this should be a good article.

http://www.mazda6tech.com/index.php?...d=16&Itemid=50
Old May 23, 2008 | 08:27 PM
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Originally Posted by wes65
A reduction in the weight of the rim/tire assembly of 5lbs x 4 (all around the car) is equivalent to a 200lb weight reduction in vehicle weight (thats worth 0.200 in the 1/4 mile)
I wouldn't believe the 1lb rotational = 10 lbs figure. closer to 1lb rotational = 2lbs although I've read that it's closer to 1 lb rotational = 1.4 lbs

An easy way to prove/disprove the above statement is to swap the lighter wheels onto the car and then throw 200lbs in the passenger seat and compare 1/4 mile times.



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