Wieght Reduction?

[PortRhombus]

I was watching The new Italian Job movie the other dat and heard the quote, ''Taken off 200lbs of body fat'' from the engineer upgrading the cars.

It got me wondering if anyone has done a similar operation and what they striped off the car.

The Mini isnt the lightest car and is noticeably slower when extra peaple are in the car with you. 200lbs adds up roughly to the wieght of 1 person...ish.

Would this modification help the cars overall performance?

[vagt6]

Lightening a car is the cheapest performance mod you can make. It's often ignored by enthusiasts.

The rear seats would be a decent place to start, then spare tire if you have one.

That's the easy stuff, further, significant weight reduction requires major surgery. Depending on what your goals are, again, it's a lot less expensive than pulleys and JCW kits!

[CanberraCooperS]

PS the rear seats equate to about 10kgs!!! not much to loose. If you replace the front seats with racing seats your going to loose about 30kgs, the airbag seats are very very heavy!

Remove the Airconditioning from the car saves about 15kgs, replace the Bonnet with a Carbon Fibre one will save you about 10kgs.

Replace your factory exhaust as its very very heavy. can save up to 15kgs just in the Exhaust depending on your replacement.

Ive seen people in here with there cars fully stripped down for racing claiming with a rollcage they are just below the Factory claimed weight (thats good going, as CDS-rollcages can weigh 70 to 90KGS.

I guess it all depends how many creature comforts you can do witout

[MukiMunki]

You can get a self-fit pulley for £100 and an MTH chip for £100.

That's got to compare well with racing seats and a new exhaust.

[enzothemaddog]

Snap, this is my domain. Firslty take out every panel bout 10kg's, Ive replace them mostly with custom CF jobs for regularity issues.
As said before, SEATS.
AC condensor
Boot and Bonnet
But a good one is cutting out the battery box and putting a plate over the hole then have a lightweight odyssey battery put in. Might not be for everyone, but Im about to do it. Jusy need a good metal cutter.

However, I feel that such weight loss could detriment the stock setup of the mini without altering suspensionl.

[Mugami]

Also another spot to loose weight over stock MCS with the 17" rims.. is the rims themselves. The stock S-lights with Run-flats weigh in at 54lbs(sorry dont know the Kg equivalent) a piece. And a good LW wheel and tire set up for street use can be as little as 31 lbs each a saving of 92lbs This is to say the Street use rim weighs in at only 16lbs each vs the 28 lbs of the S-lights. I do know of 17" rims that are lighter than 16lbs (10.3lbs to be exact) but i wouldnt recommend them for street use. they Tend to bend easily on pot holes. Another note the 16" X-lights with runflats weighed in at 46lbs per rim and tire. This weight is over look a lot simply because its not thought about. People change the rims and tire but never weighed them to find out.

On a MC with the 15" 7 hole rims and tires. Its not at easy to loose the weight seeing they weigh in at only 24lbs each with rim and tire. Rim is only 12 lbs and a comprable after market LW rim comes in at 6-9 lbs. Then if you put on the wider tire at the same time over the 195/50/15 stock tire. this cancles out the weight savings

[obehave]

TonyB is the best documented weight loss specialist on this site.
Here's a couple of his threads:

http://www.mini2.com/forum/first-generation-interior-ice/24961-my-mini-cooper-s-hatchback-aluminum-deck-replaces-rear-seats.html

http://www.mini2.com/forum/first-generation-mini-tuning/45605-muffler-choice-fabricated-mini-cooper-s-exhaust.html


Long but worth the read if you're serious about weight loss but still wanting to keep a "normal" appearing car.
I.E. Keeping interior panels and stereo intact

Also gotta agree with Mugami on the tire thing. I went from the X-Lite runflat combo to 14 lb wheels and 21lb tires for the street. HUUUUge difference. I have a lighter set for auto-x, even better.

[TonyB]

I'm still around!

I'm down 160 pounds currently. Surprisingly, the Leda coilovers helped here as well, and the Wilwood brakes will save 11 pounds total, and over 20% of that is rotational mass (the rotors).

I see a 210 to 220 pound reduction as being very achievable, while as obe said, avoiding the gutted-look. So, the brake upgrade will get me to 171 pounds. Front seats will shave another 30 (15 ea). A lightened flywheel another 15 or so more...

I plan to weigh and dyno-tune my MCS on the 3 yr anniversary from when I picked her up - Halloween '05.

[robbo mcs]

Quote: Originally Posted by TonyB

I'm still around!

Front seats will shave another 30 (15 ea). .

Hi,

I replaced my front seats. The stock weighed 18kgs each with mountings (those airbags are heavy), and I replaced them with Cobra Imola 2 seats, weighing 5kg, + 2kg mountings. That is a saving of 11kg each side, or 22kg total, which is 48lb. The new seats feel much better than the old ones See my gallery for some pics

The front seats are the easiest weight saving in the car (along with ditching the stock 17's )

Cheers

Robbo

[TonyB]

The Imola 2's look great! I saw your gallery...

I've been eye-balling the Suzuka's or the reclining Misano R (the newer one, as opposed to the L). The Misano's don't require the side brackets, so the weight delta is not that significant. I've also been told that some tracks, at least here in the US, won't let you on with fixed seats. I believe that is due to the concern of flipping... a recliner would give, and allow for less in injury if the top were to cave-in. I suppose if one has a cage, that would alleviate that concern...

robbo, are you certain on the weight of the stock seats? I was under the impression that they were more near 50 lbs... According to Cobra, the Imola 2's weigh-in at 13 lbs, or 5.9kgs...

Here's a link to the Misano. By clicking on the blue box with a seat in it called "Chart," one can see a list of their seats, along with dimensions, and weights...

http://www.subesports.com/products/?...bra&prodID=670

[obehave]

Quote: Originally Posted by TonyB

The Imola 2's look great! I saw your gallery...

I've been eye-balling the Suzuka's or the reclining Misano R (the newer one, as opposed to the L). The Misano's don't require the side brackets, so the weight delta is not that significant. I've also been told that some tracks, at least here in the US, won't let you on with fixed seats. I believe that is due to the concern of flipping... a recliner would give, and allow for less in injury if the top were to cave-in. I suppose if one has a cage, that would alleviate that concern...

robbo, are you certain on the weight of the stock seats? I was under the impression that they were more near 50 lbs... According to Cobra, the Imola 2's weigh-in at 13 lbs, or 5.9kgs...

Here's a link to the Misano. By clicking on the blue box with a seat in it called "Chart," one can see a list of their seats, along with dimensions, and weights...

Ahem! Link??

[TonyB]

What do you mean obe? My post has a link

[robbo mcs]

[quote=TonyB]
robbo, are you certain on the weight of the stock seats? I was under the impression that they were more near 50 lbs... According to Cobra, the Imola 2's weigh-in at 13 lbs, or 5.9kgs...

QUOTE]

Hi,

That is the weight of the seat, just the seat, no rails, no forward or height adjustment mechanism, no seat-belt insertion, no pretensioners etc etc

Cheers

Robbo

[TonyB]

robbo, thanks for the clarification! It seems that with those extras, the "about 50 pounds" I have noted is fairly accurate then...