Just as an fyi incase anyone wanted to know.. i weighed all of the stuff that is under our trunk mat.

spare tire, jack, accessories, and styrofoam.

Came out just a little under 40lbs.

 

those 40lbs of stuff might save our lives one day

 

I'm sure most of that weight is the tire and jack.

I believe there's very little "excess" weight on the tC that can be removed. Most of the weight is in the structure itself, along with things like the glass roof. Some of the soundproofing could be removed, but I believe much of it integrated with the structure.

The tC would benefit from moving weight rearward: replacing the stock battery with an Optima and mounting it in the trunk would be a good idea. A carbon fiber hood should save some weight at the front.

If you really care about the weight and balance of the car (and want to make it a race car) you would definitely ditch the A/C system and possibly the power steering. Replace all the glass (including the roof) with plastic or Lexan panels. Gut the interior. Go with lightweight wheels all around, along with bigger, lightweight brakes (which would probably end up weighing the same as stock but will stop better.) Hollow sway bars will save a few pounds. Ditch the subframe mounts and go with something more rigid, stronger and lighter. Go to remote-reservoir struts.

 

...and stop eating cheeseburgers :D

 

YOU DO NOT PAY 17,000 TO TAKE OUT THE GLASS, INTERIOR OR SOUND PROOFING MATERIAL..IF YOU WANT TO DO THAT BUY A HONDA, DO NOT MAKE THIS SCION A RICER, ITS PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO MAKE ME WACK OFF AT NIGHT, ANYWAYS YOU MAKE THE SCION LOOK BAD!!!!

 

My eyes! My eyes! They burn!

Please do not type in all caps, thank you.

 

Ewwwww

 

take out all the weight you want, but do that really make yoour car go faster? 1.3% of weight difference is not going to make your car go 0.1 second faster.

 

Yeah, and I'm sorry ricers turn you on so much.

 

woah.. this post turned into something different than what i was expecting. haha

The only reason i weighed that stuff is because i plan on doing a custom speaker in the back and i'll end up taking that stuff out to make room.. so i can compare how much my stereo equipment weighs with the stock spare and accessories.. Not for racin purposes and going faster :D

I'd rather just add horsepower to make up for the weight.. heh

 

If you want to go faster, add lightness.

 

Lexan = more gooder.

I've always wanted to try removing all the steel body panels on a car and replacing them with 1/8" lexan spray painted black... then do the same thing with all the glass, without the spray painting... I bet that could save a ton of weight... and I know 1/8" lexan is really, really strong... for about a year and a half I used an 8 x 8 foot sheet of it accross some metal rails as a platform for storing a maybe a thousand pounds worth of electric motors... not a crack to be seen.

 

For every 100 lbs you lose it is like adding 1 hp.

 

Also when you take weight off it does a good deal of stuff. Improves handling, braking, better accerleration. Also I think I saw on some site that for each 100Lbs you improve mpg by 1% might not be much but its something.

 

That's not true. It depends on how much your car weighs to begin with. If the tC weighs say, 3100 pounds with driver, then the power-to-weight ratio is 19.74. This means every horsepower has to push 19.74 pounds. So if you remove 19.74 pounds, it's like gaining 1 hp over stock. Removing 100 pounds would be like a 5+ horsepower gain. That could be equivalent to a $300 intake or $500 exhaust.

 

he's a one post wonder!!!!!

 

This isn't true at all. If this were true, then the 1950 pound Lotus Elise with a Celica GT-S engine in it wouldn't be over a second and a half faster to 60 than a 2500 lb Celica GT-S.

If you can get pretty much any car down under 2000 lbs (hard to do with a tC, with the glass roof and extra structural support), a 150-200 hp engine will make it a world beater... that's why people can put blown Prelude engines in a CRX and run 11 second 1/4's.

 

You do have a point. I never read much into how it all works . When you take 3100/160=19.375. So then do 3100-19.375=3080.625. So 3080.625/160=19.25390625. So taking that little weight only nets you a .12109375 gain in power to weight. So then if we take 3100/161=19.25465....... So now that I have done this math to help my self out, yeah taking out say a even 20Lbs in this case is like adding 1hp.

 

Yup, I checked my math before I posted it. You now see exactly how it works.