sunnylee

Hi All,

I think we all know our tCs are a little heavy. If we could cut down some weight, that will really speed it up a little and improve mpg...

About cutting weight... A few things come to my mine...

Carbon fiber hood > I wonder how much weight it cut down

Original header > I think replacing the header cut down quite a bit of weight not to mention more horsepower... any one know how much weight we can save there?

Exhaust > How much original exhaust weight? How much aftermarket exhaust weight?

Battery > Does any company make a lighter battery? for those of you that replace battery before, u know how heavy those are...

Taking out the spare tire > How much weight we save here...

Anything else... I don't mean too extreme like taking out dash, seat or anything like that...

smurf3642

hehe...with the system I installed, forget about lowered weight in my baby...

as for the rest...I say the headers would be the bigest weight improvement...

exhaust won't have that much of an effect...worry about that when the heavier stuff has been taken care of...

michiganbob

Performance or no, I'd never remove the spare tire. The occasions when you actually need it more than make up for the little extra oomph you'd get.

Kaeon

But seriously yes the tC is a little heavy, This is becase of the all glass roof, and the extra support beams in the car...Doing things like changing the header, battery or hood can only do so much. I would maybe focus on adding some power to the car :D

ScionTCTrav

True, Kaeons got the idea..Im getting a Carbon Hood, Not for the cut of 15 pounds, but for the look Add more power..and weight..Altho..U can always take out the rear seat, passenger seat, and console and tire, and everything..but I like mine the way it is..

I NEED BOOOST!!

grey

I'm very into getting my wife's tC to go on a diet. Wait... That sounds bad. Ok, anyway...

CF Hood: 15 - 20 pounds less than stock.
Battery: 5 - 10 pounds less than stock.
CF Trunk: 10 - 15 pounds less than stock.
Aluminum Control Arms: 10 - 15 pounds less than stock.
Titanium exhaust: 25 - 30 pounds less than stock.
Racing Seats: 15 - 25 pounds less than stock.

So... So far we've got 80 - 125 pounds less than stock. Not bad! Of course, some of these parts aren't out yet. They will be though; I'm sure that the tC will be very popular.

Next up is swiss cheesing. This step is very time consuming and requires a little engineering knowledge. You need to find the parts that are overbuilt and drill holes in them stratigically so that they don't lose much of their strength, but do lose some weight. I would focus on the metal parts attached to the frame that hold up other internal things. I would also focus on some plastic parts with too much mass. I would also check out the underside of the plastic panels for some optimization. If done right, you will have a minimal effect on everything and you will lose 25 - 30 pounds.

Chassis swiss cheesing is not as easy as the above since it requires a LOT of technical knowledge. You need to know how the material behaves and what it was meant to support. The proper way to do this would be to cut holes in the sheet metal in strategic places, but also to make a recessed edge around the hole to add in some strength. Strategically placed welds would also help to support the metal that you cut out. A properly swiss cheesed chassis can save anywhere from 60 - 80 pounds.

So... We have a grand total of 165 - 235 pounds. That's quite a lot. Take the approx. weight of a MT tC at 2,900 pounds. Take off this weight and you've got 2,665. Not bad. That sounds more like it IMO.

Ok, what else can we do? I'm sure that there's more weight savings in the details. The front of the car is heavy because of all the machinery. I would investigate every component for extra parts. Longer screws than necessary could be replaced with shorter ones. Thick, overbuild brackets could be replaced with thinner ones, or ones made out of aluminum.

This would also mean not getting stuff that adds on weight, but doesn't really do anything. Like... Pedal covers, billet aluminum battery tie down (unless it's lighter weight than OEM), billet aluminum oil filler cap, billet aluminum dip stick, alumium door sills, etc.

I bet one could get the tC to 2,500 pounds and still have a quite stock looking tC. It would handle better, get better gas mileage, etc. Less weight to carry means less inertia too, so reaction times to steering inputs would be quicker as well.

Tenaj

.... Or just drive away from In-N-Out n Krispy Kreme and stop coming back for a couple months.

kain420

i have also heard (i think on one of these forums????) about replacing the all glass roof with carbon fiber panels. this would save a decent amount of weight, plus make the car less top heavy, giving you less body roll. but for me im into the "luxury things" if i want to go fast ill get me some forced induction.

Do you think swiss cheesing will void your warranty? lol

SirWompus

You should have thought about this before buying the car. What you've mentioned may or may not save you a noticeable amount of weight,. I think that whatever it is you remove for the sake of weight will be missed somehow.

Can't you guys just leave the cars stock? The TC is a far cry from a sports car so why can't you just leave it as it is?

PS. removing sound deadening material would the the first place I'd look.

TrafficinLA

Want light weight? Save and buy the Lotus Elise.

WarrenSteve

remove floor mats, those thing gotta be like 10lbs total.

grnxb

titanium exhaust? Swiss cheesing the chassis?

Listen, I wish anyone the best of luck turning these budget coupes into street racers or something. It's an admirable goal and am sure that it will look good and perform better, but it may be a little much. I would think the ti exhaust will be awfully expensive to save a whopping 30 lbs. The idea of swiss cheesing the chassis will really hurt the possibility of getting a decent amount in resale, even if it is done correctly by someone who knows what they are doing. I'm not saying that it can't be done correctly, as it sounds like you know what you're doing. Just sounds a little extreme, that's all.

Milhamscion

I don't think you really get the point if you make a statement like that. Im not flaming you, it's just that this is what we do around here :D We all work together to make our cars look better and perform better. Thats what its all about

sunnylee

Thank you all for your ideas...

I am seriously consider making my car lighter... like I said before, not going to extreme... Not yet...

I replaced header for my other in the past... I know the original header is really heavy... after market header are very light...

I wish someone will come out with after market plastic roofs to replace our glass roof... I know glass is heavy.

Not sure about swiss cheese cutting... good idea though...

How about not filling gas all the way to full? I wonder how much gasoline weight a gallon... I think gasoline is pretty heavy also... Speaking of fluid... How big is the water container for the noozle...

How about our original rims? I love those original rims... wonder how much they weight...

SirWompus

You couldn't be more correct, infact you just bolstered my point. That point is that I don't get why you would want to lighten up the TC. You would have bought a first gen miata or a 240sx, mabey even a knotch back 5.0 mustang if you wanted light. It just makes me sad how the racer-boy mentality ruins perfectly good cars.

Souljah347

i read somewhere that there was alot of sound damping stuff in the car, and thats one of the main cause of the weight. not sure how true that is, but it might be worth looking into

mfbenson

There are two basic ways to take weight off the car:

1. Reduce weight on the chassis and body. Every 100 pounds you take off will make the car about 0.1 second faster in the quarter mile. Its tough to take off much without compromising asthetics or safety, but keeping your trunk and passenger compartment clean and empty will do more for you than most people realize.

2. Reduce the rolling weight (i.e., the moving parts). Every 10 pounds you take off will make the car about 0.1 second faster in the quarter mile.

The biggest "bang for your buck" is to go after the moving parts. The best place is in the wheels. The lightest ones made use extruded aluminum (NOT cast aluminum, which is almost as heavy as a steel wheel.) That alone can take 4 tenths off a quarter mile time. However, there is a compromise in strength - the rims are easily damaged in street driving, hitting potholes, curbs, and stuff.

The next biggest "bang" is to go after moving parts like the pulleys. Exchange them with smaller diameters puts less load on the engine through both driving the accessories less and less weight to keep moving. The compromise is that the AC or the alternator or whatever pulley you change won't work as well.

(Just doing these two things made an old '73 mach1 mustang of mine .6 faster in the quarter mile. Then I put on headers and an aluminum intake (tCs already have one, so no point in doing it on ours) and took off another half second.

After that are the "easy" power things, like a cool can, exhaust cut-outs, high flow filters, advance the ignition timing and use high-octane, and increasing the ignition voltage for a hotter spark. Maybe some of these aren't all that easy on a tC. But they're still easier than the harder things like milling the head to increase the compression ratio, or a full blown engine swap.

Oh well. Its a FWD car. It will have serious limitations no matter how much power is developed. But its still fun to make it faster than people think it could go.

grey

Yes, good idea. I think that you could save anywhere from 5 - 7.5 pounds when you upgrade to an aftermarket header. Especially if the stock header is cast, or really thick guage tubular steel. Stainless steel could be thinner. Shop around for the lightest one...

Yes, but the glass isn't that heavy for what you get. Plastic, even Lexan and other hard plastics scratch easily. Glass doesn't. That's a huge advantage IMO. I wouldn't want my roof or windows to look matte after a while. Bleh.[/quote]

The tC's have a 14.5 gallon gas tank. 1 gallon of gasoline equals 5.8 to 6.5 lbs. It depends on the Octane and the additives. So... The gas tank holds 84.10 to 94.25 pounds. That is a lot. So... When racing, you should race with the bare minimum for the best 1/4 mile time.

Yeah, they're supposedly made by Racing Hart. Typical wheel weight for Racing Hart wheels in the 17" size are from 18 to 22 pounds. Let's say the wheels weigh 20 lbs. I know that my Rota Circuit 10's weigh 15.5 lbs. each. If I would replace them with those, then that's another 18 pounds of weight savings. Nice!

I didn't mention the sound insulation before because I wouldn't want the car to be louder. No compromises! If you could remove some of the heavier insulation and add in something lighter that would work just as well, then that would be nice. A lot of work, that's for sure... Maybe a dynamat-like product instead of the stock stuff?

J_Bomb

Through some simple calculation I have found that to lose one second in the tCs 0-60 mph time there would have to be a weight reduction of 390 lbs. I like the idea of changing the sunroof panels to a light weight plastic or carbon fiber. Lighter rims would probably save alot of weight and maybe a carbon fiber hood and trunk. I don't like the idea of cutting holes in the frame. That is just asking for trouble. Can anyone figure out how to total 390 lbs?

MR2Racer28

lexan windows, fuel cell, CF hood, CF trunk, lighter wheels, header, exhaust, racing seats, gutted interior, gutted doors, removed AC and heater core. There are a lot of things you can do to cut weight on a car.