Losing weight in a Miata while keeping it streetable

I don't know Miatas, but the big weight stuff on the Celica was:

A/C - 50 lbs. on that thing. Wow

Front seats - fixed back racing seats are 11 lbs. each and comfy to me. Saved about 40 lbs. total.

Passenger side seat slider - I used an aluminum fixed seat kit from Corbeau

Light flywheel - aside from rotating mass, it did save about 12 lbs. overall.

Header was lighter than the manifold

I'm going to do a lightweight battery, but don't have experience with them yet, so don't know if that's practical for a street car.

Haven't done the stereo yet either.

A lot of that is already on your list.

If it was legal, I'd remove the sound deadening. I've heard it's heavy. On the Celica, it's some kind of tar like stuff. I've heard of guys using dry ice to make it brittle and breaking it up. I don't know if Miatas have something like that, but might be worth a look.

Another way to lose some weight is to remove the stock headlight motors etc and use a pair of gas struts in their place. Leave the stops but make a pin to lock the headlights in the down position. Now if you need headlights you pop the hood and yank the pins. Time to lower the headlights? Push them down and stick the pins back in. I can't take credit for that, I saw it on a 914 Porsche.

If you're getting rid of the headlight motors, why put in gas struts? How about loop finger pulls, and fixed-length rods to hold them up? Just thinking out loud.

For weight saving inspiration, here's a Hemi Dart window riser strap and snap.

The fixed length rods can allow the headlights to vibrate. The gas struts hold pressure, like a spring.

About the jack etc: I think a Miata uses a steel jack but I have been wrong before. If it does, you might see if you can dig up a FD jack, those are aluminum. That and the cheapest/lightest spare tire you can find. Do some comparison shopping, the cheap no name tires can be really light. Fix a Flat is all well and good, but if it doesn't work and the tire's not repairable...

Woody wrote: Drive around with the fuel light on.

Do not attempt with an NA/NB Miata. No fuel light

AAA card weighs less than a jack and a spare. Couldn't tell you the last time I had a spare in a car. Usually an autocross wheel and tire where it should be. But those are light!

Jerry From LA wrote: How much do you weigh? Possible to knock off 20 pounds there?

I weigh 175. 5',8". There isn't really much to lose. If I can manage to lose 10 lbs, I'll be happy.

Keith Tanner said:

There's not much weight to that soundproofing. I'd call that the lowest priority of your list. But not a bad start!

Removing the soundproofing makes a car quite unstreetable, IMO.

I call it "sanity weight".

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

Add lightness,$$$

Aftermarket steering wheel can save a ton of weight.

NB top hats weigh pounds less than NA ones.  Aluminum weighs less than that.

1990 dash without passenger side airbag saves 10 lbs.

Shift knob is heavy, all you need is a small sketeboard wheel shaped piece of  Delrin. 

Featherweight battery.  Under 2 lbs is fine in the summer.

I'll  be honest,  I haven't  read the whole thread as it got a bit repetitive.  Has it been mentioned yet to make the car better instead of "worse"? I mean adding power has to be about as expensive as some of these lighter solutions. There is the thread where the guy did a junkyard supercharger  and there are tons of eBay turbo kits.

Once you get to where this car can be track only I think would be the time to take it to the extremes. 

When I “graduated” from HPDE1 to HPDE2, I lost 200 pounds worth of instructor.  The next session my laps were half a second slower.

Then I switched from BFG SportComp2’s to RE-71’s.  My tires got a pound heavier at each corner.  Unsprung weight too.  My lap times dropped almost five seconds.

What I took from all of this is that I should worry less about shaving weight, and worry more about adding knowledge and grip.

EDIT- just posted this to be funny, not condescending or anything. I’m sure most of you guys drive a lot better than I do.  

Drill holes in everything non-structural.

Appleseed said:

Drill holes in everything non-structural.

The trick being, knowing what's not structural;) 

A light weight battery is one of the most effective weight reducers, app 35 lbs.

They work well as a dd.   I even ran one in the winter at the ice races.

In all, in my ZX2SR I was able to reduce over 90 lbs.    Those little vibration ? weights add up.

 And it was still comfortably streetable.

Carbon said:

Appleseed said:

Drill holes in everything non-structural.

The trick being, knowing what's not structural;) 

Or, if it can be bolted/unbolted. That way if you mangle it or decide that it is structural, you can easily replace the fubar part with one that isn't. 

KyAllroad (Jeremy) said:

Aftermarket steering wheel can save a ton of weight.

NB top hats weigh pounds less than NA ones.  Aluminum weighs less than that.

1990 dash without passenger side airbag saves 10 lbs.

Shift knob is heavy, all you need is a small sketeboard wheel shaped piece of  Delrin. 

Featherweight battery.  Under 2 lbs is fine in the summer.

Shipping weight of a single NA upper mount: 2.2 lbs. NB mount: 1.3 lbs with bushings (required). 

Keep in mind that the geometry of the NA and NB mounts is different so you can't just substitute one for the other.

Shift knobs actually need some weight to damp vibrations and give a little heft to the shift. Too light feels terrible and buzzy.

Stock weight for an NA6 dash is 20.8 lbs. I got mine down to 14.8, but it didn't have a glovebox nor did it cover up the HVAC bits - or give a place to mount them. It's streetable in that I do drive it on the street in rally form, but it's not exactly commuter friendly.
http://www.targamiata.com/tags.php?no=2&tag=weight%20loss

Knurled. said:

Keith Tanner said:

There's not much weight to that soundproofing. I'd call that the lowest priority of your list. But not a bad start!

Removing the soundproofing makes a car quite unstreetable, IMO.

 

I call it "sanity weight".

Depends on what you consider streetable, I suppose. I stripped my street Miata down to a pretty light weight for a while to see what it was like - no top, no HVAC, etc.

Little gain, lots of downside to pulling the bulkhead sound deadening in the case of the Miata. I don't know about other cars - I have seen someone chip the tar out of an E30 trunk and fill a very heavy garbage can with the results.

Some googling sent me to this thread (GRM forum to the rescue once again), so free bump for everyone. :)

Keith Tanner said:

Little gain, lots of downside to pulling the bulkhead sound deadening in the case of the Miata. I don't know about other cars - I have seen someone chip the tar out of an E30 trunk and fill a very heavy garbage can with the results.

There's a lot of heavy stuff in a BMW.  My E46 M3 is 700 pounds lighter than stock, and that's after the cage got welded in.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

I can totally see that. But, even stock (or close), an E46 M3 is pretty sweet. :)

Since we're necro-posting this thread, thought I'd mention that deleting the entire parking brake apparatus got me around 10lb IIRC. It's also reported to reduce a little bit of rolling resistance if you remove the auto-adjusting gears from the inside of the rear caliper. 

Wow.  This was an old thread.  Are there crash bars in the doors to remove?  Lightweight windshield?  Aluminum sheet dash with a pod for gauges?  Or is that a step too far...

In reply to noddaz :

Totally an old thread. I recently removed just the antenna mast from my Miata and that got me thinking, What if I pull all of the antenna stuff inside the fender as well?

My Googles took me back to the GRM forum.

Plate of shrimp.

In reply to noddaz :

Door bars exist but they're really kinda there for a good reason and not heavy. Not really worth the weight savings. I actually backtracked on this when building the Targa Miata. 

Now, the horns that support the rear tie downs and bumper substructure, on the other hand...