Just wondering if there is a way to lighten the Fit.

 

Well, if you don't want any passenger seats, I suppose you could take them out...

If you don't feel the need to have a spare tire for an emergency, I suppose you could take it out...

 

Getting lighter wheels will help out a good bit.

 

Carbon fiber everything.
Rear seat delete.
Replace the spare tire with a can of Fix-a-Flat and a DC-powered air pump.
Remove all sound-deadening.
Lighter wheels.

 

sure, can start with the driver. i think they are using smaller drivers professionally for a reason.

 

Go on a diet and run on the tread mill 30 min every day.

 

well lightening a car can be fun but it breaks down to compromises... is there anything thats crucial for you?

most weight reduction is free. I suggest you pull all the free stuff out before doing the carbon fiber route to see if cutting x pounds of weight is worth that price.

dont overlook little bits in the engine bay, the cabin stuff is very straight forward but you don't want to create an overly nose heavy car. pull the A/C system, the windshield washer system... and you'll find alot of little bits that can be pulled like the hook for pulling the engine on the tranny side.

I guess it depends on how extreme you want to go. this is what my other car was reduced to. it can get very obsessive, like reworking all the wire harnesses to cut out 30 pounds of wire



Just keep in mind that you can totally destroy any resale value of the car if you go too far with things. try pulling bits of the interior and if you are ambitious try pulling up the sound deadening, its time consuming but its a great way to pull out another 10 pounds and worst case scenerio you replace it down the road with dynomat.

 

Acid dip the body and drill holes in everything else?
The sensible thing, as suggested above (and in bike shops, where it is a lot easier to lose five pounds than it is to take five pounds off a light bike), is to make sure you and your possessions weigh as little as possible.
My tool bag only rides in the Fit when I know I'll need it; damn thing weighs forty pounds.
When we head out on a trip, I try to discourage my wife taking everything in the house along.
Biscuit, what leads you to ask?
Moon

 

yeah I swapped my spare tire for the flat kit..save a few kilos there!

 

WHY do you want to lighten an already light car?

 

take a dump.

 

Problem with removing the spare and rear seat is that you lose weight at the rear of the car, making weight balance even worse. Ideally you would want to lose weight equally from the front and back of the car.

 

that's a good point, i never thought if it that way.

i guess to counteract the loss of weight, you could get a CF duckbill spoiler

 

better fuel economy..well at least that why i do it...I'm not going to be racing my Fit so I'm not to worried about balance from removing a spare tire

 

1. sell fit
2. buy crx
3. ????
4. PROFIT!

 

as far as the money items: lightweight rims and 2 piece rotors will give you the biggest gains as your reducing rotational mass. aftermarket calipers and integrated coil-overs also usually help cut a few pounds of sprung weight. CF hood and hatch if they make one might drop you another 30 pounds or so. replace the battery with a motorcycle racing battery for another 5 pounds. hood pins and you can cut out the latch assembly. ditch the cruise control. polycarbonate windows if you want to get serious with things and drop in a fuel cell. Also most aftermarket exhausts are a fair bit lighter. Replace your side view mirrors with some race bike mirrors, you'd be surprised, those assemblies can be quite heavy.

I've known alot of people to swiss cheese their bumper supports for a few more pounds. Also some of the non-essential like the rear wiper and replace the stereo and speakers with a boombox (or ipod/earbuds). Pull the carpeting, carpeting is rather heavy, but as far as pulling the interior, the carpeting is the least obnoxious part to have deleted plush it makes cleaning out the car a much easier task.

if your going to gut the interior or rear seats, theres alot of random crap under those panels. Plan on investing a number of hours beautifying the bar metal. Otherwise it looks like your driving a stolen car rather than something intentional.

also note that gutting the interior and sound deadening material is not recommended if you drive your car in the winter. The sound of salt constantly bouncing off the underbody will drive you insane.

if you do start pulling things, pull out the bathroom scale (weigh yourself holding the part, those things aren't accurate at low weights). Its always useful information to post.

also we'd probably need for one of the autocross guys to weigh in on this, but my other car loves being strongly nose heavy on the track, it probably shouldn't but it takes away alot of the understeer.

Do you have a more specific question about a particular area for weight reduction and why you want to lighten your car? Otherwise its just kinda an aimless thread.

I eventually gut all my cars, because I just like the rawness of it. The woman doesn't let me do this to my DD, so its going to be a couple years before I can have fun with the fit.

 

I originally thought gutting the car would boost my mpg... truth is that it doesn't.... Possibly if you spend the majority of your life in stop and go traffic, you may get a small bump but for mainly highway driving its negligible (although comparisons for that scenario are hard to make).

comparing apples to oranges, my other car, the best tank I've ever seen out of her was 37mpg, in full trim. extremely gutted track car, I can be more consistently up there but still top out at about 35 (2.6k# vs stock 3.3k#s). Even stupidly overloaded with 7 full kegs taken out of state for an epic party still returned 31mpg.

I guess I can say that at best extreme weight reduction can net you a bit more "throttle response" but your not going to see any gains while cruising. I think you'll find much more benefit from practicing a few hypermilling techniques than you will sacrificing anything with your car.

 

best way is remove all exterior and interior panels, seats, lose weight, get lightweight 14" wheels, remove brakes, remove engine......bang lightweight Fit

 

LOL...hmmm