WEIGHT REDUCTION/SIMPLICITY DETAILS

Weight Reduction Projects Part 1: Completed Part 2: In Progress Part 3: Future

Part 2: Works in Progress   Sunroof to Hardtop         From the moment I bought the car, I hated the sunroof.  It is heavy, and not just heavy, but heavy at the worst part of the car, up high on the roof, moving the center of gravity upward, which is bad news for handling.  It squeaked and rattled all the time, and it ate about an inch of headroom, which is very valuable when you are 6'3".  I hit my head on the sunroof over bumps quite often, and the only way I could drive the car with a helmet on was to remove the sunroof, and sit sideways with the seat too far forward and upright, and angle my head halfway out the roof.  From a styling perspective, the sunroof hurts the lines of the car, I find the hardtops far more beautiful.  I am currently removing the whole sunroof, and having a new hardtop roof welded into place. Stereo System         I removed the stereo and CD player, along with the antenna.  Mine is one of the models with the antenna in the roof, which I consider an eyesore, and since I don't like listening to the radio anyways, I am deleting it and having metal welded into place where the antenna assembly stuck out.  I will be using a custom in-dash computer system which will be able to play MP3's and DVDs in the car.  I'm using the stock speakers because they are light and there is no reason to install more powerful ones as the stock ones make plenty of noise.  More details on this are available in the electronics section. Re-wiring the Entire Car         This is where I show my true insanity, lol.  I ripped the dashboard out and decided to remove all the unnecessary wires.  There are an unholy number of wires in the car, most dealing with the air conditioning, power steering, cruise control, anti-theft, and other optional systems.  The MR2 comes pre-wired for absolutely everything.  It comes pre-wired for everything from fog lights for the turbo, to wiring for the automatic trans version (ugh, *gag*), to dozens of other systems your car may not even have.  All these wires are intertwined with each other... its a huge mess.  I got annoyed with it and decided to re-wire the entire car from scratch.  I studied the stock wiring diagrams in my BGB (Toyota factory repair manual), and I drew all new wiring diagrams for each system.  I will be integrating two of the fuse boxes together, so there will be no more fuse box in the front trunk, making it cleaner, lighter, and slightly increasing storage space.  I haven't finished this project yet, but I'm estimating I will be removing 30-50lbs of unnecessary wire.   Flush Mount Headlights         I hate popup headlights.  They are ugly when up, heavy, complex, and pointless.  So, I removed the stock headlights and the whole system that fiddles with them.  I will be installing some streetweapon flushmounts, with as of yet undecided bulbs.  I'm considering using the bulbs out of a Mitsubishi 3000GT right now, they seem to be about the right size, and would provide adequate lighting.  Fuel Tank         This is something I'm messing with only because I cant use the stock fuel tank because the LS1 will occupy some of the same space the fuel tank once occupied.  The fuel tank is pretty heavy steel.  I will be making a new fuel tank from scratch.   I'm not sure if it will be aluminum or steel at this point, it depends on my learning curve using the welder, lol.  I'm sure it will be a few pounds lighter than the stock fuel tank, and I intend to size it to fit a little more exactly, so I shouldn't lose too much in capacity.