Consider also the following weight loss upgrades:

1) Replace standard wheel set with Exige's forged wheels and Yokos tires.
2) Replace rear diffuser with carbon one
3) Replace stock filter with Reverie Carbon
4) Replace stock flywheel with a much lighter soon-to-be-released-by-Lotus flywheel
5) Replace gas tank with kevlar (FIA approved) or aluminium one (min 12lbs off)
6) If you'll have the Elise solely for track use, you might remove the cat as well and put a CRP instead (don't know about your emission regulation over there though!)
7) Lightweight Polycarbonate rear window
8) Lightweight Polycarbonate side windows
9) Perspex Front Windscreen (1/3 of original weight)


Hope I gave you enough food for thought...

BR,

Theo

 

A requirement is to keep it street legal. It is primarily a track car, but not exclusively.

I'm aware of many of the items you mentioned.

I don't have any info the Lotus wheels you mention. What size are they and what are their weights?

I'm also not aware of the Lotus flywheel. I look forward your report on that one since I see you plan to install it

The gas tank sounds interesting... any info on suppliers?

 

Cross drill your tires lots of weight savings there!!

 

The part of all this that I don't understand (and a couple of people are doing this), is why pay the $1,400 extra for the Touring Package, and then remove the parts that you paid extra for. Why not just start off with the base model???

 

The part of all this that I don't understand (and a couple of people are doing this), is why pay the $1,400 extra for the Touring Package, and then remove the parts that you paid extra for. Why not just start off with the base model???

For me, I bought it off the lot so didn't have the choice. But even if I didn't buy it off the lot, I would have ordered it this way for better resale value in the future. It's easier to sell a fully loaded car than a base model.

 

A requirement is to keep it street legal. It is primarily a track car, but not exclusively.

I'm aware of many of the items you mentioned.

I don't have any info the Lotus wheels you mention. What size are they and what are their weights?

I'm also not aware of the Lotus flywheel. I look forward your report on that one since I see you plan to install it

The gas tank sounds interesting... any info on suppliers?

Lotus wheels are the one Exige has on.
The flywheel is still under testing. Once I have news from Lotus I'll let you know...

The kevlar tank can be found on Eliseparts.com...

 

Log on to www.seloc.org and ask this question there. Some people like SteveB, Stefan, SimonS etc. might have a few tips and pointers for you

 

Crazy as it sounds, I'm not sure the stock Exige wheels are forged are they? Even if they were, I'm not sure they are any lighter than the stock sports pack wheels. The lighter wheels are probably the SSRs or one of the forged wheels Shinoo is working on procuring.

Don't forget Kevlar or Carbon fiber seats. Removing items is cheap, but unfortunately replacing components with lightweight ones becomes expensive after a while. Unfortunately the seats are required.

Someone might come up with lightweight A-arms eventually...

 

Maybe I was wrong when I talked about stock Exige wheel set. The Lotus Motorsport wheel set is forged and definitely lighter than any stock (11R, Exige)....

 

Sleepless,

I just sent your a Private Message! Max

 

I'm about to start removing stuff and replacing other bits to make the Elise lighter. My dad rides with me quite often when I go to the race track so my goal is the get as close to reducing the weight of the car (and myself) to counter his added weight (about 170lbs).

So, as a baseline, I had the car weighed today, with a full tank of gas:

1949lbs.

My Elise has the Touring and Sport packages and the hardtop and Stage 1 exhaust.

Me:

212lbs

For me, I plan to lose 32lbs. So, now the car needs to lose 138lbs! Probably won't achieve that goal, but I'll see how close I can get without completely stripping the car.

I also need to make up for two 5-point harnesses, a harness bar, and a halon fire system; not sure what all that weighs.

My plan:

- remove stereo
- remove A/C
- replace exhaust with Arqray titanium muffler and sport cat
- remove rear lower meshed valance and license plate holder with lighter brackets
- remove carpet and sound proofing
- replace battery with dry cell unit

After that I'll consider the ReVerie seats.

The RAC Monolite wheels are appealing, but I'm going to wait for them to show up to see what their final weights are.

Should be fun

Your car weighs 1950 lbs fully loaded! Wow! So, without the touring pack the car will be 1937 lbs.
- 25 lbs for Arqray exhaust/sport cat/headers
- 15 lbs for the smaller battery
- 15 lbs for the radio & speakers
- 15 lbs for the CF seats
- 25 lbs for the AC

total 95 lbs. My guess is that if you want to surpass the 100 lbs mark you are going to have to spend the big bucks on CF body parts. I would start cheap with the doors and engine cover.

Starting with 1937 lbs, I could get my car down to 1867 lbs (keeping the AC)

So what the hell is the correct weight of this car? 1975? 1984? If you remove the options you'll have a base weight of 1957 lbs. What is going on here? Did Lotus exaggerate the weight?

 

Re: Re: Weight Loss Plan

What is going on here? Did Lotus exaggerate the weight?

I believe it states in my manual (not available right now) that the weight is "maximum", i.e. with all options (or maybe all options except the LSS that lowers the weight).

 

Re: Re: Re: Weight Loss Plan

I believe it states in my manual (not available right now) that the weight is "maximum", i.e. with all options (or maybe all options except the LSS that lowers the weight).

well, the car he has is fully loaded. The base weight is 1984, add 12 for Touring and subtract 20 for Sport. Now, I don't know if 1984 is with the hardtop or not. Lets say it is. Technically the weight of his car should be 1992 lbs, but he has found it to be 1949 lbs. That is 43 lbs! I'd say it's a big deal.

This also brings us to the magazines R&T and C&D. They each weighed the sport pack only cars and each had a different weight of 1950 lbs and 1930 lbs, respectively. Even 20 lbs is a lot. They were full tanks and from all the pics in the articles, were without hardtops. Who is right? Does the hardtop weigh 7lbs?

 

Just checked the manual. The official weight is listed as 912 kg - heaviest. Since it is listed as heaviest I take this to include Touring package and hardtop but no LSS. Includes full tank of fuel.

So:
912 kg = 2011 lbs
10.6 gal at 6.1 lb/gal = 65 lbs
Empyt weight = 2011-65 = 1946 lbs

Now R&T and other mags have their own way to measure the car. They may even include their test equipment. They are probably all right considering various configurations and production tolerance.

Focusing on a few pounds is not going to really matter - I wouldn't worry about it. People do the same thing on bicycles. You can feel the weight of passengers in a car but unless you are racing competitively I can't see the value in small reductions. If you could take out 150 or 200 lbs it would be meaningful, but I think the trade offs and/or expense would be huge. Not a lot of fat on this car.

 

Maybe I was wrong when I talked about stock Exige wheel set. The Lotus Motorsport wheel set is forged and definitely lighter than any stock (11R, Exige)....

Yes, those optional Exige wheels are the same as the US Elise Sport Pack wheel. SSRs are lighter than these and the RAC are expected to be lighter still.

Our CF body panels from ToyBox are also very lightweight. They'll even help lighten your wallet...

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Weight Loss Plan

This also brings us to the magazines R&T and C&D. They each weighed the sport pack only cars and each had a different weight of 1950 lbs and 1930 lbs, respectively. Even 20 lbs is a lot. They were full tanks and from all the pics in the articles, were without hardtops. Who is right? Does the hardtop weigh 7lbs?

Based on my car's weight, I'd say the C&D 1930lbs is about right given that the hardtop weighs about 16lbs; that puts it very close to my 1949lbs. Based on these weights, my guess is that R&T weighed theirs with the hardtop on.

BTW - My car was weighed on scales at a race shop which does corner balancing so I expect the weight to be quite accurate.

 

First diet plan steps in implemented:

Elise:
- Removed floor mats
- Removed floor sound proofing
- Removed side carpeting
- Removed Head Unit
- Removed front speakers (a PITA)
- Removed visors and visor bolts

Self:
- Joined Gold's Gym

Ordered from sector111.com:
- ReVerie seats
- Arqray single tip titanium exhaust and sport cat
- Rear panel and licence plate holder eliminator

Also ordered:
- Drycell battery

Things that will add weight that are on order:
- Harness bar (custom built by Speedware Motorsports)
- Harnesses
- Halon fire supression system

 

I don't remeber if I posted here but mine now with a full tank of gas weighs 1899 lbs!
I think I read in the service notes that the North American Elise comes with a different (Stainless Steel) gas tank to the 111R and Exige. BTW I weighed my old windshield, 26lbs, much lighteer than I thought it would be. I'm still considering the A/C delete, especially if it is not very efficient. I'll make the choice next summer.

 

Speaking of the gas tank, I forgot to mention that I ordered the following from eliseparts.com:

- Kevlar gas tank
- CF door panels (mostly for looks to match the CF seats, but they do save a couple of pounds)

I was going to get the the side and rear windows in polycarbonate but they told me our rear window is difficult to replace because it was glued into place and that the side windows are a multi-hour project so I decided to live with glass.

The Kevlar tank saves quite a few pounds

 

You want to see a seriously expensive weight loss plan? See this one for the Lotus 340R...

http://www.340r.net/technical/weight/weight.htm

 

The ReVerie seats arrived today. They are comfy, gorgeous and LIGHT! They weiged in at a tick over 5.5 lbs (slightly less than the advertised 5.75 lbs .

Thanks Shinoo @ sector111.com.

Now, if only I weighed as little as my daughter (actually, my target weight loss for my self is just about what she weighs; man that is depressing ).

 

Congrats sleepless... you're on the slippery CF upgrade path now and it's all downhill from here... In fact you can hear the thought process even from here "CF Scoops? Much cheaper than the seats, bargain, I'll have some. CF Diffuser? Better value for money than the seats, I'll have one..."

 

Tony,

Looking at your sig, it seems that your car is very similar to my goals for the Elise. How much did the heater stuff weigh? I was thinking of removing it also.

 

Not sure but with the aircon and heater/blower removed, i've saved around 15 kilos. Bare in mind though that I also reduced stacks of weight from the rear too so the balance has remained the same.

 

The car is now at Speedware Motorsports to begin its weight loss modifications as noted earlier.

We decided to just get ride of the body altogether

Just kidding! They are having some fun getting know the car's innards. Apparently the clams are quite easy to remove!

More pics of the interior coming later today.