I swear your car has about 200-250 phantom weight. I've been following your build thread and I wouldve figured that you would be at 2800 with a cage easily after the Lexan. What else do you have left to take out?

 

So I'm working on getting the Dash Beam out. I'm considering removing the silencer that is behind the dash and HVAC. My question is how much louder does that make the car?
I'm not a big fan of no sound deadening all together.

 

funny you bring that up. I'm on a mission to remove that sound deadening today. i did the tar stuff on the floor area yesterday. But now I have to figure out how to get the dash apart to get that mat on the firewall. I can't find a write up so I'm going to start low and move up. Hoping i can get away with only removing part of it, to get to all that rubber/white fabric.

if anyone has advice on this process I'm all ears. My game plan is: Step1. disconnect battery, step2. start removing 10mm bolts...

 

Patience, Band Aids, Ziplock bags to keep track of bolts/screws, 10mm, 12mm, phillips screw driver, small flat head to help disconnect harnesses. You are going to need a long extension too for the socket.

 

appreciate that.

I currently have the whole thing unbolted and unscrewed. It moves around quite a bit but won't come out. Completely stumped. Never needed a 12mm though. If there is in fact a 12mm bolt, you remember where, because that would probably be the 1 thing I'm missing. The airbag is unbolted too, which got me for 1 minute.

 

Question for the weight loss gurus - can I remove the entire SRS system (controller, sensors, wiring, etc) without it affecting any other system in the car?

 

The biggest item I always struggle with is the HVAC cables

 

I could not remove all of the firewall matt without pulling the entire dash (it can stay in the car though). Also, while I was able to remove the dash by myself, I had trouble re-installing it w/o help, because it's awkward and a little heavy... and because I'm a wuss.

I posted a pretty thorough how-to on this on the Colorado Evo Club forum:

http://www.coloradoevo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4457

- but you won't be able to access the thread w/o joining.

Here's the key text/pics from that thread on the firewall mat:

DIFFICULTY/PITA FACTOR: removing asphalt pads = 5 out of 10; removing firewall carpeting = 7.5 out of 10

WEIGHT SAVINGS: asphalt pads, all six main ones + little one under the e-brake cables = 11.73 lb.; firewall carpeting = 11.98 lb. (total 23.71 lb.)

Moving on to removing firewall carpet padding. To do this, you have to remove the dash. The rubbery mat over the carpet padding is too strong/stretchy to rip it out in sections. You have to not only remove the dash, but then move it out of the way far enough to allow you access to get behind it and remove the black plastic heat/AC fan box bolted to the passenger side firewall, and loosen the big white plastic HVAC unit behind the center of the dash, in order to get all the carpet padding out.

This isn't really hard, but it is a total PITA. I didn't enjoy the process at all.

To remove the dash, there's actually only 8 bolts that actually hold it in (4 total 14mm bolts, 2 behind each panel on the ends of the dash; 4 total 10mm bolts to center console area) but there's lots of other disassembly required to go along with it.

For example, you need to pull the radio/disconnect its harness, disconnect the two control wires to HVAC panel, disconnect multiple electrical harnesses in both kickpanel areas, disconnect harness behind steering column, disconnect two harnesses that go between the dash and the fan box, etc.

You can see how far the firewall padding goes up:





These are the 14mm bolts on the ends of the dash, under the access panel:



The 10mm bolts that attach the central/lower section of the dash to the transmission tunnel:



Pulling radio trim (start by pulling the knobs off; there's two silver Phillip heads screws behind the two outer knobs):



The black and blue HVAC control wires need to be disconnected:



See how I pulled the fake CF painted trim panel? Yeah, that's not necessary at all:



You DO however need to drop the steering column, which is bolted to the bottom of the dash assembly with four 12mm headed bolts:



You also need to remove both of the light grey pillar trim pieces... if you don't, the dash will hang up on them because of two little tabs from the pillar trim that insert into the ends of the dash:



When you pull the dash back, be sure the bottom metal edges of the center console area doesn't pinch/cut any of the wiring harnesses routed on the transmission tunnel.

After you pull the fan box (3 or 4 12mm head gold-colored nuts, the harness to the fan motor, etc), this is what you'll finally see:



I didn't take any pictures at this point in the project, since I was pissed off and tired and bleeding from 3 places on my hands and arms, but I did reassemble all that mother****ing carpet padding afterwards to show you how much of it there is:



All that **** weighs almost exactly 12 lb.:



And what it looks like done, with the dash reinstalled:

 

i REALLY wish I had seen that info before starting

It was the A pillar trim that had me stuck earlier. The way it clips in, the A pillar actually holds the dash from pulling out. Crazy.

So, I ran out of sunlight tonight. I got the firewall mat removed on the driver side, and the passenger side completely. That white HVAC box kept be from getting the middle portion. Looking at your how-to I may actually reattack this tomorrow before putting the dash back on. I had not removed the dash beam, and that's probably what kept me from being able to get the white HVAC box moved out of the way.

That stuff feels heavier than 12 lbs though... Pretty sure by the time this week's weight reduction is done, it'll be a pretty big hunk of weight.

 

For those who may be interested, I've decided to sell my 2250lb Evo8:

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sa...l#post10429065

Cheers,
Mark

 

Has anyone ever "gutted" (drill/grind spot welds and remove the supports) the stock hood/trunk?

Wonder how much weight can be saved by doing that, while retaining OEM hood/trunk.

 

somewhere in this thread, someone did that to the trunk and was able to remove some weight. I don't remember how much exactly. I haven't seen anyone bother the hood though, in this thread at least

 

Actually I think EGbeater cut the supports & whatnot out of his trunk. I can't remember what weight he got it down to but if you search some of his posts/threads I'm sure you could find it.

For the hood, Tyler @ Dynotech, stock turbo record holding red evo, he posted pics on facebook after he cut the supports out of his hood. I want to say he was able to get the hood to 11.XXlbs.

 

Cliff notes version: gutting the OEM aluminum hood can save up to 4.6 lbs, gutting the OEM steel trunklid can save up to 4.4 lbs. After having done both, I would recommend gutting the hood (and ditching the grill assembly that weighs 2 1/4 pounds by itself). If you autocross or track your Evo, losing weight off the nose of the car is much more beneficial than taking it off the rear of the car.

I would NOT gut the trunk if weight savings is really important to you, and you're NOT going to be bolting a wing to it, either for show, or for aero purposes at the track. For pure weight savings, a CF trunklid is the way to go.

The support structure inside the OEM hood and trunk isn't spotwelded in place; it's just a urethane-type adhesive. It's very easy to slice through it with a long utility knife blade, or maybe dental floss (I used a utility knife blade). No grinding required, other than the actual cut lines of the material you're removing!


GUTTING OEM HOOD

Evo 8 hood w grill, grill hardware, rubber seals, underhood heat panels, etc – 20.79 lb.
Evo 8/9 hood grill/nuts – 2.27 lb.
Evo 8/9 hood rubber seals and heat shield panels – 1.13 lb.

Evo 8 hood after removing all parts listed above + removing a maximum amount of bracing, but retaining all surrounding-edge structure & hood latch – 12.81 lb

I carved out a bit more of the bracing after this picture was taken, that's why I said 12.81 above but the scale shows 12 lb. 15.4 oz (12.96).



Entire album of pics from the gutting process:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ject%20121609/

I spent a lot of time smoothing out the rough cut edges under the hood so that it wouldn't be sharp enough to cut anyone, or easily snag clothing, etc. Keep in mind I'm still using the OEM hood latch, and while it is pretty flexy with the underlying support removed, it is fine at speed w/o aftermarket hood pins or AeroCatch latches... and yes, I've driven the car with this hood on road courses, at up to 143 mph.

What it looks like inside after being painted flat black (sorry, couldn't find a shot of the just the hood, but the point is it looks okay as long as you're not building a show car):







GUTTING OEM TRUNK

Evo 8/9 OEM trunk, no wing/mounting bolts/latch/lock assembly; with 6 mounting bolts – 21.3 lb. (I've weighed trunklids off an 8 and a 9, and they were within an ounce of each other)

Evo 8 OEM trunk, gutted – 16.9 lb.

For reference: Robispec/Fiber Images carbon fiber trunklid – 6.63 lb.

The OEM trunk gets VERY flexy without the support underneath. I probably wouldn't do it if you're wingless, because bolting a wing on top of the gutted trunk lends a considerable amount of stiffness back. The other issue with gutting the trunk is that in order to remove the maximum amount of weight, you'll be taking out most of the material that supports the latch area, so if you intend to retain the OEM trunk latch functionality like I did, you'll either have to leave a lot more material around the latch, or you'll have to get creative with adding back in some support where the latch bolts in (I actually used some of the aluminum I cut out of the OEM hood for this... ultimate recycling!).

Just ditching the OEM trunksprings is an easy way to lose over a pound w/o the drawbacks of a gutted trunklid, plus it's reversible:

OEM Evo 9 trunksprings (both, w plastic “muffler” clip) – 1.19 lb.
Custom aluminum trunklid proprod – 1.4 oz (.09 lb.)

Album of gutting trunk pics: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v6...save%20weight/

 

^^^Nice! Didn't know you gutted both, actually I probably read it before but forgot. After you painted the inside of the gutted hood & trunk black, it looks good! Much better that way than if you didn't paint it, kinda looks like they are supposed to be like that.

So how long have you been running the car with both of them gutted? Exterior wise, have the hood or trunk start to sag at all?

I know you have posted it before, but what does your car weigh now?