Becauseracecar

 

You need to think about that location when mounting the tow strap/eye. We learned the hard way. With the strap, it's going to move around as you are being towed, and it's going to go at it on the bumper cover. You are trying to reduce damage, but you may be making it worse.

On an solid eye mount, we had used one of those single bolt set ups that went into the reinforcement end cap. (part that bolts to the lower frame rail that the bumper reinforcement bolts to) Yeah all fine and dandy, you may have bolts that can take 8000+ pounds of stress, but they are attached to nothing but some heavy duty sheet metal.

Not going to happen again, we'll either go with a light weight crossbar to tie the load to both frame rails or weld in supports on the frame rail for the tow eye to mount to.

Hopefully you'll never have an incident like we did. It's a lot different to get a little tug so you can roll back out on the track vs having broken wheels that means you are dragging dead weight all on that one hook.

Anywho, back to the subject. Took the old intake home and finished stripping the EGR system off of it. Yea! more weight gone, more performance gained.

 

If my car is broken to the point of not being able to roll, then I won't be much worried about the bumper cover at that point. They can then use the OEM loop on the N/S bar. A new bumper cover would probably be the least of my worries. LOL.
Plus, If I undo the quick releases on the sides, I happen to know my cover will pivot and lift a LOT (had to go in that way to unbolt the hood latch). Should be plenty of angle for a strap from the OEM tow location.

 

Kaj, tis true, but for those shall we say "not really race cars/owners" out there, using the strap more for looks, watching their front bumper and such come flying off might give em a heart attack when it departs.

What reminded me of this was one of the guys at our shop. He drives a Civic, you know the type, all show and no go. Has the O ring attachment front bumper. He found out what happens at 70 mph when one of his hair bands breaks. LOL!

 

I dunno. I can't imagine a tow strap causing any serious problems on a show car. or are we talking about something else now?

 

Received my blitz the other day. A good 10-12lbs lighter than the AMS Knock-off I had on the car before. Massive surface area.

The only unknown is wether its going to work with the ETS short route pipes I received. A bit of a gable at this point. Wont know until I get it all together.

 

Regarding the tow strap stuff. Unless I read this wrong, you definitely want more than one bolt holding that in. The tensile strength of the bolt may be 8ksi but when being towed that bolt is being loaded in shear and shear strength is usually less than half of tensile strength for most materials. One bolt may be fine if the car still rolls straight but in a bad accident that renders the car immobile you're going to want more than one bolt or you may risk shearing it.


Going back on topic, why don't more people run Al charge pipes? On most other platforms almost all charge pipe offerings are Al and it definitely saves weight.

I'd also be curious to see what kind of weight savings there are with alternative strut bars.

Also I'm interested in that alternator tensioner setup, so it allows for the stock tensioner to be deleted? How much weight does that save?

What about aftermarket rad fans? I tried to find info on this and it seems like there's ~10lbs to be saved by ditching the factory fan but I had trouble finding info about what fans worked as good as or better than factory.

I'm kind of at the point where most weight reduction left on my car is $$$ so I'm trying to get the last of the low hanging fruit before I have to start feeding my piggy bank. Already have gutted doors, lexan windows, no HVAC, dash bar is gone (integrated into the cage), pretty much zero interior minus front seats and dash, only sound deadening left is on the firewall in the engine bay.

So far what I've got on my to do list for winter as far as weight reduction is remove unused wires, finish getting rid of the evap system, Al SD intake to replace stainless maf intake, pull other small misc stuff in the bay that isn't being used (washer lines, brackets, etc), and maybe remove firewall sound deadening.

 

Not sure on the AL piping, hence I went with Ti.

As fare as the alt tensioner, I didnt weight the bits I removed but certainly lighter. Also did the light weight idler pulley. Thinking about getting his Ti engine mount bolt kit as well as subframe bolts for another couple of pounds. Between the racefab pan, added oil, and koyo rad, I've added some weight I want to get back.

Who are you on FB? I'll request to add you to evodans page so you can see what other light weight goodies he has available.

 

Some interesting observations. The ETS Ti short route kit including recirculation pipe and clamps/hoses is about 1lb lighter than stock.

Also the Evospec alt tensioner rod + light weight idler pulley shaves about 3lbs.

The FP cast manifold is about 1lb heavier than stock, and the FP 71HTA is also about 1lb heaver than stock.

So its a bit of a wash, maybe 1lb or 2 saved in my case comparing all these parts in particular.



OE tensioner and alt bracket



OE intercooler piping (hard and soft bits plus clamps)



ETS Short route Ti with recurc pipe, clamps, hoses

 

If anyone knows the weight of the STM sealed catch can setup I'd love to know. I'm not a fan of the mounting location on the nose of the car... Maybe someone found a different solution?

 

I was really surprised more people aren't running aluminum IC piping. We had to custom make ours. We've been checking the welds every race and its holding up well.

The only reason i can think more people don't use it is cost. its much more difficult to bend and welding the thin wall tubing can be a PIA.

But is lighter than titanium and much cheaper so it was an easy decision for us.

As far as fans go we are running the Spal fans with an aluminum shroud. iirc a 14" fan weights 7 lbs.

 

I also have the ETS Ti piping it works fine with the Blitz intercooler. Same turbo too lol.

Aluminum has really good thermal conductivity. That's why it's not commonly used. Stainless has poor conductivity but it's heavy. Ti is the best of both worlds but pricey.

 

Thank you for that info. Glad to hear it will all work together! Will prob wrap the IC pipe post intercooler in gold tape while I'm at it.

 

If that fails you can just paint it gold like PA did, I heard it has the same effect

 

I still run OEM IC piping. It's aluminum and super light.. so I would really like to keep it. My old Honda had aluminum, also; never had a problem with it.
Knowing the Al absorbs more heat is good to know. I bet gold tape is cheaper than Ti piping LOL
Rob Fuller once told me that, with a cage or fender braces, a strut bar isn't needed. I have no way to test the theory, but he knows more than I.
I thought about replacing the belt tensioner.. but I like it being "active" as opposed to static I guess there are good and bad sides to all that. I like not having to worry about tension, though
I also thought about swapping my fans. They weigh a TON.. but damn, they work well. I run the OEM radiator.. they just seem to work really well togther, so... meh.

I have the same FMIC and LOOOOOOOVE it. It weighs, like, nothing and has a LOT of surface area. I think the depth is just perfect, when it comes to cooling/heat soak, etc. I read up on FMICs before choosing it. And the build quality? Those end tanks? Beautiful.