The seat is a fixed bucket so it does not recline. I used recaro side mounts and slider. The seat bracket is custom made. I bought it from brianlin87. He is the one who had them made.

 

I ordered a case of Stoner freeze spray to remove the sound deadening. I think this stuff will work nicely. Hopefully I can get it done this weekend, I expect it to be very time consuming.

 

Here is the progress so far. Cut out the rear seat a/c ducting.

 

Looking good.
Wanna Scrape mine ?

 

reminds me when i was doing that to my car. but i didnt use that freeze stuff. i tried finding dry ice but no luck. so i did it with a scraper and hammer

 

Doing it once is enough for me. My back and neck hurt.

I am using a scraper and hammer also but freeze spray makes it easier. The sound deadening under rear seats and in the trunk is harder to remove than the rest.

Here are a few more update pics.

 

damn you going all out.

 

why you removing the sound deadening?

 

^weight reduction

 

Removed another 35 lbs from the car.

Weight Reduction Progress
03 Acura CL-S 6
curb weight 3446 lbs
WHEELS
SSR wheels -32 lbs
Project Kics Lugs -1.05 lbs
TRUNK
Spare tire -29.5 lbs
Jack -3.63 lbs
Trunk tools -1.61 lbs
Trunk carpet floor -8 lbs
Trunk side carpet(2 pieces) -6 lbs
Trunk plastic -3.06 lbs
Trunk lid cover/fabric (don't have)
Stock amp -1.75 lbs
REAR SEAT
C Pillars(x2) -1.81 lbs
Rear decklid -3 lbs
Third brake light -.72 lbs
Rear speakers -3.58 lbs
Rear seat belts -4.4 lbs
Rear seat back -26 lbs
Rear seat bottom cushions(x2) -11 lbs
Rear seat console -7 lbs
Rear seat side panels(x2) -11 lbs
Sound deadening/rear seat a/c ducting -34 lbs
FRONT SEATS
Driver seat swapped for recaro -46.8 lbs
Passenger seat(can put back in when needed) -54.5 lbs
B Pillars(x2) -.93 lbs
Kick panels(x2) -.68 lbs
Center console -13.69 lbs
Carpet -23 lbs
Stock radio -6.07 lbs
Driver seatbelt -4.7 lbs
Steering column plastic -1.83 lbs
Front speakers -4.1 lbs
Mugen/ works bell steering wheel(stock delete) -5 lbs
ENGINE BAY
Braille battery(15 lb) -23.5 lbs
Cruise control -2.81 lbs
Front bumper damper -7 lbs
Engine cover (not sure)
Small engine cover -.92 lbs
Plastic over radiator -1 lbs
Hood fabric cover (not sure)
Comptech strut bar (not sure)
Comptech headers (not sure)
XLR8 cat(probably -3 to -5 lbs) (not sure)
Zeal coilovers (not sure)
Option pulley -7 lbs
Random removed bolts and clips (not sure)
Front license plate and holder -1 lbs

Subracted weight I am sure of -373.64 lbs

ADDED WEIGHT
Stock spoiler (not sure)
Harness bar +10 lbs not installed yet
Harness +3.5 lbs
UR bar (not sure)
Cusco bar (not sure)

 

Removed most of the sound deadening. I didn't remove all of the black rubber/yellow foam sound deadening by the firewall. I didn't feel like removing the dash, a/c blower etc to get it all. I also left 1 small piece of tar sound deadening under middle of dash. Removed the a/c ducting to rear seat also. I still need to clean up the tar residue. Doing this was more of a pain than I expected, just to save 34 lbs.

 

Took me 3 days to install all mine.
I would hate to remove all that.

36lbs is 36 lbs. that 36lbs will give you a edge on most that have left it.

 

That's quite the project to remove the sound deadening!

 

Nice progress. Im still thinking about stripping the CL down just for fun, but I dont have anywhere to put all the interior panels once it's out.

 

thnx. You should see my room it is just full of car parts.

 

You should ditch the door sill panels and the inner rubber door lining strips. Plus the ac vents and the VHS Tape holder undernieth the ac controls

 

I put the door sill panels back in for 2 reasons. First, the metal underneath sticks straight up and is kinda sharp. Also if you drive without the door sills the doors rattle and I wasn't having that. I will leave the door lining also not that desperate. I still have functioning a/c so not gonna remove vents. I just wanted to remove that ugly plastic ducting that goes to rear seat. The thing that looks like a VHS holder is the metra dash kit. I could remove that but use it to hold my phone and wallet atm. I am leaving the front door panels in also, not as easy as the tl to not use them with all the wiring needed to use windows etc.

I don't plan on removing too much more weight. My exhaust will remove some. I also plan on getting 2 piece rotors or a bbk with 2 piece. Only other thing would be sunroof delete and lightweight flywheel. Not sure if I like CF hood or trunk. Need to figure out which seat to use as passenger also. Debating between stock seat($0), recaro spg xl($900), recaro sportster cs($1700) or asm recaro reclining seat($1700) that matches colors on mine.

I have more progress to post just need to go snap the photos first.

 

I like the progress. I want similar seats for me but i have to make sure that i will in it first. I need something that will support me better on the turns once im done. I'd like to go do some autox n stuff.

 

Wow I'll love to do that but I dont have the balls +

 

Nice progress. Any plans for a light weight flywheel that should save like 15 pounds and free up a little power.

 

The lightweight flywheel saves nearly 30lbs. IIRC the OEM flywheel is 40-42lbs while the AASCO is ~12lbs.

 

Thnx. I have lightweight flywheel on my list just waiting till I replace the clutch. Im at 110k and it isn't slipping yet. Not sure if I want to do oem with aasco, cm stage 3, or wait for excelerate's clutch kit, been debating it for awhile.

 

UPDATE PROGRESS

I removed all of the tar residue and some of the yellow sealant that was used to hold the sound deadening down. I used Turtle wax label and sticker remover. The only things I really notice when driving after removing it is that you can hear road debree more and the exhaust sounds louder in the cabin(I actually like it this way).


I steam cleaned the engine bay and scrubbed/went over all the rubber/plastic with engine bay dressing.
I have been working on removing rust from the engine bay and underneath the car also. To remove rust from the engine bay I used a dremel, wire brushes, and Griot's rust remover gel. The parts that were rusted where it was painted I cleaned up and painted with touch up paint.
The manual gearshift lever was caked in rust and was easily noticeable everytime I opened the hood with my smaller size battery so I decided to clean that up and also scrubbed the transmission clean.

Here is the gearshift lever after over a week of soaking in the rust remover gel and scrubbing clean. It is ready for primer.

Here is the car covered to protect from overspray.

Here is after spraying with high heat primer.

And finally here it is after painting with high heat flat back enamel.

I removed and replaced some of the brackets and bolts in the engine bay. I replaced the bolts and washers with stainless hardware. The bolts are socket head type. There is still more to replace and I plan on powdercoating brackets.

Some of the removed brackets and bolts.

These pics show some of the replaced brackets and hardware. One of the brackets I just cleaned up and polished.




Since I removed the carpet I wanted to come up with a solution to use the oem front floor mats for daily driving. The rubber pegs make noise on the metal floor. My solution was to glue 1" thick foam to the bottom of the floor mats. I bought the foam at hobby lobby.
I put the foam underneath the floor mat and traced it out. Then I used a exacto-knife to cut it.

Next I covered the back with gorilla glue.

Then I clamped it together and put weight ontop and let it sit for a few hours, then remove clamps.

Here is the finished pics of other side.


This pic shows the cutout I did in the foam for the floor mat bracket. It also shows the small hole in the floor that was underneath the sound deadening on both sides of front floor. I went to advance auto and bought a few rubber plugs for the holes. I had to trim the plugs to fit.


Here is the harness and shoulder pads installed.

Last but not least my latest project. Extra bumper and 99-01 oem tl lip.

 

How long did it take to clean up the engine bay?

 

I am not fully done yet. Not sure how much time I have into it. I have been spending an hour or 2 pretty much each day it seems for last 3 weeks with this and sound deadening removal combined. Just cleaning everything up before I do the engine work, then its off to the bodyshop hopefully soon.

 

what r u gonna do with ur other bumper? i really need one

 

I may have to take some time to clean up my engine bay as well. I have a set of fasteners I was going to use on the Civic but if I can clean up my engine bay I may use them on the CL instead. Do you remember the bolt specs you used?

 

I'm liking what you did with those mats. Very innovative.

Any updates on your aluminum radiator?

 

I was planning on keeping it. It is still like new since I had it painted and covered in 3m film. Got too much money into it.

I brought the stock bolts to a hardware store and just matched them up. I believe most were m6x12 and a few m6x16 and maybe 2 m6x10.

I just got an email today from excelerate saying Griffon will not return his emails. It looks like the radiator will never happen. Excelerate offered me credit toward another purchase so I will most likely use it to buy clutch.

On a side note I think I need to do something about the side view mirrors. They block my vision of the apex when turning. I am thinking maybe mount some s2k mirrors to the door and covering our mirror spot with a cap painted body color. Not sure how it will look.

 

What size tires are you running?

 

Right now I am running 235/45 but my next set will be 245 or 255 not sure yet.

I wanted to get hankook rs-3 for my next set, just surprised at price increase from 245 to 255. 4 tires in 245 would be total of $656. 4 in 255 would be $952.

If I compare to star spec 245 is $840 and 255 is $924. Not sure why hankook 255 are so expensive.

My current hankook rs-2 in 235 ran me $360 for all 4.

 

I just repainted all my little brackets last week.
And just repainting the brackets made a big differance in looks.

Painted differnt pieces one day and cleaned the bay in 2 seprate days for about 2 -3 hours and it came out pretty well.
I hand cleaned all rubber and plastic with megs supreme shine and protectant. and used a engine foam cleaner on subframe and a couple of cafeful squirts on some of the trans only.

dismantling floor mats,your going deep.
What quick disconect steering wheel adapter is that?

 

I noticed you painted some of the brackets. I want to powdercoat mine.

I am running a works/bell short hub made for rsx, s2k etc. The quick disconnect is works/bell too. You could get the regular hub and run no quick release also. They have some newer models of quick releases not sure if they are better than mine.

 

Dam, you know their rotten when they won't even interact with a vendor.

to XLR8 for taking care of you.

 

Props to Josh at Excellerate for being a good businessman. And Im honestly shocked with how Griffin is treating you.

 

are you planning on doing the whole kit?

do you have any other options for the radiator?

 

The build quality of the griffon radiator looked good, too bad their customer service is horrible. If what they sell you dsn't fit they won't help and lead you on for months.

I am gonna do the front first. I will probably buy sides soon and do those after. Not sure what I want to do with rear yet and if I want to extend exhaust.

 

i would say if you do the front and sides you should do the rear because if you dont it will make the rear bumper seem like its sitting much higher. i dont think you necessarily need to extend it. mine sits pretty flush with the rear lip.

 

For the radiator I am just gonna stick with stock, dont need more flow anyway for my setup. As for the rear was trying to see which rear gave most clearance for exhaust. Wondering if the wings west etc would be better. I almost want to do the rj side and rear.

 

The WW rear lip does have the exhaust cutouts unlike the OE lip.