swoosh

iTrader: (5)

^^^ coz i read somewhere you need some different hardware for the jump start....but well....

Inaccurate

Yes. Please see links below regarding AGM batteries. Braille batteries are AGM style batteries.

Link 1 (click here)
Link 2 (click here)

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I stand corrected...my apologies.

Inacc, I'm still in shock that you had your perfectly good tires shaved down to save weight...and then have to drive more carefully in case it rains. You are SO committed to this weight loss thing it's intense.

I'm thinking about what else you could remove that is not totally necessary...

and why not to ahead and lower the car to at least remove the wheel gap? I bet you that the camber kit arms (SPC and eibach) upper arm kits would net you SOME weight reduction...I remember them feeling lighter (maybe I'm wrong). Then you'd end up with a perfect alignment, lower AND weight saving.

Plus, isn't there some gain to the being lowered and not having wind get up into you wells to create drag?

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

Perfect...i might just need to buy a charger for the battery (just incase)....the 2nd link says "Yes, you can jump start the car with an AGM installed. The battery may not charge on the alternator, so when you stop, it still won't start again."

do you have a charger for the Braille battery ?

hahaha its all good bro....

also a little bit of camber does improve the handling of the car

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

I have a Schumacher charger for mine, 2 amp trickle charger for I think something like 40 bucks and you'll be fine.

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

^^^ Perfect....

btw u stole my deal on the braille from the BM LOL....that was a good pick

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

Oops....


edit: Don't you know all's fair in love and war AND track goodies! haha

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

^^^ hhahaha killer edit....

we all love each other :gheyhug:

Inaccurate

Click here for info regarding the charger.


ADDITIONAL INFO

I do recommend this small Braille (B14115) to anyone that is willing to live within it's small reserve capacity. This means discipline and commitment from you.

- Put a trickle charger on the little battery if not driven for two days or more.

- Assuring no accessories draw vampire current while engine is off.

- Put the trickle charger on the battery if working inside the car for a long time (more than 5 minutes) with the doors open and causing the dome light to stay on.

- No listening to radio with engine off

- No aftermarket accessories such as car alarms that drain the battery with the engine off .

- Periodically (once per month) assure that the terminal bolts are tight. They do loosen very gradually.

- Replace the battery every 24 months or sooner.

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

well put, mine's charging as we speak. good info.

Inaccurate

No apology needed. You were correct earlier. The Braille can indeed be jump started like a conventional battery.


It is a pain (to the ego) having traffic continually wizzing past me when it is wet. I stay in the far most slow lane on wet roads. During these times, I just continually remind myself of the fun that I will have when I get on dry pavement again. The wet times are a small price to pay for the big rewards that I get on dry pavement.


I have adjusted the coilovers to sit at oem height (distance from center cap to wheelwell arch). I based this decision on wanting the axle to be as level as possible to reduce mechanical inefficiency and to minimize CV joint wear.

However, the car body itself (wheelwell to ground distance) is dropped one inch from oem height in the front and 1/2 inch from oem height in the rear The typical TL sits at 26-1/2" Front & Rear. With my coilovers, I am sitting at 25-1/2" Front and 26" Rear.

I don't want to go lower and worry about scrapping and busted oil pans. I got the coilovers for actual performance reasons (handling) and not for the lowering for appearance sake. Weird, huh?

I still have a large wheel gap because of the small diameter tires. It would take more than a 2 inch drop from oem height to close my tire gap.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

You should have custom magnesium control arms made

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

SO my quick answer was right, redemption!

About the driving in wet conditions...and I'm playing devil's advocate here...but with ALL the weight you've saved elsewhere in the car, don't you think the safety aspect would have been worth keeping the tread. I mean, you could take a dump and go in the sauna and lose the 12 pounds. Next thing you're going to figure out how to drive the car without being in it saving you 186 pounds! (a guess ). Anyway, I'd hate for you to have a hydroplan accident due to the very little tread you've left.

Then again, your car wouldn't date mine...with my sound system, my work wheels, and my own 215 lbs in the car she's a fat bitch in comparison to your trimmed down version.

About the being lowered...I would assume that the difference in where you sit in relation to another TL are from your smaller wheels and the scraped tires. Technically, if you measure the same distance from center of rim to fender it can't be your suspension causing you to have a lower stance overall. Unless my physics lobe isn't working right in my head.

About being lowered and I won't threadjack by posting a bunch of pics...but MAN...better handling, more negative camber (shoot, we ALREADY know you don't care about tire wear ) less air resistance in the fenderwell...and a sexy improved look...you GOTTA!

J.

and I'm not talking ghetto drop either...our cars are BUILT to be lowered and no scrape. The only thing I scrape on, HONESTLY, is that little plastic wind diffuser under the front which I'm sure you got rid of long ago. I promise you that with just a 2" drop you will NOT be scraping or rubbing or hitting your oil pan. PROMISE.

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

Boy Tim, he really wants you to drop more. lol I'm neither here nor there on the idea I guess.

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

you such a showoff J

but Tim....am kinda skeptical on shaved tires...you said after the process by tirerack, they weight 19 lbs...i do see some Continental tires for 21-22 lbs....

3lbx4tiresx5 rotating mass = 60lbs dynamic and ONLY 12lbs static....plus u can zoom zoom in the rain...

Inaccurate

I have been driving with my previous bald tires for a long time already. I have never hydroplaned in my car.

When creating this update, I debated if I should include a safety warning regarding the shaved tires. I decided to not include a warning. Because it is the responsibility of every driver to know the condition of the vehicle that there are operating. And, the average driver should already know that worn tires are hazardous.

I think that we should not discuss this safety aspect any longer. We are violating the Official Warnings in Post #1. And for myself, I don't want to be banned.



Correct. I am lower because of the small diameter tires.


Sharp looking TL you got



As can be seen in the included pic, the rear tires are 17.90 Lbs. The front tires will be between 18.5 lbs when fresh and 18.0 lbs when needing replacement.

For this update, I am basing my calculations on the weight of the fully worn tires (18.0 Lbs). I am doing this to emphasize the fullest potential of the shaved tires.

Inaccurate

I gonna go check the pics of that other diet guy. I forgot his name.....the Track Whore... or something like that is his name...... I am gonna see where he put his ride height.

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

Hahaha who would that be?! Pretty sure that whore has a one finger gap front and 1.5 finger gap rear so to speak. Maybe that fool would be so kind as to posting some of his measurements ..... hahaha

Majofo

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

my tires are bald. Maybe thats why I went head first into a curb :lightbulb:

losiglow

iTrader: (1)

Inaccurate - This thread is great. I've removed a bunch of weight by referencing your progress. I had a couple of questions I was hoping you could shed some light on:

First, have you noticed any paint fade or associated problems on the hood due to removing the padding on the underside of the hood? My understanding was that padding helped insulate the hood from engine heat. I'd doubt this is a problem but wanted to check before I removed it.

Also, have you noticed any better handling response from focusing on the front of the car vs. the rear? I'm considering removing some of the panels from the trunk including the all weather mat that the dealer threw in but thought it might actually be a little counter productive since our cars are more front heavy than back. I'm sure net weight loss would be beneficial, but thought I might want to concentrate on the front rather than the rear.

Lastly, I was searching for an updated pic or reference you might have of whatever wheels you used. I'd be interested in getting some lighter wheels especially since it would decrease rotational mass and not just static mass.

Thanks for any opinions or tips!

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I think that any heat that would be insulated from the underside of your paint would be offset by the amount of hot air getting let out of the hot engine bay anyway...especially in addition to removing that rubber at the top of the cowl...or even doing the UCM, copyright Inacc 2010.

Ok, I got you Inacc...wasn't trying to get too technical about safey and the tire thing, was more asking your personal feeling about doing it and the trade off with having to go slow. But I got you, obviously, you think things through first and if you did it, it's cause it made sense to you.

Anyway, vill0 and inacc and swoosh...yes sirs...I feel a responsibility from society that when I see a set of coilovers that are installed on a car (and quality ones too) and not lowered at all...and I see the potential of how cool the car would look with the smaller wheels and the single tube exhaust coming out with no aspec kit it's my DUTY to be as pushy as possible to get the person to lower the car. Even at 1 finger front and 1.5 rear like vill0, the car will look amazing.

Inaccurate

Welcome to the Dark Side.

I have had the insulator removed for 5 years and 60,000 miles. I live in hot Houston... plenty of 100 degree summer days. The paint on my hood is mint. My hood paint has no fade, no cracking, no signs of aging. Other than a few rock chips, the paint is immaculate with a high luster and high reflectivity.

To decide if it was safe (imo) to remove the insulator, I had felt the hood upon arriving home for several days. Judging how many seconds that I could keep my hand on the hood. I then removed the insulator and conducted the same test. Imo, I could keep my hand on the hood for the same amount of time with the insulator removed as I could with it on.

Having the hot summer sun basting the hood surface far outweighed any heat coming from the engine compartment. This is why the hood surface temperature did not increase with the insulation removed.

This occurred back in 2007.... long time before any of my major cooling mods. My underhood temps were still fairly high back then. I had all of the plastic trim removed which helped to allow some fresh air flow under the hood. So, the above logic should still apply to anyone that has Not done the UCM (Ultimate Cooling Mod).


I have hot-footed around many corners and turns, and I am able to say that my car slides with equal yaw. That is, when the car slides under neutral load (neither braking nor accelerating), neither the front-end nor the rear-end slide any more or less than the other end.

I would say that a vast majority of the reduction is from the rear half of the car. I don't have any concerns or worries regarding the weight distribution. If the car by chance becomes more evenly distributed, then that's ok. If weight is biased to the front, I think this would assist with starting-line traction in a drag race. Just as long as the weight does Not become rear biases, then I am cool with however the distribution becomes. The most important thing [to improving handling] by a huge margin is to just get the weight off. Distribution is just an afterthought.

I am well aware that weight distribution is a hot topic with everyone. Everyone talks about it and reads about often. Everyone says it is the "be all and end all" with handling. And, this might be true for other cars. But for me and my firsthand experiences with my TL Diet in the past 6 years of daily driving, I will stand firm in my opinion that weight distribution is No problem what so ever in regards to the TL Diet. I act very crazy with my car. I throw it around like the crazy person that I am. I slide it around turns. I attempt to get airborne over railroad track. If there was a problem with weight distribution with the TL Diet, I would had found it by now.

@ vill0169 - Please add your candid opinion to this topic.

vill0169 is the only person that I will bow down to in regards to this topic. He has the same lightweight car as mine but he has more skilled knowledge in evaluating the handling of the TL Diet. I would look forward in hearing his thoughts on this topic.


The rims are Motegi TrakLite 2.0. The rims weight 14.5 lbs each. The factory rims weight 24.5 lbs each. These are the lightest rims that I have ever found that fit our TL and have a realistic price.

I purchased the rims from TireRack.com. Here is the website for Motegi (click here).

The rims are one-piece forged. The price from TireRack is $288 each. The factory TPMS sensors fits perfectly. The offset is 45, exactly as stock. The rims are 17x8, exactly as stock.

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

Thanks Tim,

First a big to Inaccurate for leading us down the road to the dark side in the first place!

The TL is the biggest surprise on 4 wheels I've ever driven, even more so when it's nearly a 1000lbs lighter than factory curb weight with healthy mods. Balance is a tricky thing in any FWD car, but then add a V6 engine and a longer wheelbase and it complicates the matter even more. But luckily for us, Acura did most of the work for us. They gave us the 6MT tranny, the factory LSD (always said it's worth it weight in gold), solid brake foundation, a great handling baseline, and still provided room for improvement. The TL comes with a 60/40 weight distribution from the factory but it doesn't take much at all to start moving the CG more 50/50 and get other, more noticeable improvements as well. Most of us know that the stock setup on the car breeds a healthy amount of understeer, obviously non-desireable. But add just a simple RSB and some easy weight loss and the balance instantly shifts to a decent amount of oversteer with a matched increase in firmness and responsiveness. Continue with a few more suspension mods, tires, and weight loss and the TL will handle literally whatever way you want it to. That's where my track experience as come into play because I have experimented with different mods and suspension settings to try and get my car to handle exactly how I want it to.
I would say more weight has come off the front of my car than the rear, especially when you consider ditching the front bumper beam, the stock battery, the AC system, etc etc. It has helped a ton with the car's "turn in" and agility into and out of the corners. I'd really like to see where my weight dist is at right now because I know it has moved in a favorable direction. I am not trying to say that a 50/50 weight dist is the only thing that will make it handle better. I actually DON'T want that. I like to have the ability to rotate the car on command thus I like to have a good amount of controllable oversteer to get this accomplished. But I will say it is pretty easy to pull weight off the front of the car and it does improve the steering responsiveness and over all agility of the car. Doesn't mean that weight in the rear isn't easy to shed but there just isn't as much is drop quickly and easily. All comes down to how dedicated you are to the weight loss and how much you're willing to live without. To find out, just look at Inaccurate's master list of things removed and put a yes or no next to each item and remove the yes's and keep the no's. I dunno, just a thought.

I can go on and on because this is something I'm truly passionate about and will if people want but hopefully I gave enough here to satisfy some peoples curiosity.

Inaccurate

Elegant Aggressor,

Thank you much for the in-depth reply. It was appreciated.

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

Very well written Villie....i was talking to a guy recently who was looking down to Acura TL....and kept comparing it to 100K+ cars.....

i just emailed him your post

losiglow

iTrader: (1)

Great. Thanks for the detailed feedback, especially on the rims. I was concerned about the TPMS sensors as well. Hopefully Discount Tire can set me up on the reinstall. I'm guessing it wasn't overly expensive to transfer the sensors?

For now I'll continue to focus on net weight loss then maybe go for distribution. According to your weights, I've lifted about 100lbs. off. Gonna keep dinking around

Inaccurate

This part we can discuss. I did include my reasoning in my update that explains my various motives (other than weight loss) for doing the shaved tires. I do realize that I write a lot... more than most people care to read. So I do understand how you might had overlooked it.

When "tooling around town", I would be driving the wife's car. I only use my car for commuting to work, which is one hour in each direction. Thus, very seldom (law of probability) am I on wet roads versus dry roads with my car. So, sure I am willing to make my car a "dedicated dry weather" car in return for the benefits discussed in my update (see the "Shaved Tires" section). I should had gone this route years ago. As discussed in my update, I have always hated getting new tires... mainly because of the squirm.

Lightly touching on the "no no" topic - Yes, I usually do put a lot of thought into my mods. For the tires, I had driven on my old tires far longer than I normally would had just to test the feasibility of this mod before I committed to it.


Thank you for this Rockstar. A small explanation can go a long ways sometimes. I thank you for wanting to help me. I really mean this. Yes, I will *gradually* take your suggestion by lowering my car another 1/2" front and rear the next time that I re-adjust my setup.

jpm3071

Inaccurate,
1) when you removed the insulation in the trunk that surrounded the wheel well, did you have to remove the back seat in order to get it out?
2) The insulation that you took out in the front by the pedals, did you scrape that off? Did you notice any difference in temperature when you took it out? Do you think the origional carpeting will sit right if its taken out?

BostonSilverTypeS

Inaccurate not sure if its on your list or not, but does your aftermarket wheels have the TPM sensors or no? Just wondering if you changed your valve stems to rubber ones instead of the TPM valve stems with the sensor...more weight to be lost there as well!! but I'm sure you already have these off knowing you!!

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

1) It's easier to remove the rear insulation with the upper part of the seat removed as it does wrap around a bit. But a good tug might just get it if you're not worried about ripping it a bit.

2) You just have to cut it with a knife and rip it. It's just rubber and foam and just sits on the floor/firewall. I've never noticed any induced heat from removing it. Not sure about the carpet though, as mine is bye bye. lol Probably wouldn't make a huge diff though.

He is running the TPMS.


Figured I'd answer what I knew the answers to for ya Tim.

jpm3071

[QUOTE=vill0169;13482761]1) It's easier to remove the rear insulation with the upper part of the seat removed as it does wrap around a bit. But a good tug might just get it if you're not worried about ripping it a bit.

2) You just have to cut it with a knife and rip it. It's just rubber and foam and just sits on the floor/firewall. I've never noticed any induced heat from removing it. Not sure about the carpet though, as mine is bye bye. lol Probably wouldn't make a huge diff though.


Thanks for the help!

phee

iTrader: (5)

I have to mention that shaving tires down has been common practice for race teams and consumers who buy performance tires. It's not any less safe it just eliminates the break in period for the tires.

This will be my last post on this matter

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

^ I believe Tire Rack has an article or two on the matter.

Inaccurate

Why do I get the feeling that no one reads my updates? I spend days editing my updates just so people can skip over the text to get to the pics?

Anyways, moving on.....

Below are the links that I had included in my update and were skipped over.

Below are some related links -

TireRack - Shaving Tires for Competition (click here)
TireRack - Understanding the Benefits of Tire Shaving (click here)
Tire Shaving 101 (click here)

The second link seems to work only with Firefox and not IE.

DC2many

I like what you're doing =)

post up some exhaust videos or we can trade some ;P your piping is similar to mine in the sense that you've chosen to only go with "one" muffler, same for me.
and pics of your height.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

This is why I post pictures and no text.
I'll be your camera man, Inacc!

swoosh

iTrader: (5)

^^^ right on the $$$

if it helps, i read those links Tim

Inaccurate

vill0169 - thanks for the help answering the questions.

jpm3071 - I too was concern that some heat from the engine bay might find it's way into the cabin. But, I did Not have a problem. I have been in 100* weather since removing the insulation and I have not noticed any problems with the AC keeping the cabin cool.

Removing the headliner and the carpet has exposed much more metal than the little bit exposed by the pedals. Again, the AC has no problems keeping me cool among all of the hot metal surrounding me during 100*+ days.

I am not saying that it is like oem. The AC does work hard. But, the AC is able to keep the cabin cool with my interior entirely stripped.

<<Do you think the original carpeting will sit right if its taken out?>> Yes, I would think so.

jpm3071

Thanks Inaccurate!