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air bags to the rescue!!



here is my argument for side airbags!

 

Here is something else for everyone to bitch about and say how unsafe it is and crap



Rock on innacurate. It's your car, do what you want. You have weighed the risks involved and you have determined what are acceptable losses. The TL is extremely overburdened by sound deadener. As a person who has taken his TL-S apart many a time I can vouch for just how much sound deadener is in the trunk, every door, under the carpet etc.

 

right on! Could not have said it better myself

 

YEAH! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING!
you could have run out of gas!

 

Dude, What the hell... you going 150 with your fog lights on !!! What if you blind someone, or blind yourself with those foglights going 150 ???

Just JOKING

Thanks TLFourplay. This is what I have been trying to communicate... but I never found the right words. The TL is a Sporty Luxury car. I just prefer to trade-in some of the Luxury (errr, safety) for some more Sport.

Agreed. I have already added to my "To Do" list to invesigate/rip out the insulation under the carpet. I know from stripping my '85 IROC Z-28 how much that insulation weights. It is foam, but as a whole, it is heavy.

 

Welll along with the foam deadener the TL acutually has honest to goodness butyl tar rubber sound deadener ina lot of spots. Wow it would be difficult to remove it though. I am sure there would be a way.

 

that stuff will burn right off!

 

I think what you are doing is great, and I say keep up the good work. Keep doing what makes you happy and take what the nay-sayers tell you with a grain of salt. Your safety may be slightly affected but I don't think your car is capable of causing any more damage now to something you hit.
I haven't bothered doing much of anything to my TL because right now it's just a DD that gets me the 2 miles to work and back every day. One of my other vehicles is going on a diet though, and I hope to get it below 3 tons.

 

I emptied my trunk and got rid of 80 lbs of tools.. There is a noticeable difference in the behavior of my car. A good difference. Its not like I'm going to work on my car between home and work.

If I drive out of town, I'll add my tools back.

 

this has to be the craziest thing i have read on here so far

 

I'd like to try this, but on a smaller scale, see if it helps much.

Maybe a smaller battery, removal of spare tire and tools (if I don't plan on going cross country it shouldn't be that much of a hassle, I could always get AAA to come pick me up besides driving on a spare tire isn't good for the car), you know stuff like that so I wouldn't have to worry about putting in back.

I want to try how much removing the rear seat would benefit, the seat must weigh a good 100LBs, I say you remove it just for a day. lol

 

the rear seat weighs maybe 10-15lbs. its just foam and leather.

the front seats on the other hand... are pigs.

 

Oh, well if that's the case, off with the front seats, and in come the milk crates!

 

i already upgraded to milk crates. i cut out some of the mesh on all 4 sides and some on the top to countour the crate to the shape of my lardass. the weight savings from the cutouts were 3.014567 ounces.

 

Yep, I can back this up. The REAR seat is light for it's appearance.

 

However the rear seat back has some heft... 35-40ish I would say...

 

I am thinking that the best thing to be replaced for weight savings would be all the vision glass and moonroof, plastic would be much lighter and you would lower your center of gravity as well.

 

^^^ that would be good, but how expensive would it be?

 

OEM rims aren't the lightest. I think they weigh around 25lbs.

If you could get a set of 16lbs 17' wheels (SSR Type C RS, for instance), you would have taken effective weight of 132lbs off your car.

That would cost you some pretty penny, but it in my opinion would have been a better investment than removing air bags and bumpers.

I'm looking into a moderate amount of weight reduction on my car, and this is what I've done.
I'm now trying to get lighter brake rotors, if they are available.

 

I don't know.... You mean replace the safety glass with Lexan ??? Would it be safe to remove the SAFETY glass ?



Feels good to be on giving-end instead of the recieving-end. Just Jousting

 

dont know how much would it save to remove pre muffler and install straight pipe? Couple pounds, I would geuss 5 and it would sound better

 

mid-muffler was closer to 10 pounds if I remember from when mine was replaced. The OEM Mufflers are quite hefty too, replcae with some smaller magnaflows or something.

The cat-back system on my s2000 was 63 pounds from the factory!!! Honda makes some heavy exhausts!

 

I think the lexan is just as safe, just nowhere near as scratch resistant

 

If i remember it correctly, for every 6 pound you take away from you car, you gain 1 WHP. So if you can take 300 pounds off, that is like gain 50 horses. Then again, i might be wrong on the weight to horsepower thing.

 

you dont actually gain horsepower, its the equivalent of gaining horsepower....

 

i just thought of something, if the tsx battery weighs less and works in the tl, then why does the one in the tl weigh so much more? what is the voltage comparison?

 

No, it would all depend on the overall weight of the car and the weight reduced.

The power to weight ratio would be changed, which is why some members and I asked for the overall weight reduced to see how much the ratio changed, but Inaccurate has been very reluctant to post the numbers...

100 lbs off an Elise would be huge, but on a TL, not so much.

 

Why did you buy a tl? Im confused

 

Why do folks put on aftermarket rims ? Why do people hack the Nav system ? Why add CAI ? UR Pulley ? Aftermarket shocks ? Aftermarket rear swaybar ? Stereo systems ? Different tires ? Lower body panels ? Blacked-out lights ? 3.5 engine swap ? Supercharger ? Aftermarket wiper blades ? Aftermarket exhaust system ? Aftermarket brake rotors ? Carbon Fiber hood ? Aftermarket strut bar ?

To tweak the oem TL to better suit your taste and driving style. Commuting in a big city like Houston, stuff gets crazy (yea, I contribute to the craziness..so what ). I enjoy having my TL be on the "same page" with me when I decide that "aggressive driving" is required (or, just for grins ). My weight reduction has increased the handling of the car. I "pull off" shit, handling wise, with ease that I would otherwise not had attempted with the porked-out oem TL.

If you never push your TL hard, yea, why bother modding it. I enjoy beating up on rush hour traffic with mine.

 

I recieved this PM. I wanted to answer this PM within this thread so that others could benefit from it too.

I listed all NON-safety items. I highlighted the "just useless components" in blue.

1) spare tire & jack. Use a small lightweight (2.0 Lbs) 12V air pump instead. (35 lbs - 2 lbs = 33 lbs net loss)

2) Carry just enough fuel that I need for 2 days (4.8 gallons). I go from 3/8 tank to empty tank.
Buying just 4.5 gallons at a time = 60 lbs averaged saved compared to a full tank.
Buying just 6.5 gallons at a time = 47 lbs averaged saved compared to a full tank.

3) Oem crank pulley replaced with UR Underdrive pulley. (net 7 lbs)

4) front damper (7.5 lbs)

5) Mid-muffler (quessing approx 6 lbs) (be aware that you will have a slight drone)

6) Oem air filter/resonator replaced with CAI (net 7 lbs) (be aware that car will sound louder under heavy throttle)

7) All interior trim pieces in trunk and trunk lid. (I forgot, maybe 10 lbs)

8) Plastic covering (ground effects) under engine and under transmission. (I forgot, maybe 3 lbs)

9) Plastic coverings located underhood. These includes the obvious pieces along the perimeter, and also the plastic piece covering the intake. (I forgot, maybe 2.5 lbs)

10) Rear floor mats and passenger floor mat. (maybe 2 lbs)

11) Heavy Owner's manual. (maybe 2 lbs)

12) Use only one pint of water in windshield washer. (maybe 4 lbs)

13) Plastic cosmetic cover located under the trunk on the outside under car. Most people mistaken this cover for being the fuel tank. (maybe 1 lbs)

14) Thick felt covering on backside of hood. (maybe 1 lbs)

15) Plastic cosmetic covers located under car (under the rear floor mat area). (maybe 1 lbs)

16) Vibration dampner located inside trunk lid. (1.5 lbs)

17) Engine Cradle Damper (3 - 1/2 pounds)

18) Glovebox Plate (2 - 1/2 pounds).

The most important items FOR EVERYONE is to clean out the junk (pack rat items) from your car.

 

Same voltage. The difference is in the RESERVE CAPACITY. What' that ? This means the bigger battery will have more juice in reserve for things such as listening to the radio with the engine off, more time to crank a stubburn engine that refused to start up, leaving lights on longer with engine off before killing the battery, perhaps better cranking in extreme cold.

The TSX has a smaller battery because the engine is smaller and therefore easier to turn the starter.

If I was not planning to try a "micro" battery, I would for sure try a TSX battery.
What you are doing is TRADING some safety against having a dead battery for the benefits of the weight reduction. I think this is a good trade if you don't listen to the radio with the engine off.

 

#10

did you take out the carpet floor mats? you have to be saving more than 2 pounds if you took out 3 carpet mats. i take them out periodically to dust them off and i am guessing just one front one weighs at least 1.5 pounds.

 

Inaccurate! you are the man. You have a passion for the car and with what your doing and going for it. More power to ya!

 

Thanks for you guys pitching-in with the reasoning. I am not offended by "awax's" opinion. He has a right to his opinion, and a right to express it.

The one thing that I have learned from posting on various forums on the internet is how different each person is with their perceptions. Sometimes I am reminded of those Twilight episodes. How can a collection of people sometimes have such varying experiences regarding things. Shrug... it happens.

I do want to post something from my "archives". I saved this from some time ago from JohnBrowning on the BITOG forum. This person does a good job of explaining why I might feel something with my car, and the next person says "WTF are you talking about". Below is the quote.

 

 

I am hoping that I can get time this weekend to wiegh most of the items that I listed. I will post the actual weights of all the items eventually. Stay tuned

 

good observations from Mr. John Browning. I also have an observation, so many people describe the 6MT TL as very difficult to drive smoothly. I think the reason that is the case is because there is so much noise attenuating material, the car is very quiet. You cannot hear the engine precisely enough to actually be able to modulate the gas and clutch in a manner to shift baby smooth.

 

I agree with Mr. John Browning's observations also. People thought I was crazy just because I always know when something wasn't right about any cars I had. This might be corny, but I always feel one with my car!

It is definitely different driving the 6mt TL from the other manuals I've had. It is too quiet to drive by ear than by tach.

 

ITEMIZED LIST OF WEIGHT REDUCTION
---------------------------------
40.0 Reduced Fuel (buy just 4.5 gallons at a time)
34.0 Spare Tire (use lightweight 12V air pump)
23.0 Trunk Panels
17.0 Front Bumper
16.0 Rear Bumper
9.0 Side Airbag
8.5 Mid Muffler
8.0 CAI
7.5 Front Damper
7.0 UR Crank pulley
7.0 Ground Effect Panels
6.0 Engine Bay Panels
5.5 Subwoofer Speaker
5.0 Floor Mats
4.0 Reduced wiper fluid (use 1 pint at a time)
3.5 Engine Cradle Damper
2.5 Glovebox Plate
2.4 Owner Manual
1.8 Hood Insulation
1.5 Trunk Damper
0.5 Coin holder & sunglass holders
---------------------------------------------
210 Lbs TOTAL

.
.
.
.

Future Mods
---------------
25.0 Micro Battery
30.0 Rims
---------------------------------------------
265 Lbs TOTAL



:gheywave:

 

Well, look what I stumbled across. So, as I speculated, it appears that the bumpers that I removed are just "5 MPH" bumpers.

SOURCE:
http://www.hondanews.com/CatID3014?m...58380&mime=asc

5 MPH BUMPERS

The Acura TL uses a highly efficient Xenoy thermoplastic energy absorber with a high-strength steel reinforcement beam that absorbs 80 percent of low-speed crash energy. This allowed designers to reduce the overhang of the bumper, while also reducing the weight and repair costs. Both the front and rear bumpers meet the federal government's 2.5 mph regulation, even when tested at 5 mph.

MOD EDIT:
All members, read POST #1 before posting. Failure to do so may result in a ban!