2011 hyundai accent weight reduction (looking for some advice)

[Shortie771]

That's a sucky situation. I hate when they put stop signs at the bottom of hills. I haven't personally had to experience such a steep hill that accelerates the car so much with the engine off and then a stop at the bottom. I don't know what a low speed turn is my car loves the corners. I do have a long hill near me that is perfect for maintaining my speed, but there is a stop light at the bottom and an uphill after the light. I'm getting pretty good at timing it so I don't have to stop and lose all of my momentum to get up the hill. I just wish they would wise up and put roundabouts at the bottom of the hill.

[johnathanf1lm]

All my stop lights at the bottom of the hill by me are those lovely car detecting ones. Sometimes i get lucky where there is a car there and it turns green for them and me before i start breaking. But thats vary rare for me.

[johnathanf1lm]

My current weight reduction plans are to clean out, vacumm and shampoo the interior. Get thinner floor mats. After cleaning i think i am going to weigh it to see where i am currently at. Then go over the car front to back on extra pointless things i can delete and not even care about and go from there.

[bobdbilder]

The three door hatch is a good design for city driving. It has a short wheelbase and at 2400 lbs, it would be hard to reduce its weight. I would suggest focusing on items which are most furthest and/or highest from your front axle. Such as spare wheel; if it is steel, change it to alloys from a junkyard but keep the size, PCD same. If the engine has to pull your weight, the most work done is hauling mass which is further from the source of torque. In city driving, this is done quite often. Grab handles for rear passengers, if you have them should be removed. Rear seats; if you peel off the fabric and foam, if its a huge stainless steel plate, make holes. Lots of it. Not too big that the foam would sag too much. If you can afford it; Lexan or Acrylic rear window.

Be aware as the car becomes lighter, it is easier to accelerate. You mentioned physics. If you lose lbs, it is easier to accelerate more than before, therefore you use more or the same force/torque than before the weight loss. Here is where people lose the advantage of lightening the car.

[johnathanf1lm]

They make alloy donut rims?

[Ecky]

The factory donut in the Insight is alloy, and significantly lighter than even the featherweight stock rims. Member BabyDiesel just posted about collecting 4 of them for his car. You can apparently still install the stock tires on them.

[California98Civic]

On this site we have occasionally had the "does weight reduction help fuel economy discussion." A rule of thumb is that the savings come only when you have banked up lots of weight reduction. But there is no way for people with our materials and conditions to test claims. Here is a post that claims 2% savings per 100 US lbs: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...html#post34071 ...that's too optimistic. Here is a post from aerohead on this topic: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...html#post54227

But any benefit, of course, assumes you are in stop/go driving, which you say you are. I cut about 250 pounds from my car, which is a really significant percentage of the weight of my stock 2262lb 1998 Civic DX coupe. Downside: the car is louder inside than I like. I am looking for lightweight ways to reduce noise without reducing the cargo space I gained by deleting everything behind the front seats.

Your idea of lightweight wheels is better: my stock alloys were about 17 pounds and my Civic VX wheels are a hair under 10. At 7 pounds per wheel that's 28 lbs. But it is rotational mass, so most people will at least double the weight in order to estimate total weight savings EFFECT.

But to me the most important thing is realizing that every mod presupposes changes in driving style to realize its benefit, or its maximum benefit. I look at all the mods, including my own driving behaviors, as part of a system. And I look for many many small changes that make for bigger benefits. I think it safe to assume I am seeing some modest 1 or 2% benefit from my radical weight reduction. I can't prove it.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

On this site we have occasionally had the "does weight reduction help fuel economy discussion." A rule of thumb is that the savings come only when you have banked up lots of weight reduction. But there is no way for people with our materials and conditions to test claims.

Actually with the help of a trailer and coast down test you can:

Originally Posted by oldtamiyaphile

Don't bother.

My van averages 6.7 city (16mph average speed) and on a really bad day 9.7 with a 500kg+ trailer.

If you work that out that's 0.006l/100km per kg.

Those are worst case figures because a trailer also adds rolling resistance, rolling inertia and completely ruins my aero (it's a big tall box). I also EOC normally but rarely do with the trailer.

My van had a 0.33 CD and I coast down tested the van+ trailer at 0.45CD

If I type those numbers into the calculator, I find that with a .33CD I should be getting ~6l/100km at 50km/h, and with a .45CD I should be getting 8.7l/100km. So it seems that my 500kg trailer is only costing me an aero penalty, the weight is doing little to nothing.

A lighter car will sit higher on it's suspension so could actually cost you economy at higher speeds.

So on my new van I happily fitted a heavier radio, speakers, sound proofing and even an active sub, as the comfort, convenience and enjoyment is worth the extra 0.000-0.001l/100km or so it might cost me.

For a hypermiler it's absolutely zero, it might even be negative.

[johnathanf1lm]

I agree the only way weight reduction makes a slight gain is when its a large reduction and even better if its rotating mass (for city driving mostly) aero mods are the king ofcourse along with driving efficently. I am currently in the stages of looking and planning aero mods. Since my accent is the gl(blue) model i have the lovely 2 overdrive gears transmission any mod will increase my mpg and it shows. I was getting around 36ish last year in the spring-summer time and ive hit 40 already thanks to no power steering and lighter rims (and some driving skills learned). Saddly i do mostly city-highway ish roads and a small percentage of highway so city mods will help me the most.

[johnathanf1lm]

I plan on doing what i can thats cheap or free then going from there. I mean honestly my work is 5 miles away, stores are 5-15 miles away. Fam is 15-120 miles away, and buddys are 3 miles ways so i dont do alot of long distance driving thankfully. And summer time i have 1 of 3 bikes to ride.