Deleted Protege's Back Seats. Anything else I should remove?
 

Today, I took the rear seat out of my Protege. It turns out removing 6 bolts is all it takes to pull the seat. I also removed the rear floor mats and the trunk carpeting. I'm not sure of an exact weight of all this stuff, but I'm guessing around 50lbs.

Does anyone have any recommendations for stuff I can remove to save weight? I'd like for anything I remove to be easy replaceable for when I sell the car.

There isn't a whole lot you can remove to reduce weight. The car is already pretty stripped. You could go crazy and remove the sound deadening under the carpet, and strip the wiring harness down to the bare needed.

BUT even when I removed EVERYTHING but the absolute minimum from my Protege, it was only 250lbs savings, I got very creative in what could be removed. While that is 9% its weight, it doesn't translate into significant savings. I even removed excess weight from the engine when I rebuilt it, but that was only 8lbs without getting the mill and grinder out and going to town.

Go for aero mods instead. The car has a good profile, small frontal area, and has decent aftermarket parts that can help. Lowering springs and some coroplast will be your best friend for better FE.

almightybmw-

Thanks for the advice. When did you have a Protege? What kind of FE numbers did you get?

I already have the upper and lower grills covered with coroplast, and I think it's helping my MPG. Lowering sounds sort of expensive...perhaps I'd be better off building a chin spoiler under the front bumper.

I still have (for 1 more week) a 1990 4WD protege. It has become a rally race car, and without extensive work, can be nothing else. When I said I stripped the wiring, I removed 30lbs of wire, 2lbs of plastic snaps,holders,etc. Who knew there was at least 2lbs of plastic just holding the wires in place...

For FE, the average I got while in AK was 28-31mpg. Remember, I'm AWD, and much heavier than you. When I moved to MT that dropped to 24-30mpg (4900 ft). I have gotten at best 34mpg with it at lower altitudes while driving 65mph, and 32mpg while pacing my Grand Prix at 70mph. I also would lose 2mpg with my moose lights (2-100W on a rack). I have no idea what it can get now, as I've removed the gas gauge wiring and cluster, with reduced weight, different ratio transmission, DOHC vs SOHC motor. It's a whole different car now. And I've never run it...just too lazy to fix it up. That's why I'm selling it!

almightybmw-

The seats and carpets are very easy to install/remove, but I don't want to remove anything that could be really hard to reinstall. I would consider ditching some unnecessary wiring and possibly removing power steering and air conditioning, but I may be selling the Protege in the near future. I only need the Protege until the end of the semester (after which I won't be driving 1200 miles most weekends).

Frank Lee-
Same story on the lowering springs...I'd cut the springs and lower it, but I'd like to put the car back in stock form to sell it.

Okay, I'll bite. My first post here!

I'm new, but a fan of weight reduction for performance and efficiency. I'll reveal my vehicle and mpg improvements later after I've done some aero work, but here are some weight reduction ideas for you:

front passenger headrest (easy to replace if you have a passenger)
rear selt belts and hardware, if you didn't already
Oh sh*t handles, if it has them
visor (I'm 6'4", so I use the roofline--for you shorter folks, remove the passenger side visor!)

You did already pull out all the loose junk that most people keep in their car, right? Move everything out into a pile and ask yourself "do I need this" as you put each item back. I left out the zippered case to my owner's manual, the ashtray, and the cigarette lighter, all of which added up to about a pound. Hey, every little bit counts. Don't think of the tiny savings you'll get from this, think of how much we'd save if millions of people did it.

One last idea--my aftermarket Pioneer CD receiver/head unit weighs about a half pound less than the factory 6 disc CD changer.

Yeah, I don't really keep anything in my car. I think the rear seat belt hardware is a good idea. I think I might take out the plastic bits of the rear doors and some interior trim.

1337, you are already reaching the end of the thether as far as weight reduction is concerned. Even then, seeing your ~2400 lb, 1.6 manual vehicle, the FE figure is nothing to talk about. This means you are leaning excessively on your car for FE and not on yourself. I bet even with some of EOC, you could easily get 40+ MPG. Just have a look at PaleMelanesian's vehicle - all stock, netting him 50+ MPG most of the time.

Seriously, reducing weight further is going to take functional elements of the car out, and would rather harm than help you - its not worth taking the headrest out, for example - It is not there to rest your head, it is to help avoid snapping your neck if some jerk rear-ends you at speed while tooling along the highway.

Maybe I am missing some context but this is what comes to mind when looking at the thread.

Hi,

What aerodynamic mods have you done?

I agree with hummingbird and Neil. You don't want to remove the headrest in a seat where somebody is actually sitting. And from what I've read you can probably net bigger gains by changing driving habits and doing aerodynamic mods.

But this thread is about weight reduction, so let's continue down that path!

Fluids are heavy. Don't gas up until you're running on fumes and consider filling up only half way. Also, don't fill your windshield wiper reservoir completely full.

Does the Protege engine have a plastic cover? It's probably just for show. While you're under there, do you really need to drive around all the time with the heavy steel hood prop?

If you're not serious about audio quality, think about removing the rear speakers. You'll lose some bass but still have a good soundstage up front.

I have more ideas but they either:

1. cost money
2. don't save much weight
3. cause too much inconvenience

So I think I'll stop for now.