Get it? I said I was going to pull 100lbs out of my car this winter and although it seemed like a long shot at the time, I’m actually getting more and more optimistic about it as I progress. I’m already about 20lbs down, and I don’t even feel like I’ve done anything yet. No… I’m not going to strip the interior.
My car has lots of bolt on braces… and they are important, but I’m not sure that they’re all engineered as well as they could be. My Cusco three point STB for example… the mounting point on the firewall for that “third” point is flimsy as hell. With only one finger on it, I can deflect it about 1/4″. (it’s only 20 gauge sheet afterall.) The tri-bar add on itself is only about 5lbs, but I feel like I’d be a lot better off for stiffness vs weight to throw it away and weld on something resembling Nigasa Auto’s Shakkito plates.
Along the same lines… my Gacchiri supports are almost 10lbs each, and the sheet metal replacement I have made for it is less than 3lbs. Make these changes and I’m ANOTHER 20lbs closer.
So… how do you form sheet metal and make it strong? Well… if you are me, it takes a lot cursing, and even more trips to the hardware store. I’ll throw up some more pics later… but I made this “hole flare tool” with some scrap plate and a hole saw. It worked pretty good on few scraps I had lying around. I wonder how well the real deal that I see on ebay for $250 works in comparison…
I read this before I went to bed, and I had a dream about taking out the AC and taking out the sound system out of the Evo. I think both are SP legal things so I might just do that – despite promising myself that the evo will be as streetable as possible. Argh!