WEIGHT REDUCTION-DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE | PART 2

2017 Autocross Season

After removing 70lbs from the car last year we attended SCCA SDR round #5 to see if we could feel the difference. The car was noticeably faster right away and caught me off guard as I entered the first elements. I struggled all day to get accustomed to the car again, clocking a 46.9 in fun runs while Adam had set a fast lap of 45.7 early on his 3rd run. Now we have proved the car improved via a PAX result of #71 by Adam, where my result at the previous event was #93. So lets continue with the cutting.

A week after racing I return to the shop to remove the rear door skins and bumper beams, threw all of that in the box and...

The bulk of removed weight

118lbs!!!

WOW. Now I have to trim the hood and remove all of the small brackets inside the cabin, and there is still the rear glass to change to lexan....

Yaris lightened hood

The hood was an interesting project because after trimming it was to flimsy to latch. So now I had to install hood pins and toss the hood release parts. Next I removed the trunk springs, and all of the door wiring harnesses. I cut a few brackets away from the inside of the cabin for the map light and roof handles and also cut away a bit of wiring for the trunk lighting and rear window defroster. We ran the car like this for the remainder of 2017 and focused on tuning the suspension instead.

TRD Cup Round #8

On October 2017 we ran with the TRD Cup and placed 2nd at "Big Willow", the car was great but there was a considerable margin up to 1st place. We did a C60 close ratio transmission swap during the Nov-Dec months (to improve acceleration AND top speed) and missed the last 2 autocross events of the year, but still won the points championship in "Prepared Class". WooHoo!

Fast foward to January 2018, where we were brainstorming more ideas on how to be faster on the "big" race tracks. I looked over the car again and noticed there was still a lot of unnecessary weight in the car, so we started pulling the inside of the car apart again. I pulled the dash out and noticed all of the original wiring for the windows, audio, mirrors, airbags, defrosters, HVAC, etc were sill just hanging there. These bundles of unused wires not only looked messy but served no purpose, so with the help of the 2ZR crew I got some EWD's and started cutting everything away. I started with the dash harness, and once finished I wrapped it in blue tape to signify it's contents. 

dash harness

Next it was time to do the same to the chassis harness. So I separated it into necessary parts: Fuel pump, EVAP, lights, and ABS. Each set of wires got a specific color coded wrapping, then put back in the car and tied down neatly.  Here is a photo of all the things removed from the car, and it all added up to 68 pounds!

Lower dash, passenger seat, door seals, box full of extra wire and brackets.

Next, since I decided I wasn't going to put the lower dash back in, I cut off all of its mounting brackets. I removed every piece of metal I could find still being unused, and even left the passenger seat out as well. Now I had to go through and remove all the extra screws and debris left in the floors, give it a good vacuum, and wipe it clean. Now we are ready for the 2018 season!

Simplified dash

simplified wiring

Now if we do the math, last year at the match tour we were 2153lbs. Most of the cutting we did yielded 118lbs and then there was this latest effort adding up to 68lbs. 2153 - 118 - 68 = 1967! Awesome! We reached our goal of 1999lbs and even a bit more! Lets see what the car actually weighs at the ProSolo in March. This is going to be fun!