Ok today I had the smart idea of taking out the sound deadining in the trunk and back seats. I didnt really think this was gonna take to long but boy was I in for a suprise. I should put that I was using a tool for flatting cement, a hair drier and really really hot water. In about four hours of work I got about half way done. Is it normal for it to take this long or Iam I just really really slow. What do you guys use to take the stuff out.

Troy

 

going to the extreme eh. I did it in both my coupes. My hatch didn't have any of that **** though

 

and the purpose of doing this wassssssssssss?????

 

so does anyone know a faster way of doing this so it wont take so long tommarrow...

 

make your girlfriend do it

just have to keep working at it, it takes a while

 

A blowtorch should speed up the process.

 

Take a **** before you race, geez.

I never understood why people do this. What are you going to save? 20lbs? 30lbs?

What's next? Turn the car on it's side and get rid of all the undercoating? Or maybe, take all the carpet, pillars, dash, extra wiring you don't need, etc???

Where do you draw the line between comfort/saftey & speed?????

(sorry, I know that removing the sound deading isn't a safety issue, but you understand what I'm geting at)


[Modified by B18C-EJ1, 11:46 PM 1/9/2002]

 

funny that you mentioned that....

someone i know built a rottiserie for their car so they can have the chassis sideways while they scrape the undercoating... but hey 20 lbs here and 20 lbs there saves alot of weight...... BTW guy doing all this weight reduction how much do you weigh?


try acetone? or something that like to eat materials?

 

well Iam just trying to save as much weight as I can without stripping the interior. The exhaust is already pretty loud so I figured that the road noise wont really be a problem. Takeing the sound deadining out isnt going to cause any safty problems is it???? Madtown my girlfriend was actually helping me Iam 235, and Iam not fat do weight loss isnt really a option even though that was most likly said as a joke, or at least hope it was

 

dah sorry didnt see you put down its not a safty issue

 

Nah, I wasn't making fun of your weight. I just find it funny that people go to extremes (maybe not your case) to lighten their car.

For instance, I know a guy that removed his AC, Heater core, airbags, glove box, carpeting, panels, rear seats, rear seatbelts, headliner, bumpersupports, and door beams.

Then he removes the back 3 windows and replaces them with the FAL kit, drills 3" holes in his body panels (interior), has the undercoating removed, takes out all the sound deading material, chops up his wire harness (interior), removes the gas tank (puts in fuel cell), cuts the floor out in the trunk (spare tire), replaces the tailgate with a fiberglass version, takes out the e-brake & cables, removes the sway bars, brackets, and bushings.

I can't remember if anything else was removed, but he got his car down to 1600 lbs, goes to race it at Pamona (couple of years ago) and they fail him at the tech.

I talked to him later and he told me that he ran a 12.3 at Carlsbad raceway. I said "That's it?!", seems to me you should be faster with all the weight reduction you've done.

Heck, there's guys/gals that run 12's with full interior.

I guess, whatever floats your boat. I like my comfort options.

 

It's all about horsepower to weight ratio. Taking the sound deadning out of the trunk will save you 5lbs or so if that, not really worth it for a street driven car. But if its a car for just racing, go for it. Stay away from drilling holes all over your car though, especially if it isnt even even. NHRA will get you for it if it looks like crap. They figure if you cant drill a series of holes in a straight line then you probably don't know where it is or isn't safe to drill. Whenever building a racecar, have the rulebook in front of you.

It's tar, so there isnt much that will take it out easily or cleanly. On a friends car, I have used a heatgun(not a wimpy hair dryer) and a putty knife. It comes up well, but leaves knife marks all over. Then we used a heavy wire wheel on die grinder to clean up the knife marks, then used aircraft grade paint remover to get the rest of it off. Then shot a few light coats of black primer on it.

We had a couple of bags of the stuff when we were done, I'm guessing about 20-25lbs worth. But it took 3 of us almost all day long to do this 91 hatch.

I AM NEVER DOING IT AGAIN.

As to why your buddy didn't pass tech, you didn't say why? It could have been hundreds of things from a loose wheel bearing to expired racing belts? But I am guessing they said his car wasn't safe...did he have any cage of some sort? And I hope to god this wasn't his daily driver.


[Modified by tonyxcom, 9:48 AM 1/10/2002]

 

No cage, no racing seats, and yes, it was his daily driver.

(not really a friend, just someone I know)

I think he got declined because of the lack of safety equipment. (I.e. cut doors, no door beams, no front or rear bumper supports, etc.....)

 

i also heard that some people wait for it to get really cold and brittle and just whack it with a hammer. Then it comes out in solid pieces. That may be an option for you up there in WI.

 

yeah do it when its freezing cold outside...hit it with hammer and it will break into pieces...thats how i did it....heating it up is messy and harder....alot harder

 

this may be a dumb question but does that mean I could toss maybe dry ice or something on the stuff and break it off?

I live in so. california and it doesn't seem to drop below 60 here much ever.

 

I didn't even read the whole thread, but use DRY ICE. It's so much quicker and easier, and you won't scratch the paint doing it. Just get 2-3 bags and crush it up with a hammer and let the tar get frozen solid. Then CHIP it off with a hammer and flat scraper.

That's what I did - took me less than an hour to do both front tarmats!

 

definately easier to take the stuff off when it is very cold and the tar (sound deadening material) is very brittle. did this with a couple of friends on a race car and it took less than an hour. although we didn't have any dry ice we just froze our butts off outside in the dead of winter.

 

20 - 30 lbs? HA! When my friend did his in his integra it was like 2 1/2 lbs or something lame like that. It was a huge was of time and basically ruined the car because now you hear a bunch of road noise in addition to the exhaust. Unless you are down to the bear minimums, give up. Its a waste. You could spend the same amount of time on the John taking a huge crap and loose more weight than the sound deadening.


[Modified by therealciviczc, 8:14 PM 1/10/2002]

 

The weight savings are bullshit, but I was tearing the car down to have the entire car painted anyways, so I wanted more smooth floor surface so the paint will look better too.

The actual weight of the tar would be like 8-10lbs. if you have a DX or Si hatchback since they have more tar in them. My 1992 CX had only 2 mats of tar - one on each side of the front floorboard.

If I was concerned about road noise though, I'd go buy a Lexus.

It is only a waste of time if YOU don't think it's worth the trouble. I doubt i'd tear out my carpet and seats, etc. just to chip the tar out and save less than 12lbs. weight, but like I said before my car was already stripped down to nothing.

Want to tsave even more weight? How about that thick-***, heavy mat on the firewall. It is also a sound deadener and insulator, but it must weigh 10lbs. or maybe more, and if you start to add all of the little 5lbs. here and 10lbs. there you'll save a noticable amount of weight.

How about the wipers and wiper MOTOR. That **** is crazy-heavy! GONE are mine. Rain-X works just as good for me. There are a lot of other things to save a lot of weight - much more than just chipping tar out and ripping out the interior panels - those don't really weigh ****, but you see my point aboput adding it all up...

 

Hey, B18C5-EH2.. I dig where your coming from... literally.... hahahahaaaa LOL at fuzznuts!

 

It was around 20-30 lbs. We had 4 safeway bags full of the stuff when we were done. But some of the weight could have been from some of the paint stripper.

And for the record, we dont do this to daily drivers. The si was a former auto-x car we were getting ready for road racing.

Lighter cars are faster, no matter how you look at it. And when you are serious about racing, you will be serious about being light. Watching our 1700lb all motor car with a stock, and I mean stock GSR motor run 12.7's should attest to how important weight is.

What cracks me up though are all the piles of interior parts, seats, beat, spare tires, and crap in one big old swap meet looking piles at the races. I mean you know you are going to a race, strip your car at home, and besides, you are braket racing for crying out loud. Being 1/10th faster isn't anything but braggin rights, and 15.9 aint nothing to brag about

 

Hey you, with the 1700lb. car. Could you please find the topic in this forum that reads "List Your CURB Weight HERE" that I started. I'm very interested to see HOW you got your car so light.

Thanks.

 

"Hey you, with the 1700lb. car. Could you please find the topic in this forum that reads "List Your CURB Weight HERE" that I started. I'm very interested to see HOW you got your car so light."

I'll do you one better. Just goto http://www.velascoracing.com and read and look all about it. Just make sure to read the FAQ.

Tony

 

Thanks for the link - very cool **** indeed.

Did you guys weigh the **** that you took out? Do you have a list of the parts and the weight of the parts? Thanks again...