weight reduction

here was my approach :)
i started with a pre-98 1.0 which has the smaller/lighter gearbox and shafts etc

and discarded a few items in the engine bay :)

which included the front mount and brackets

and alternator bracket

drums

hubs

steering column adjuster thingy and support bar

the support bar

the rear seat frame was replaced with ally and ply

and drivers front frame was "bespoked" :)

rear arb and welded on brackets removed (and various other bits lol)

Hey frank!!! Are you removing the weight or scrapping it?? Lol..

By removing the alternator brackets, how are u going to run the alternator? Won't the removal of these vital structural parts affect the rigidity of the chasis? Safe enough on the road??

i dont think he got rid of the bracket, he just cut away some of the unused metal.
im sure none on the parts that he has gotten rid of affect rigidity of the chassis.

geez talk about weight reduction...i've seen a dude that drives a mini with drilled chassis..

lol at brake drums

the way you have the car propped up looks safe :)

Safety is all about acceptable risk, doesnt look to bad.
there is a pic i've seen of a guy welding his fuel tank while the car is 'jacked' up by a length of 2x4.


I enjoy the extent you have gone to lighten your car.
Any idea how much you have chopped out?

For someone who cares more about weight loss than safety, you have an awful lot of interior left in your car... You also have heavy as fk steel wheels.

Tyrie I think you will find that the wheels are prob slot lighter then allow 14's that most other people run. They look like stock 13's to me. Also I don't think frank has compromised safety at all. As for jacking the car up like that. Please tell me a safer way which you would have done at home? He has tyres on car ramps. Looks fine to me. Safer then a jack and stands IMHO

I refuse to believe that a stock steel wheel is lighter than a decent alloy of the same specs (no point comparing 13" steel to 14" alloy).

Do you honestly believe that removing the front impact bar from under the dash, or grinding the drums down so they will possibly crack the first time they heat up isn't compromising safety?????


I just don't get why you would go to this effort for weight reduction? The seat with alloy frame probably still weighs a heap more than any number of cf or fibreglass molded buckets, which have been tested to ensure they are safe...

Why no plastic windows? removed speakers/door trims? removed carpet/sound deadening? Lightweight mirrors? Alloy wheels? Rear disk brakes?

Hahahahahaha your ignorance humors me. I think the bar near the steering wheel is just a support bar and all of franks work is fabricated to top standards. The rear drums are not ground down on any structural part.

As for plastic windows, removed door trims sound deadening etc is illegal.

Look at the thickness of the bar from under the dash, pretty sure thats not just there to hold the dash up...

How do you think the different thicknesses of the rear drums would expand/contract and retain heat? What happens when metal expands and contracts at different rates?

I wouldn't know about UK law, but in Australia modifying brake components without engineer approval is illegal. Modifying seat frames without engineer approval is illegal. Removing structural reinforcement from behind the dash is illegal. I do not believe an engineer would put his name to that stuff.

How do you know they haven't? Seen as though your so up on the Australian laws then you would know that Plastic windows and also removing door trims etc is illegal as is removing seats etc.

i seriously doubt frank would screw it up... there's a good reason he machine/grinded the way it is... considering the amount of brake force transferred to these drums..it aren't gonna crack.

as for cf/fiber glass buckets, compare to the way frank did it with his alloy frame. ADR approved ones are HEAVIER if not same, not to mention approved rails on top...

Im a fourth year engineering student i'll put my namre to it. lol

Most cars rely on there exterior structure in an incident anyway. Very new cars have extruded magnesium moulded dash structures which is only there to act as an earth point and a place to put screws for the trim. Its so thin and light it wouldn't be 'structural'anyway.

I'm sure Frank could come into some issues with the rozzers but at first glance his car is a standard micra(rocking steelies, full trim and OEM seats).

But seriously i think frank is just going for the cheap/free options when it comes to lightweight as well as maintaining a comfortable/functional car.

ie no point removing all the deadener if the road noise becomes excessive in your daily.
Why pay a few hundred dollars for an approved seat when an alloy frame made of cheap offcuts can be welded together.


I believe you have a valid point with the trim removal etc but it gets to the point where your car would become a shell, not a car.

Doesn't look particularly thin or light to me...

Eek! What a thread. Brings back memories of when I was 18 and doing stuff like this: http://www.micra.com.au/images/ciscos-k11s/second-micra/freeweight.jpg although in comparison what I removed was virtually nothing to Frank's hardcore approach.

I would say this is bordering on dodgy. The drums are made to that thickness specifically for cooling reasons, not because they couldn't be bothered to cut the extra metal off. That thick metal bar is thick and metal for a reason. They would have made it thinner and lighter to save money if it didn't need to be that thick.

I watched a great video once where this guy basically stripped the crap out of a brand new car, insanely worse than what Frank has done and they kept measuring its quarter mile performance after every round of weight reduction. Basically its the law of diminishing returns. You strip more and more important stuff from the car and you end up with a piece of shit that rattles and is quite unsafe, and your quarter mile time improves by half a second - so what. And you have to do a mighty lot more than what Frank has done, to achieve that half a second.

Basically you are much better off with a safe car that has trustworthy brakes and safety components and just adding more horsepower. But when I was 18, I would have been in full support of Frank saying "yeah wow way to go man!!!!".

That's the change in my mindset between being 31yo vs 18yo.

I was more refering to late 2000s model of car using the thin magnesium alloy frames.

Could be that thick to deal with any forces from an air bag impact as some micras came with them I think?
I can see that the bar may be a touch on the excessive side but the other mods would all be fine.

Personally, I'm with Tyrie and Cisco on this one. The micra already has barely a 1-star safety rating. I'd trust the Nissan engineers' decision on the components rather than using a bunch of aluminium L-pieces and square tubes put together for 'weight reduction'.

Normally I'm a fan of your work frank, but to me this stuff screams out 'risk enhancement' more than weight reduction.

---dens

Yah.. That's why they are called engineers and they spend years working out which compromises to make and how thick the metal pole should be when they weld it into the chassis :) lol.

Engineers are usually always in favour of weight reduction and saving money (by using less metal in the first place) too, so usually if something is there, its there for a reason. I know certain items are heavier than they need to be, i.e. seat rails to save money, that's fair..

You can go down this path of no return where you try to re-examine all the same original decisions that the engineers made when designing the car, but its a slippery slope to walk!

i recon the engineers should've given the micra a CG13VET hey and dry carbon chassis...hahahaha sorry friday afternoon im on drugs :(

well at least it sparked a debate lol :D

Haha... I'm juz worried about your safety frank

Lol, not real ones I hope.

i,ve survived nearly 40 years of driving and ghetto modding so far keith..... i,ll be fine :)

no definitely not, just cant wait to get out.. even though im surfing the net at work... :D

#thankgoditsfriday :)

You're hardcore Frank, I'll give you that.

+1 hahaha

Hahaha, i asked u the other day 4 this thread Frank, love ur work, ur gonna have to weigh the car one day

As far as safety is concerned this not a family car, its a purpose built car, if i compare it to my motorcycle it gets five stars for impact and five stars 4 brakes. I reckon driving style and being sensible can make ur car lots safer than engineering

look forward to seein more Frank

a "engineers' decision" normally making calculated and educated guess at how a part can be reliably and cheaply made to safely do a certain job .
If its cheaper to leave excess material on a drum or bracket then that will happen .
It would be interesting to see what the weight reduction does to the final track times . not much to do on aerodynamics is their ?

Exactly you can't sit there and tell me it would be cheaper for them to make moulds with slots and stuff In then. Different angles or for them to machine stuff down. It's cheaper to do what they have done. I really can't see anything wrong with what frank has done except maybe the seats. Not sure on them. The rest is fine by my book.


All in all engineers move mountains not paperwork.

we,ve got the 1st 1/4 mile RWYB tomorrow mike, but its forecast to piss down so i,m not holding my breath, and i hav,nt fitted the hybrid clutch yet (pre 98 1.0 spline and centre with a 1.3 outer friction face)
but the blue car was getting 16.0,s on lpg with a similar spec engine and @ 760 kg,s, so fingers crossed :)
and i,ve trimmed some of the "parachute" bit from the rear bumper, if that classes as an aerodynamic mod

hybrid clutch

well i got a couple of runs in before the heavens opened, but i only managed a 16.2 secs :(
so the old gas powered blue car must have had about 100 hp according to that, and it looks like i need another 10-20 hp to match ss uk,s 15.7 secs (developments to rectify that are already under way :D )

here,s a few extra hp hopefully, a cut-n-shut oversize cat exit/flange and 45mm exhaust system :)
and referring back to the steering column support, nissan designed it to only go 1/2 way across the car and then a flat bracket down to the tunnel (aimed at your left shin !)
had they designed it to run right across from the left A pillar to the right A pillar they would,nt have had to over-engineer it out of scaff pole ffs
my "replacement" column support bar runs across the full width of the car, adding a little bit of side protection, and i have no sharp brackets around my legs :)

noted the bit about trimming the rear bumper , pity I have a facelift car with its slotted bumper , always wondered if there was a way to smooth it up a bit ?

for the record, the car weighed in at 740 kg,s at the local council weighbridge today :)
(with about 20 kg,s of gardening gear onboard)