Pleas be advised that your knowledgeable Prime member is not correct.
He was referring to a discussion we had on the topic per his pursuit of additional weight savings.
The foam energy absorber NOT the rear bumper reinforcement is the part of the crash protection system that provides the protection against structural damage at impacts under 5mph.
Consumer advocates and insurance companies deserve credit for making this a issue.
Pease note that the absorber while protecting the structure from structural damage at low impact speeds it does not save the bumper cover itself from being damaged.
I agree. The insurance lobby has clout, and the premise for the foam/polyurethane shell was understandably to avoid more expensive claims on the common parking lot and stop n' go type minor incidentals. I would speculate the beams are tested right along with the chassis up to 35mph or so per NHTSA's normal sled tests. Regardless.. being that they regularly won't total out until damages are near 70-90% these days... your own results with that protective styrofoam when an inattentive SUV drivers backs into your own NSX may of course differ. Most of the time due to the differences in ride height they won't impact anywhere near it.
Frame rails?
There are no frame rails on a NSX. There is no conventional frame at all.
There are side members and they are secondary, not primary in the crash/energy protection chain.
I disagree. According to the official
body technical release by American Honda, the word 'frame rail' is used to describe the front and rear protruding structural elements on the NSX chassis. Thus, I believed my term to be accurate in the context in which it was expressed at the time- which as I recall the exact question posed to me by the member concerned triple digits speeds into the back of another vehicle.
IMO, the trade off of weight savings vs. safety is not worth it. Bad idea.
Generally race cars don't retain them being free, being on the extreme ends the dead weight acts like a pendulum, and in a safety context they can well turn a light tap into a spin. Once again, members experience with lightening their daily drivers may of course differ.
2400 LBs? I'd like to see that! John@Microsoft has his car down in the ~2600 lbs range, but he's running out of parts to take out
For me, I think 2900 is doable...
Oh, I disagree... it takes a
long time before you start running out of parts to take out as there is always something to improve on- hell... for awhile there I still had all the high end luxuries like power steering, door glass, a heater core, tunes, stock wiring harnesses, latches... :biggrin:
We'll see, I can't wait to see the scales this season. Just ask Nichole Richie- weight loss is intoxicating. :wink:
getting down to 2800lb's on a 95+ targa is going to be difficult without removing some luxury items (the little we may have......). You're talking 300lb's there. But it can be done. My 93 is now at an estimated 2750lb's and after I do the seats, battery swap, removal of winshield fluid reservoir, tow hooks, Momo steering wheel, and center divider window, that should bring me down to 2650ish. And then I'm going to do lighter coilovers, and maybe a fixed headlight, which will put me at 2600 even. Eventually i'll do the clutch and flywheel, and some lighter rotors. All in all i'm shooting for 2600lb's in the next month or so. That's with ac/heat, and a full interior inlcuding carpets, floormats, all trim pieces, ect..... No stereo though....
I'm guessing with a complete gutting (all interior trim panels, etc...) one could get down to 2400lb's.... That would be one mean NSX and I might be crazy enough to do it
My counter-point here would be to exercise some level of restraint. Even for the club race guys among us, depending on the class/objectives albeit it with SCCA or whomever one is tracking with- it won't always make sense to always go that last extra bit unless you really competitively need and can justify it soundly. No magic to it.. just do know that hitting the 2300-2400 range, GT2 class weight, particularly on the lower end in an NSX... means everything comes out. EVERYTHING.
Another wards- seen Pike Peak's or Rob's ride? To achieve this you WILL be gutting doors out, removing HVAC, most harnesses, and deleting the entire interior.. so forget about it being streetable in any conventional meaning of the word, likely don't plan on going back, and ironically plan on carrying ballast anyway. For street-only applications it is simply silly, for weekend warrior applications I would still recommend that you edge on being conservative on removing those last few amenities. Every last fraction of a second doesn't matter unless you make it... and once you get towards the end of this road the harder the compromises will become for you.
In my experience, for a weekend warrior... 2780-2840 wet, closer to Type R spec... is far more realistic for a 95T while retaining the options mentioned. That was the range I sat in for quite awhile. The conversion is highly viable since the specialty revisions were unavailable in our market for purchase.
Even that will take some genuine work to do a good job. Keep in mind I was very aggressive by most enthusiasts standards to achieve the lower end of that range on a later model targa... Literally hundreds of parts gone or replaced with aftermarket stuff... a lot of labor/fabrication.. and most definitely no AC, no SRS, no washer, no doorlocks, no seat sliders, no targa cover, no side or bumper beams, passable interior, single pane partition, relatively lightweight roll cage, etc... I even had the carpet backing, undercoating, and interior tar mats shaved off.
However, I'd be curiouis to know what the real safety value is @ 5MPH, 25 MPH, 45 MPH, 60 etc...
