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Any 2012's losing weight?

8K views 51 replies 16 participants last post by  suss6052 
#1 ·
My previous car was a 1993 JDM Subaru WRX rhd. It was a Subaru GC chassis which is very light. Most turbo GC chassis subaru guys can tell you that the best way to speed up your ride is to loose factory fat. Making it light weight improves fuel economy and make power more effective. Most new cars have a bit of weight tucked away here and when that weight is lost the car is able to convert existing engine power output into more usable power.

I get that this is a "new" model in north america but in europe they've had this chassis for a while. SO Has anyone started their foci weightloss plan?

This should appeal to anyone who wants a faster ride or better fuel economy.

For my Subaru I had lightweight wheels. A lightweight battery, lightweight aluminum hood I was eventually going to replace with CF, Lightweight seats, lightweight alloy accessory pulleys including the crank pulley, a full AC delete, headers that weighed half the stock manifold, lightweight axles (4), custom CAI that weighed half what the factory intake with resonators weighed, put the spare tire in storage and removed deadening plates (weird heavy steel plates manufacturers put in strange places to make plastic bits like gloveboxes seem more solid. Hint: if they are structural they can be replaced with aluminum).

This isnt bragging. This is just me explaining the options I'm used to seeing. Before the Subaru I had an 03 Ford ZX2. I did weight reduction on the ZX2 as well.

So to reiterate my question: What weight saving deletions and lightweight upgrade parts are available for the 2012 focus?

I've used the search function and know there isnt yet a light weight hood option. But what about pulleys? Underdriving isnt good. But lightweight is awesome.

How much weight can we loose and how much rotating mass can we loose. Ford specs say the Focus hatch 5spd is 2,920lbs. Thats pretty light. If we save a little weight here and there how low can we go?
 
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#2 ·
most guys are going with lightweight wheels like the Sparcos, I took out my rear seat bottoms in my 12' Hatch, It was most so that I had more room to move my seat back when I had seats down, but thats few pounds. The Steeda Lowering Springs I swapped were lighter then stock springs but Im not sure how much. The Steeda Sway bars are also half the wieght of stock as well. Most Aftermarkey exhaust are lighter as well.
 
#4 ·
Are you guys weighing any of the stuff your removing to figure out how much weight your saving?

BTW which Sparco wheels? and how much do they weigh?

Reducing unsprung rotating mass is huge for improving acceleration and fuel economy.

On my Suby I ditched about 70lbs of rotating mass. And close to 200lbs of dead weight.

On the focus a change like that would be huge for fuel eco and acceleration
 
#6 ·
Even lighter than the 16" sport wheels.

I good place to start is removing everything from the trunk and replacing the spare with a plug kit and small 12v air compressor.
 
#7 ·
Yeah, weight, or more accurately, mass, is critical for ultimate performance and the reason a small Lotus with barely 150hp can humble much more powerful cars.

But, I have one car and it's purpose is to get me places efficiently so butchering the interior to save a hundred pounds is pointless. If I were racing it that would be one thing and gutting would be called for if it's allowed, but I aint racin it so...


Brian
 
#8 ·
But, I have one car and it's purpose is to get me places efficiently so butchering the interior to save a hundred pounds is pointless.
Brian

Other than stripping the trunk I also dont see a point in stripping the interior especially when the focus interior is pretty nice.

But very commonly manufacturers will put additional weight in the car to give it a more solid feel in leau of using a better material. Almost all automobiles are made out of stamped steel. Its expense is reasonable and its strong. Many times these steel pieces can be constructed out of equally strong machined aluminum that is much lighter.

Do anyone have any exploded view pictures of the chassis and interior assembly? Odds are that there is weight hidden away or components easily up graded to lighter stronger materials.
 
#10 ·
Not as much is available yet as your wrx, There is a good 100-200 lbs difference between an SE and a Ti stock, so just the electronics add a bunch of weight, the Cobb racing focus they stripped 200 lbs off and had it down to 2600 lbs.
 
#11 ·
So us S model guys should have the best start, as far as the lightest focus to start with. Ill probably drop the spare tire, add a fix a flat n plug kit, a CAI, aftermarket sways, drop springs. Id love to see what kind of weight I can shed.

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#12 ·
I'd personally go as far as to say 2012 SE Sports have the best place to start due to the rear discs and cloth interior with the upgraded suspension.
 
#13 ·
Mine is cloth seats? Minimal center console, base radio, no fogs, no grille shutters, etc. now im curious whats the lightest to start with.

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#14 ·
I guess my only point was, how much has to be added to the S to get it to the same performance levels (braking, handling) as an SE Sport. It'd be easy to remove things from the SE Sport, but having to add is opposite the original ideal
 
#39 ·
The picture in that previous link is a Euro Fiesta, here's a Focus from a first responder extrication site.

http://boronextrication.com/2010/03/2012-ford-focus-has-boron/
Thats basically a picture of everything in the focus that should not be considered for weightloss.

In regard to an earlier post. I also have the heated seats and my Wife would have me murdered in the night if I replaced them with light weight seats. But I too keep thinking about how much more they weigh than say for instance the recaro's in the Focus ST.

My JDM WRX came with factory recaro's that were very light weight.
 
#41 ·
These Recaros look like they are really basically the same seat base but with more aggressive seat bolsters on the seat back. But they are too expensive to retrofit at least new from ford, maybe wait awhile until there are more used examples in the field, but I'd still prefer to have had the seats from new.
 
#43 ·
Why wait for the ST Recaros? Why not find some new(ish) Recaros or Sparcos? The ones in the ST are pretty sweet but I'll bet money they're nowhere near being the lightest or most comfortable out there...
 
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