Who's done what to make their lardy 250's lighter ? Obviously rear seats can come out, a lightweight battery can be fitted, but what else can be done ?, I want my car to still be practical on the road so plastic windows and stripping the interior is out of the question. I was was thinking perhaps a carbon bonnet ?
What's your budget? The RS 250 isn't really light but would you feel the difference in weight after stripping 50 kilo?
You could try some light weight wheels but I think the Meg fitment doesn't leave much choice. I can certainly feel the difference of half a tank of fuel, so 50kgs should be good.
I've not really got a budget in mind, but I want value for money, how much would -50kg cost me ? what would be removed/replaced ?
Front seats/rear seats/Wheels/Discs. Depends how far you want to go. Carbon bonnet won't save much, Certainly not value for money thats for sure. Same goes for the majority of weight saving stuff TBH. Ive removed around 45/50kgs out of mine so far, Sound deadening is getting removed when it gets warmer along with a few other bits including a lighter battery relocated to the cabin. Im not far off Trophy-R weight now but expect to be under that eventually with the addition of Plastic windows etc.
I damaged my foot / leg around Xmas time and instead of playing rugby and football several times a week I've replaced it by eating Haribo and being down the pub, figure if I lose 3st in weight thats 20kg saved + £3.80 a pint so about £50 a week. Throw away my usual 14st passenger thats another 88kg saved! Hey presto 100kg saved by drinking less beer and losing friends
If you want a fast road car there are many other basics to sort before going for weight reduction. Same for a track car. Too many dudes bolt stuff to a car or bang on expensive stuff like carbon bonnets, go on a track day and can't work out why someone is lapping quicker in a standard car. However, if weight is your thing, rather than other avenues for performance and lap time advantages, or you already have them fully nailed, then just keep taking stuff out and pay nothing. There is so much you can strip out before wasting your money on carbon crap etc.
Is it your track car? I completely stripped my 182 when I had it started doing my head in. It's horrible on the road like. All I'm doing with the meg is taking the back seats out, but that's purely for noise lol! And I've taken off the rear wiper but that's only a few grams haha
Carbon panels are, for sure not cheap, but IMO look so nice, Thanks for all the input, and there's a fine line between keeping your car enjoyable on the road, to it turning into a full on track car, thus making it far less nice on the road as a day to day driver, I'm hoping for a happy medium I suppose, Andy, your comments about loosing weight and friends is a valid point lol
From a power perspective, 50 kg less weight is only equivalent to an extra 10 bhp on your car. So if you haven't already got a 300 bhp remap, think about priorities. Carbon? Mostly for a show car.
Its worth taking weight out of specific places on the car to keep the balance nice or moving it elsewhere, very common for example for those building a race car to put the battery in a battery box in the rear. My 944 has it back there in the left hand corner as stock for a RHD car but its still the lightest corner on the car. Again though I really can't see much point in doing all this stuff on a fun car or road car, it completely ruined my 944 as an enjoyable road car so on the Megane I am just doing RS Tuning map, chinese cooler, cooksport springs, rear bypass group buy and likely rear seats with brace bar + cargo netting ala mini GP as we never use the rear seats. Better pads, plain disks and either Cup 2 or PS4 tyres. Already decided I am happy with the compromise of standard R26 Recaros +CG locks on the belts. A well driven R26/250 Cup with basic mods will be as quick as anything really on track except at places like Spa or Silverstone which massively reward big power.
Lots of very sensible reasoning there NJH. A 'well driven' R26/250 Cup is a key point on track. No point in having a carbon bonnet if you can't even put a decent lap together. Anyway, for a solo trip to a track, with an R26 you could even drop out the passenger Recaro and runners and save an additional 25 kg ish if weight is a critical issue.
Major weight savings: Rear seats (surprisingly heavy thanks to the metal frame in the seat back, probably around 20kg) Spare Wheel and rear cabin trim Battery is around 15-20kg, replace with a ~3kg equivalent lithium unit and relocate it to the rear. Wheels (19s are around 13kg each, you can get good 18" wheels that weigh close to 8kg each, especially useful as it is unsprung mass) Front Seats (Recaro Sportsters with airbags are over 20kg each, the Pole Positions from the Trophy-R weigh around 7-8kg each) Front discs (PFC 348mm rotors are 2.5kg lighter each than the OEM 340mm rotors, again this is unsprung mass) Lightweight Flywheel (12.1 kg vs 5.6kg) Minor weight savings: Remove rear wiper + motor (weighs around 1-2kg and helps with rear visibility) Speaker system (head unit is 1.3kg, each of the 4 speakers are around 350g) Halogen headlights are apparently about 1kg lighter each than the Xenons Unknowns: Carbon bonnet (I have heard is saves around 10kg but cant find a confirmation if that is true) Carbon door cards (unknown weight saving, but I have held the OEM door cards and they are heavier than expected) Perspex windows (no idea how much this saves)
Carbon bonnet is ~ 7 kg. All 3 rear Perspex Windows ~ 6 kg. Both a huge waste of time and money as aftermarket mods for weight reduction.
Those bonnet and window weights are for the R26, so you could assume similar for both on the 250. Bigger 250 bonnet but smaller rear windows. Are they even available?
People tend to ignore the things which those building race cars are familiar with as providing large weight savings. Two good examples are gutting the doors (cutting out or unbolting crash bars etc. and all electrics), that can save 10 Kg + per door on many cars. The other is binning all the HVAC kit and either having none as many circuit race cars do or fitting a rally car 1kg screen heater instead, again that can save 20 kg or so on some cars, obviously stuff like AC would already have been binned off. Again though I have promised myself I am never doing all that stuff again on a tin top road or track day car, total waste of time and effort.
Went and did a bit of digging, I found a thread on a French Megane forum about someone who installed it on their car, their scales said it was 9.5kg lighter. I found it listed for sale here, and they state its 10kg: http://www.megane-rs-online.com/chassis/38-capot-carbone-megane-3-rs.html So its most likely around 10kg lighter. As for it being huge waste of time... I would not necessarily agree. Its a very expensive modification for the gains it provides but it is removing weight off the front axle, which is an exceedingly difficult location to reduce weight without resorting to more extreme measures. Significant weight savings are a battery relocation, lightweight flywheel, lighter discs, lighter wheels and removing the air con system. In contrast, it is very easy to remove weight off the rear axle, I know this first hand as my M3RS to has a terrible weight distribution of around 67% to 33% last time I got it corner weighted. I am hoping to even that out a bit once I throw a cage in. Managed to find some carbon door inserts here, no information apart from the pictures: http://www.mcracingsa.com/4-pieces-...4-panneaux-de-porte-renault-megane-3-carbone/
Personally - if you want to go quicker on track I'd do only 2 things: 1) Remove any easily removable weight that doesn't cost you any money (rear seats etc) 2) Spend your money on a decent driver training course. However good a driver you think you are now, decent tuition will get you going faster and safer than you will achieve with any weight saving/remap /whatever. Then after you've spent some time refining your skills you can decide if you still need to spend money on the car on weight saving.
I'd like to see the invoice on that little number. Looks like a road legal or track special, certainly not a race spec conversion.
Here you go. https://www.vkvgroep.nl/content/uploads/2015/12/Prijslijst-VKV-Renault-Mégane-By-E-motions.pdf
100% agree. And only when someone has achieved their driving talent threshold should they start to blow the £ on extra mods. Nothing more embarrassing than someone turning up on a trackday with carbon bits, coilovers, fancy seats, big brakes and fancy wheels and then driving like a bit of a twat. Show cars. Each to their own tho, it is after all just a social event.
Hello FuRyZ. Bringing back an old post, but I am currently debating to change to recaro pole positions and a half cage so that I can keep similar weight, but shifting it to the back. What is your weight distribution with cage and did you find that any better? Thanks!!!
No mate. I ordered new windscreen from megane 3. But part number was the same as dealer gives me. I weighed it and it is 15kg well, I was wondering maybe glass for 3rs is lighter
Well, that's what I wanted to understand. but apparently how my new glass will arrive, I will weigh them both myself and I will know for sure
