There is the talk of saving weight by altering the rear seat.

Could other parts of the Mini be omitted for weight savings? Maybe chuck the mats? Maybe the tool kit from the boot- I have the runflat tires and a AAA card/cell phone.
I did see two other MCS owners removed their rear window wipers and put a black plastic cap over the opening.
They claimed the look is cleaner and that they didn't use the wiper much anyway.
Other ideas-without making the cooper look and feel too striped.

 

Assuming you're not being facetious, the best thing you could do to save weight would be to get rid of the runflats and replace them with standard tires. Also, since you may have the stock MCS S-Lite wheels, you could replace these too. It's been covered extensively (do a thread search on wheels), but the runflats and S-Lites are real boat anchors, weighing a good 25% (or more) over a conventional tire and alloy wheel setup.

Each time I change over my wheels/tires -- e.g. for my winter tires and wheels -- I'm surprised at how heavy the stock things are. They're definitely heavier than the stock alloys on my Chrysler minvan :evil:

 

I've read the same thing about the run-flats - very heavy. When I changed from the Dunlop 16" runflats to the Yoko ES100s I weighed each tire. I found the run-flats to weigh 22.6lbs & the Yokos to weigh 21.6lbs. So the weight savings is only 1lb per tire.

 

First, there are probably lighter tires than the Yokos...but more to the point is the weight of the S-Lite wheels. They're where most of the weight is in the stock setup.

 

I am selling a kit that contains an special extra-thin-glass
bulb for the upper rear brakelight.

And since this weight is way up high, and will lower your center
of gravity, it really helps in the twisties.

I also have some special low-mass valve stem inserts and since
this is rotartng-mass, it saves the equivalent of 100,000 times
it's mass in regular mass. Unsprung-mass is really really bad.

After these changes, I could almost get my passenger to pass out.
It was certainly from the performance improvements, although
they claimed they were just tired from listening to all the mass-talk.

We have many many more kits available for those who truly understand
that every gram counts:

 

Those in summer climes can remove the rear defroster wires.

 

>>Those in summer climes can remove the rear defroster wires.

Damn.

Can We license that mod from you?
Royalties?

It would make a great addition to our catalog.

And there are MULTIPLE wires for additional savings!!!

 

>>Other ideas-without making the cooper look and feel too striped.

Hey, I just read this.

If you don't want it to feel too "striped" we are running a special this month
on stripe removal.

 

On true performance days--DRIVE NAKED

 

>>I am selling a kit that contains an special extra-thin-glass
>>bulb for the upper rear brakelight.
>>
>>And since this weight is way up high, and will lower your center
>>of gravity, it really helps in the twisties.
>>

I'm not sure about this. Between taking off the rear wiper and the light-weight glass bulb, aren't you worried about changing the front/rear weight bias? This could induce wild oversteer if you don't compensate by removing equal weight from the front, perhaps by removing the sun visors. Hope this helps.

 

jsun-
I'm not kidding. Two MCS owners with very heavy performance mods both removed their rear wipers independently. They ran into the problem of having to cover the opening left in the rear windshield so they were comparing notes.
I have an MCS and NEVER considered removing the wiper which I find I do use. But we all live in Hawaii and the weather isn't that bad except when it rains (then a ton of dirt flies up and deposits on my rear window). Other hatchback like models don't have the rear wiper so it isn't a must feature- probably depends on the slope of the window- the more steep the angle the less the usefulnes of the wiper. I'll keep my wiper thank you.

Not so with these other owners. They liked not having the wiper. Besides the weight savings (since someone else thought about the rear seat mod) I will say that the look of the rear is cleaner-one owner removed all cooper S badging as well. No it wasn't stolen. Perhaps the loss of the wiper was more motivated by appearance since I would think that the wiper made out of plastic and rubber isn't the most heavy item. You could remove your rear license plate holder and attach the plates with aluminum screws to save weight.

As for wheels. Yes there is potential there. I do have S-lites with runflats. I am waiting on Team Dynamics 17x7s with Yokohama ES100. I agree that depending on the size of the tire you stand to improve the weight only by around 1 pound or so if you stick with 17" wheels. You will save more by switching to low profile 16" tires- maybe 2 to 2.5 pounds for each tire but the look of the wheel will change. Light rims are good and a significant improvement. The lightest 16" are SSR comps 16x7 or the soon to be SSR comp R 16x6.5 (not quite ready yet) and weigh about 11-11.3 pounds per rim. Light 17" rims can run down to about 13-14 pounds- See R-speed wheel packages. But lightness has a price and that would be durability for rough roads and daily use. Light forged wheels are strong and light but not bullet proof and will be costly.

Finally, there are also lightweight wheel bolts-lug nut sets. Another potential area for weight savings.

And you don't have to drive nude you can always wear paper clothes- might not be so flame retardant so don't bother to wear them on race or track days

 

We've also removed the rear wiper mechanism in the Madness MINI. I believe it was only 5lbs. But weight is weight. We've taken almost 100lbs out of the car now!!

R

 

Ok lets look at the rear wiper a little closer.
Lets assume you don't use it or you don't want to keep it because you don't think you really need it.
On the outside you can see the rear wiper. If you remove it you'll need a plastic round plug cap to cover the wiper opening in the window. Any black plastic plug cap would do as long as the outer finish diameter were about .75 to 1 inch.
Lift up the rear boot lid. Look up and you will see a rather large bulge in the inside of the hatch. In there is the wiper motor and the bulk of the weight to be saved. I agree, 5 pounds is added weight which could be removed with any great loss except if you like using your rear wiper. If you remove the rear wiper motor then no one will be able to tell you did it and if you took off the rear wiper blade and capped the hole then the look is very flush and clean.
So that is not so bad, is it?

 

Of course, if you were trying to make the car as light as possible, and this was for competition, then you should remove at least the side windows (replaced with netting and/or plexiglass). And while you're at it, the windshield can be replaced with plexiglass too...in which case, you'd best take off the front wipers and their motor. Why stop at 100#??