Original:
Re-welded and partially polished:
Painted black:
[forgot to take a picture when the paint was drying, I'll get one Monday]
An update! I bought Jordan's 3" turbo back exhaust, cleaned it, polished it and painted it flat black with ceramic paint. Maybe the paint will help with some heat? I'll get some install shots when it gets installed next week.
I removed the stock 45lb battery and 5lb plastic battery tray with a stainless steel one that is about 6oz for a 19lb miata battery with similar cranking amps. Another 20lbs of weight off the front of the car. I've been working on removing a bunch of weight from the car so far:
-40lbs from no a/c
-20lbs from battery
-40lbs from removing everything from the trunk (carpet, spare tire, tar, repair tools)
-20lbs from scraping the tar out from under the carpet (still working on this)
-12 pounds from switching to lightweight wheels (about 4lbs lighter per corner with the enkei race wheels versus virgos)
-20lbs from removing the stereo and all wiring
-5 pounds from removing charcoal canister and all brackets
-30lbs from removing the crash triangles from the rear of the car
There's about 180 pounds from little things, switching to skinny bumpers should pull off another 50 pounds (awaiting installation in the garage). The race seats I have in my house are about 25 pounds lighter per seat including brackets, the OEM ones are freaking heavy, maybe 40-50lbs each? All that stuff just pulled almost 300lbs out of the car without any extensive modification or cutting...
I hope to get the car down to 2600lbs eventually. Stock was 3000, so 400+lbs shouldn't be hard.