bumper bar/weight

[MarcsMR2]

Hi,

Thinking of running the car without the bumper bar in place to save weight.

Just thought I'd ask for the pros and cons on this, ie towing

Thanks

[cartledge_uk]

The tow points on the bumper bar shouldnt be used anyway!


The bumper bar hold on the bumper, the side lights etc. without you have to get creative to hold everything on.

They are ~£110 from toyota new.

There is also the for against arguments about crash protection, and as for weight, I dont know, i've never seen/held one thats been in one piece!

[kaiowas]

I seriously wouldn't recommend removing the front bumper bar if the car is ever used anywhere other than in a racing environment. Open the frunk and have a look at what's there. Without the bumper bar if you hit a post/tree or anything else narrow enough to pass between the chassis rails then the next thing of substance that's going to stop the car is the bulkhead at the front of the passenger compartment. It's going to hurt. Secondly the MR2 already suffers from a weight distribution which is slightly too far towards the rear. Removing a lump of weight from the very front of the car is only going to make this worse.

The rear bumper bar is a different matter all together, there's an extra bulkhead/crossmember plus the engine between yourself and the outside world and I feel perfectly safe without it. In our case we've left the end sections in place in order to retain the tow points and to ensure the ends of the bumper skin are correctly retained and don't end up flapping about in the breeze but we've cut the centre out altogether:



Weight saving just by doing this was about 5kg but you could probably get away with being more agressive with the grinder as well as removing the foam which I left in to help the bumper keep it's shape.

[Jim-SR]

i dont think safety is really an issue. the bumper bars on 99% of our cars are too rotten to be of any use anyway. i reckon most people could kick through theirs. hitting anything of substance at 30+ mph is going to break clean through it without any issue.

there are also 2 bulkheads between the bumper bar and the driver, as well as a solid floor at the front. compare that to a FWD car where there is an open engine bay and usually only one proper bulkhead. the MR2 is safer by design anyway. the chassis rails are well braced by the floor and bulkheads.

however, the bumper bar braces the front chassis rails, so without it there would certainly be an increase in chassis flex. also, in the event of an accident, whilst not a safety concern, a missing bumper bar would certainly allow more damage to occur.

without the chassis rails being braced they can be bent independantly. there is nothing to give primary protection to the front bulkhead, or to support the bumper.

also, youve got to find a way to secure the front bumper, side lights, etc so youd still have to run something in its place.

the better alternative is probably to replace the bumper bar with a lighter weight structure. aluminium tubing perhaps. or even to take a holesaw to the stock bumper bar, assuming it isnt rotten. for the saving of maybe 10-15kg of weight (at most, i seem to remember it weighing more like 8kg) its a lot of effort. its weight at the extreme end of the car though, so in terms of the difference it can make to handling its a good place to lose weight.

the rear bumper bar has most of the same issues in its removal.

[MartG]

also, youve got to find a way to secure the front bumper, side lights, etc so youd still have to run something in its place.

Bumper skin can be held on by the bolts along its upper edge, and the two at each side. Sidelights can be held in by self tappers screwed through the skin either side of the light recess.

That's how I did it on my trackday car