Well, light weight is better than serious discussions about anything. Although both the Elise and the Honda power train are light weight by design there's always some cleaver place to get rid of ounces / grams that can turn into pounds / kilos. Weight reduction on any car will make an improvement in the performance: acceleration, stopping, cornering, fuel economy and driver's psychology. In some cases the way to reduce weight is obvious. And, there are less obvious creative ways to reduce weight.
"Compromise" - we can have whatever we want but, we can't have everything. Do we want air conditioning or fastest time of the day? Do we want iPod tunes or, . . . light weight muffler?
"Less is more" - less weight costs more than more weight.
So, here are some ideas. We welcome suggestions from fellow converts unless you'd prefer that the race scrutineers don't know about it.
lighter weight battery. We had satisfactory performance on both street and track with the Odyssey and our custom made aluminum box for S1 Elise. Battery
light weight sport exhaust
615 kg Elise - here's some ideas from the land of Oz