Alright, for anyone that may be interested in the future here is the weight process on the brake levers.... From standard, to stripped paint, to drilled, to fully dremelled. here we go...
Step 1)
Remove all the internals from the lever (see this link (
http://www.the-climb.net/2012/03/sram-f ... rdown.html)
Step 2)
I weighed the lever as it was completely standard off the lever, this weight is un-touched / un-tuned.
Step 3)
Using a sand paper bit in my dremel i sanded off all the paint (there is alot of it) right through till the carbon was blacky grey as it looks now. I made sure to also smooth out the lumps in my lever at it was a little bumpy from standard. Sanding alone removed nearly 2 grams off the lever.
Step 4)
I removed the rubber bit that pushes the shift lever when your braking so it doesn't scrape the brake lever / shift lever interface. This is surprisingly hard as SRAM must have used on hell of a glue to keep it in there! I later super glued a tiny bridge of delrin in there to keep the contact between the two levers minimal and as effortless as possible. it only weighed 0.11 grams so who cares.
Step 5)
Trace, or draw the out line of your cut outs where the material is going to be removed onto the lever, i found a pencil worked fine on the surface, i tried to maintain a constant distance between the edge of the lever and my cut out edge, purely aesthetical in my case though.
Step 6)
Using a drill bit i drilled as much of the material out of the body, i think i started with a 6mm drill bit, and moved up to an 8mm when i knew my holes were in the right spot. This removed jack all weight, the real weight comes from the dremmeling.
Step 7)
Using another dremel attachment (it was a bit probably 3mm round with a sandy type of surface) this bit i used to make the cut out edges straight and smooth the lumps in-between the drill bit holes. Get the rough shapes near perfect to the outline with this tool. I also used this tool to do the cut outs in the side, if they break i would expect it to be at these points, so be absolutely sure you want to cut out material here before you do it.
Step
Using mini files and a 7mm round file, i at first used the 7mm round file to get the corners of the cut out all the same roundness, then i used the flat mini files to make the cut out edges flat and straight, i also used a half round mini file to tangent the two, (rounded corners to flat straight edges) This gave the entire cut out a smooth inner edge and then with the sandpaper dremel attachment i went over the whole lever again briefly, this smoothed the cut out edges and made them comfortable to the hand. This is time expensive but worth it. Note, you get covered in carbon dust so wear glasses (im not kidding, it gets in your eyes especially with the dremel).
Step 9)
Using 1500grit sandpaper i ran over the whole lever for about 15 minutes. this made a noticable smoothing difference and made the lever significantly better looking...
Step 10)
Clear coat or paint that bad boy, sit back and admire your handy work. I spent 2 hours on my second lever, because i knew what i was doing for a start, so expect to take double that on a first attempt.
Final Weight = 13.26 grams
Final Brake lever savings = 7.79 grams (per lever)
Sram lever hoods advice replacing/keeping rubber hoods new
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) and i have 300km of elites racing on the weekend to do, i have (all be it vaguely) tested them and they seem perfectly fine... my testing is primitive yet proves my point, to test it, i put it in the vice, and leant on it, gave it a tap with a hammer, leant on it called it a success. rebuilt the lever, pulled as hard as i could, deemed it brilliant, went inside and had some ice cream to celebrate 
