Our 2001 Honda Insight

[Vigo]

Well, my fiancee and I decided to do something.. interesting.

We sold her 2004 Mazda3, which she'd had since new. I had some good times in it.. Id just put some newer tails on it ($0) and bought some rx8 wheels in hopes of pimping it and possibly turboing it, but i couldnt get myself worked up over it.

I love Mazda3s, but this one had a lot of baggage and was pretty beat for '04 and 128k. Luckily, it was still worth enough money to buy something interesting to replace it.


Ive already got plans for a gas/electric parallel propulsion system for my 90 van, but work has not started.

I bought an electric car project and a battery pack for it.. I just need to build a charger for it.. but thats possibly a ways off as well.

I was starting to get really annoyed about all the time i should have been under electric power and wasnt!

Also, i drive sometimes 1k miles a week, 90% highway..

So the culmination of all this is that we found the one Honda Insight we could afford and bought it!


And then i immediately started taking it apart..

Tore off the badly-done tint.


The passenger side window didnt work so i took it apart.. there was an open circuit across the motor so i disassembled it and found that one of the motor brushes and part of the rotor had severely overheated and werent making contact.. careful application of sandpaper fixed it up for no dollars

The switch didnt seem to be working, either, so we had to mess with that.

I popped it apart and messed with it, didnt find anything wrong, put it back in, and it worked. Huzzah!!

This thing had THE WORST factory speakers i have ever seen in a modern car, while the head unit was only REALLY BAD. I threw in some slightly less crappy speakers i had. I have a JVC head unit to put in it but havent done it yet.

Since we had the dash apart, we decided to tear into the unobtanium instrument cluster and mess with it, since the buttons for the trip computer functions didnt seem to be working..

Luckily for us the buttons were mounted on separate little boards that were easily removeable..

After Mason declared the factory switches to be 'Total Crap', we started looking for the highest quality replacement hardware that i had sitting in the trunk of broken down T-Ms.. old Chrysler radio FTW!

Preset buttons to the rescue!


Now my buttons work great! $0!

Here's a pic of the instrument cluster all lit up and getting 75mpg going 65mph. Ive got about 450 miles on this tank so far and im avg'ing a bit over 50 due to lots of hills and AC usage.


Next im putting these tires on it.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....R200&tab=Sizes

Ill probably end up changing out the speakers again for something a little better and maybe stuffing a small woofer in the back somewhere for much needed bass response. Factory stereo only has 2 6.5s in the doors and no power in the head unit.

I think i might add some sound deadening in the doors and around the rear wheelwells as well.

I also need to space the driver's seat up 1-2".

[Mopar318]

I love those insights. Well built cars too, but of course everything had to be lightweight and cheap so some build quality has to be sacrificed.

I think they are supposed to get 80mpg in perfect conditions. Its more comfortable and safer than a Geo Metro.

[contraption22]

I didn't think Hybrids got all that great milage on the highway.

[Vigo]

My first tank was 50 mpg.

I think it would be MUCH higher if i didnt drive in such hilly areas and need to use the AC so much.

Of course, when i retint the windows the AC demand will go down a good bit = MPG..

This car has the unique trait among hybrids that it was actually designed to hit a super-high MPG number. That being said, the IMA (electric assist) really doesnt contribute to that at all on the highway except for going up hills. Most of it is just light weight (1800 lbs), aero, gearing, and a 1.0L gas drivetrain specially designed to run as lean as 26:1 AFR under certain conditions. It is all OLD technology at this point, but the original Insight remains the ONLY hybrid ever sold here that is so focused on MPG.

This thing really will get 75 mpg on a flat road with the a/c off. Unfortunately i dont think it's going to see much of that from here on out..

Already planning a 900 mile trip to Colorado next week.. I'll post back afterwards with any revelations.

Mopar318, it definitely DOES feel much more comfortable and safer than a Metro. Unfortunately, right now im only getting Metro-ish fuel mileage.. but a metro under non-ideal conditions like these might not get 50mpg either.. maybe less!

[Matt86]

That's pretty cool! Is it a 5-speed? I remember back at the tech college I went to there was an 01 5-speed donated by Honda. It only had 38 miles on it.

[Aries_Turbo]

my metro got 45mpg when hammering it in hilly areas all the time and/or going 75 on the highway all the time.

brian

[RoadWarrior222]

Ive already got plans for a gas/electric parallel propulsion system for my 90 van, but work has not started.

I bought an electric car project and a battery pack for it.. I just need to build a charger for it.. but thats possibly a ways off as well.

I keep thinking about the possibilities of that for mine... though I'm leaning more towards a "through the road" hybrid assist mode with some kind of hub motor/generator/regen-brake in the back wheels.

[contraption22]

I have been thinking it would be cool to build an AWD omni with two electric motors driving the rear wheels.

[Vigo]

It is a 5spd. There was a CVT version, but it got dramatically less gas mileage.

After thinking about it a lot, what i think would help the car the most is if *I* controlled the IMA instead of some computer. After reading a lot, apparently lots of other people have the same thought and have done it.

It seems to me that after adding some battery capacity and taking manual control of the IMA (called MIMA on insight forums), ill be able to get MUCH better mileage. Right now the computer controls the electric assist based on what you're doing with the pedal.. but any time you push the pedal, you're throttling the gas engine, so its impossible to request more electric assist without putting more load on the engine, despite the fact that at low rpms the electric motor adds more power than opening the throttle a little more.



Today i took out the junk-pile mismatched speakers i put in it on Sunday and put in some matched 6 3/4" 2-ways. I had to make some new mounting holes and modify the back of the speaker grills but it definitely helped the bass response. Ive got a tiny little amp i pulled out of a parts car im going to mess with, and ill probably build a very small sub enclosure fitted into the hatch area or maybe a computer speaker sub if i can find one in a junk pile.

So far i havent spent money on anything but the adapter harness for the head unit i put in and ill be trying to keep the expenditures as tiny as possible. Tires are the biggest expenditure im planning to make any time soon.

Does anyone know of some super light, super cheap 13 or 14 inch 4x100 rims? Preferably something oem i can grab from a junkyard...

[Mopar318]

I dont understand why you would want to change the rims. They are designed to be streamline and reduce drag. Anything else will probally decrease MPG.

[r2kool4u]

Very nice. My neighbor got one when they first came out. He has been averaging 77 mpg from his highway drive to work. Not to bad haha.

[RoadWarrior222]

Does anyone know of some super light, super cheap 13 or 14 inch 4x100 rims? Preferably something oem i can grab from a junkyard...

Saturn S-series alloys are supposed to be pretty light. I've heard 14lbs.

[Vigo]

Well, i need to look up how light the stock wheels are, for one thing..

It needs tires, and if i could find some super light junkyard 13" alloys, i could probably grab the rims in the junkyard and still save money because of the price difference between 13 and 14 inch tires. Not that ill be hurting either way.. the 14s im looking at are still cheap.

Put another 140 miles on the car today and realized im still learning how to best utilize 4th and 5th gear. The learning curve on this car is something ive never had to deal with before.

[raccoon]

I hear K series swaps in these are a blast. all that lightweight fuel saving stuff + steroid hamster power. woohoo

[Vigo]

I am already telling my friends that if anything super-expensive lets go in the engine compartment, its getting a non-hybrid swap..

[RoadWarrior222]

I am already telling my friends that if anything super-expensive lets go in the engine compartment, its getting a non-hybrid swap..

Put a VW diesel in it. Some people theorise it would beat the hybrid drivetrain in that body without the battery weight.

[Vigo]

A lot of modified Insights are averaging over 100 mpg.. I dont think a stockish TDI would come close, even with the weight and aero. Stock for stock im sure itd be pretty close, though!

[Vigo]

Random Thoughts:

EVERY car should have regenerative braking. Its one of my favorite things about this car.

The car can use either the conventional motor or the IMA motor to start/restart the gas motor. I like when it uses the ima motor because its so smooth.. its strange to listen/feel it start off the ima motor.

If the car had electric a/c compressor rather than a conventional one, the engine auto-stop would end up working a lot more often. If i have the climate control set to Auto, even if the compressor is not running at any given time it still wont auto-stop on decel or at lights. If i put it in manual Econ A/C mode then sometimes it will, sometimes it wont.

There is no alternator. The car generates electricity off the gas engine via the IMA motor, and the 160v IMA battery charges the 12v battery/systems through a dc-dc converter... sweet.


The head has the exhaust manifold cast-in like a lot of later honda motors. There is just an exhaust outlet flange on the head, which will make it a lot easier to turbo versus having to build an entire manifold.

I put in the head unit, thank god. I also took out the mismatched junk pile speakers i had thrown in and put some aftermarket (still cheap) 6 3/4's i had in there.. MUCH better bass response but still needs more power and a small sub. Im trying to reverse engineer the speaker outputs on this ancient, unmarked ( with some funky 9 pin connector for 8 wires ) 60x4 amp i had laying around..

P.s.... i think owning this car is going to force me use the terms engine and motor correctly from now on.

[Aries_Turbo]

Im trying to reverse engineer the speaker outputs on this ancient, unmarked ( with some funky 9 pin connector for 8 wires ) 60x4 amp i had laying around..

good luck. i have an old sony amp that just sits because of that. i should just call them and get a new connector or the pinout.

P.s.... i think owning this car is going to force me use the terms engine and motor correctly from now on.

ive been trying to do that for a while. its tough to remember to do so.

Brian

[Vigo]

good luck. i have an old sony amp that just sits because of that.

I have 3 pairs of wires that play speakers, and 1 pair that does nothing.. i think i have some bridged.. i just cant think of a systematic way to figure it out from here.. ADD strikes again.


The passenger side mirror was flopping around when i got it. I found a broken plastic ball stud behind it and yesterday i fixed it with Duramix. First time ever using that

I have 460 miles on this tank and a bit to go.. I could probably stretch it past 500. I think this tank will average 3-5 better than the last one.. hopefully i can keep improving. I may not drive it for the best mpg ALL the time but i want to know HOW to do it, so i'll keep experimenting for a few more tanks until i level off.

I probably gave up some MPG when i was going 90mph chasing down a sweet modded Mazda3 sedan i wanted to gander at