2000 Citris Yellow Honda insight

steveo

100 kW
Joined
Oct 6, 2007
Messages
1,786
Location
Woodbridge, Ontario
Some of you may of recalled my thread on converting the 1998 honda civic si i had bought for ev conversion, however do to the money involved to convert and to go through safety/get o/s changed, all the hassles etc, i decided just to restore the car to its original best shape possible..

So with all that being said, I wanted to get the car originally i wanted to purchase .. the Honda insight. The first hybrid made by honda back in 2000 and till this date is the most fuel efficient hybrid

as for work/maintenance i've done so far to the car:

-Removed and cleaned out throttle body
-Cleaned Egr Valve
-Cleaned out plate between intake manifold & engine block (will post pictures)
-Valve adjustment
-Fresh oil change & oil filter
-Checked gap clearance for spark plugs
-Engine flush with sea foam
-sea foamed combustion chamber
-Transmission fluid change
-new window seals around window, and replaced bottom window seal trim
-engine wash
-clay bar paint & used a special wax to eliminate surface scratches, then clay bar again & finished of with a canola wax job 1 whole day of waxing .... literly
-repainted front wiper blades, paint wash weather faded and peeling.


need to:
-put in spare 5 speed tranny as per one in car grinds (spare tranny was sold with car to me)
-Install new exedy clutch kit
-flush brake fluid
-flush clutch fluid
-clean up rusted brakets in engine bay
 
Right on. I bet you will like your insight. Those are pretty much all the same things I did to mine when I first got it (except waxing).

My tranny also grinds in 1st and 2nd. Never cared though, I just rev match a bit and it slides in with a tug.

When you pull your tranny out, it would be great if you would take it apart and count the dog teeth number for first and second. If its an even number, I will take mine out and apart and grind off every other dog tooth (or maybe even grinding 2 teeth away between ever 1 tooth) and remove the same pattern of teeth from the dog collar. Then it will shift smooth as butter no matter what. It will just make a banging sound everytime you go on/off throttle, but I kinda miss that sound from my racecars dogbox. :)
 
liveforphysics said:
Right on. I bet you will like your insight. Those are pretty much all the same things I did to mine when I first got it (except waxing).

My tranny also grinds in 1st and 2nd. Never cared though, I just rev match a bit and it slides in with a tug.

When you pull your tranny out, it would be great if you would take it apart and count the dog teeth number for first and second. If its an even number, I will take mine out and apart and grind off every other dog tooth (or maybe even grinding 2 teeth away between ever 1 tooth) and remove the same pattern of teeth from the dog collar. Then it will shift smooth as butter no matter what. It will just make a banging sound everytime you go on/off throttle, but I kinda miss that sound from my racecars dogbox. :)


When you say dog teeth is that the sync rows? II think for you do that to the syncrows and install new bearings on the inpust shaft bearing, it should last you a while... I remember a friend of mine grindin each syncrow tooth sharp again and the improved the grind problem, cheap ass red neck fix hahah.

To downshif second i do what you mentioned, however it is annoying and want my transmission working 100%, fix it properly or dont fix it at all

You got any pics of your insight, love to see it

Steveo
 
Hillhater said:
:? just puzzled as to why you think we need to see so many pictures of you washing your car ??
Were you intending to show something specific ?

Yup, getting all angles lol
 
same colour as mine though a year younger. Im now curious as ive seen LFP has one and now Ive seen another. How many ES members have 1st gen honda insights? Im based in the UK and our proportion of the market is slim to say the least. I think less than 250 of them from the DVLA's records a couple of years back and i know at least a couple of wrecks since then.

Would like to ask any of you who are Insight owners and more specifically uk owners, get in touch please. Ive tried to make a mini dave gormanesque mission of finding the other UK owners. This summer we had 11 come to the Glossop car show which was probably about 2% of all the cars left in the uk. BTW its not that i dont want to meet Euro/Japanese/American/Canadian owners just thought id start of with the small bunch of peeps closer to home.

These cars are amazing. Mine is called Rufio

Regards Andy
 
Peter Perkins is a UK member here who has one, maybe 2 insights.
 
he actually has 3 and a half. More than anyone one man needs, and he is a great bloke.
 
I got excited when I opened this thread wondering what motor you were going to put into this conversion. ...but then found out your thread was about you being happy you got your car, starting with almost every gas engine problem these usually come across.

You'll love it. It's not uncommon to get 80mpg or more on the way home for me without too much effort. I've been getting 75mpg tanks this summer. End of July I took a trip from Minneapolis to Detroit and back on just a hair under 20 gallons for a little over 1450 miles of travel, a tank there and a tank back.

I'm planning my conversion of one of mine right now, it's fun to find that an AC motor and controller combination that is affordable(under US$10k) can have less efficiency than a series DC motor. Found out a Warp 9 is too long to fit, an Impulse 9 will fit but a Kostov might be better for the application. ...I digress, but you did open this in an EV thread and did have me excited for a moment.
 
Its not a ev i agree

but it does have a brusless motor/battery & controller!

modification to come when i can afford to do them! mima!!

:)

-steveo
 
steveo said:
Its not a ev i agree

but it does have a brusless motor/battery & controller!

modification to come when i can afford to do them! mima!!

:)

-steveo


I did the current sensor hack on them, and showed Peter how to do it. We have a thread about it somewhere where I characterized the current sensors to show how to trick them. The motor and controller stayed nice and cool. The battery could not handle the extra load well at all, it would fault every time. So, a beefed up battery and the over-current setup and you should be set.
 
A few people have gone the parallel pack route(not here though), to give extra capacity and more power without stressing the packs or go to too much expense(a decent amount of effort though). Peter went the lithium route and his A123 pack is nearly seamlessly installed where the NiMh pack was but with much higher capacity and power. It also means you would be carrying 65 pounds of battery and battery case plus having added connections in the car to get it to work but can be hidden by strapping the extra pack to the spare tire but you lose the space of the rear basket.

I've found that my best MPG tanks are actually done by not using the pack at all. Charging the pack from the wall or if you've got decent hills to charge off of that would otherwise have you going way overspeed to coast could be helpful in making the car more efficient with the pack. Unfortunately the round trip electrical efficiency makes coasting better and by the time you are at a speed to use regen there isn't much momentum left to get back into the pack.
 
Hi,
liveforphysics said:
I did the current sensor hack on them, and showed Peter how to do it. We have a thread about it somewhere where I characterized the current sensors to show how to trick them. The motor and controller stayed nice and cool. The battery could not handle the extra load well at all, it would fault every time. So, a beefed up battery and the over-current setup and you should be set.
Here:
http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22246
MK1 Honda Insight Power Project
Great thread.

Thanks Luke!
 
liveforphysics said:
Right on. I bet you will like your insight. Those are pretty much all the same things I did to mine when I first got it (except waxing).

My tranny also grinds in 1st and 2nd. Never cared though, I just rev match a bit and it slides in with a tug.

When you pull your tranny out, it would be great if you would take it apart and count the dog teeth number for first and second. If its an even number, I will take mine out and apart and grind off every other dog tooth (or maybe even grinding 2 teeth away between ever 1 tooth) and remove the same pattern of teeth from the dog collar. Then it will shift smooth as butter no matter what. It will just make a banging sound everytime you go on/off throttle, but I kinda miss that sound from my racecars dogbox. :)

I'll let you count what you need to count. These aren't my pictures but those of someone at the Insight forum. Might give some detail of the failure mode too.

http://s1182.photobucket.com/albums/x447/goodnuff4me/
 
from the photos i see where the problem is its the hardened steel coller in between the 2 brass syncros if work on quite a few honda transmissions the problem can be fixed u need a thicker coller between the 2 syncros so when it pulls away it wont pull to far apart so that it wont chip the guides also the newer honda 6 speeds have same problem but most of problems where due to crappy gear cast :p maby i should take stevos spare tranny apart that we swaped out for a mint one i serviced for him and see if i can find some parts that can be swaped to fix the problem from the 6 speed k20 family ^_^
 
Funny you mention the K-series trannies, I broke a few 2nd gears in them in my racecar before going to a PPG dog-box gearset.


That insight is using 36 dog teeth on the collar! WOOT!!! This means you can grind away every other tooth on the face and inside the collar and make it shift like butter. :)
Thank you so much for the pictures! Those are rare pictures to find! Do you happen to know anyone with a "worn out" gearset they are looking to sell? This would let me have all the time I want to get the machining/grinding done before taking my car down.


It appears the synchro itself didn't loose it's gear grabbing abilities at all (like how a normal synchro failure happens), the teeth on the cones look great inside and out. It wore the clocking tabs down enough so that it slows the gear and FORCES it to be clocked mid-way between teeth, so of course it's going to grind. It's like an anti-synchro now. lol Of all the places to save weight... they thinned out the clocking tabs on the synchro... LAME!
 
whereswally606 said:
How many ES members have 1st gen honda insights?
These cars are amazing. Mine is called Rufio
Regards Andy

Probably more than have the 1st generation US Hondas (600's)
I'd love to have an Insight but not as much as the AZ600!
http://diesel-bike.com/AZ600/az600.html
~ CrazyJerry
 
After alot of thought i will be ev with my Honda insight :)

-I will be using Paul & Sabrinas Ev Dc Controller kit 144v @ 500amp capable
-15hp Dc motor made by GE 9" (forklift lift truck motor)
-Battery chemistry (undetermined, but pouch cells is what im looking for with lightest weight possible with highest energy density 4.2v a cell *)
-Goal is to achieve better performance then that of a stock Honda insight 0-65mph
-System voltage will be 100v - 144v, I will start at 48v - 72v lead battery to test system
-I will put every reasonable aero mod i can do on the insight (For ex. pizza tray wheel covers)

-I do have access to a 12" inch motor, however i think its a bit heavy (this is a forklift Drive motor)

below is a picture of the specs of 3 motors, 2 drive motors in first 2 pics 12", and 2nd last one is the 9" i bought


-steveo
 

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Just be sure there is enough space for that motor to fit. The length is an issue, someone else tried to put a Warp 9 in their and had to use the Impulse 9 instead. I'd think the larger 12" is far more beef and weight than you would want to have in an Insight.

You've got 12v power steering and a DC-DC converter already in the car, I'm not sure how low the DC-DC will operate but for the higher voltage of the system I might do it should work. I'd imagine the Insight DC-DC could handle down to about 120v so for a ~144v nominal system it may be fine if the wiring is as simple as I figure it would be to get it to work.
 
MN Driver said:
Just be sure there is enough space for that motor to fit. The length is an issue, someone else tried to put a Warp 9 in their and had to use the Impulse 9 instead. I'd think the larger 12" is far more beef and weight than you would want to have in an Insight.

You've got 12v power steering and a DC-DC converter already in the car, I'm not sure how low the DC-DC will operate but for the higher voltage of the system I might do it should work. I'd imagine the Insight DC-DC could handle down to about 120v so for a ~144v nominal system it may be fine if the wiring is as simple as I figure it would be to get it to work.


This is great idea to keep original dc-dc conveter

I need to figure out which one that is, never really looked into it

You are absoloutly correct im luck i got 9" motor, it looks like biggest i can got without hitting driveshaft in tranny

Steveo
 
steveo said:
...I need to figure out which one that is, never really looked into it...

Here you go. You might want an official service manual for this car too, I'm thinking somewhere along the line it would really help.
http://www.insightcentral.net/encyclopedia/endcconverter.html

It shares the same heat sink as the MDM can be separated from that heat sink or the DC-DC could be separated from the heat sink and then a different heat sink added. Not sure how much heat it makes, I know the cheap china sourced ones most conversions are using either have a reputation to fail or have massive heat sinks or a beefy fan. To me it's either Vicor, Meanwell, or stock for when I convert mine. I'd imagine even if this is more efficient its going to need to have forced air and the stock heat sink in a same/similar cooling configuration is probably best. Keep in mind that this could very likely be simple to move somewhere away from the back to make space where you are probably going to put batteries.
 
Prius tranny.


More power than those other clunker motors. Get custom axles and make custom mounts and it's the easiest mechanical install ever.

Controlling the 2 motors in the tranny is more difficult.
 
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