Got me an Insight...

[Daox]

I wonder if it even assists at any reasonable speed?

[Ecky]

I imagine it would have to. Due to the spiral gear that's in the EPS, there's a lot of friction/resistance when not electrically assisted, though I'm sure the power usage is pretty low at any reasonable speed.

Unlike my HCH1, my Insight still has decent feedback and self-centering with the EPS in-place, so I'm reluctant to remove it, but I would consider it if the feel is significantly improved.

[NoD~]

OK, so I had to test some stuff before I could answer your question.
+No longer feels like your are fighting the resistance of a machine.
+Can turn at a stop on cement, no problem (easier than my Neon)
+Much more "connected to the road" feel
+No weird dead spots
-Very sensitive straight ahead (maybe I need alignment?)

All in all, worth doing. And reversible! So if you hate it, you change it back. My only issue, as stated with the negative, is that even the slightest move of the wheel moves ya. Just takes some getting used to I guess. Test drove it after doing it and looked down at my scan gauge (in my cup holder currently, lol), looked back up, and I was starting to go off the road! But... it feels good overall.

Anywho, to my Monday mods...

Bought these LED tail lights...



I took them to work before my shift and played with them on our bench setup. Here's what's weird... It doesn't matter where you apply + or -, it just works. So non-CK or CK setup, it works. Put it in, then flip it over 180 degrees, it works. Weird voodoo magic there... but I found that they consume about 1.25 watts on low and 4 watts on high (compared to stock bulbs, rated about 6 and 25).

On the left, stock. Right, LED.

Tail...



Brakes...



LED on tail lights...



Stock bulb on tail lights...



Some twilight pics (minus the vamps)









So, definitely an improvement in brightness. The park lights are much brighter and the brake lights are slightly brighter. With both LED tails, you can definitely tell the difference, plus you have the center brake light. One big advantage to LED tails is the "instant on" effect. It doesn't "fade in" like the old bulbs do. This gives the guy flying up on ya a little more time to get his act together before he plows over ya.

Started on making a blank for the passenger side mirror.





I happened to unplug the harness when I had the door panel off (working on the door locks), but I didn't realize this little 3rd bolt. I didn't want to take off the door panel again, so I used a racheting 8mm and it wasn't too bad.



Until I get more time (and ideas), the stock one goes back on... with a twist!



And, while I was at it, I wanted to start my fill-on on the grill block (I want to take my time and make it look sexy, so it'll be a while).



I also worked a bit on an upper, but ran out of time and energy.

Oh, and my block heater... turns out I had it on all night! I didn't realize the timer was set to manually on. That's probably 12 hours straight plugged in. Guessing it has a thermostat on that thing to kick it off at whatever temp (140*?) I know others I've had did the same.

Finally, looking at the audio system. Speakers are shredded, tape deck and no tapes... Last time I bought a CD player, I spent around $400 to get one with active crossovers and some fancy features. Now that CD's aren't that important and I have a nice FLAC collection going on, I'm looking into this guy...

Amazon.com: kenwood KMMBT315U Single DIN Bluetooth CD Receiver: Car Electronics

Anywho, we'll see if I get anything else done this week.

[NoD~]

Version 1.0 of lower grill block...

I wanted to have it come out a little so there wasn't such a deep pocket, so I used 2" XPS and carved it out into place, then ziptied it in. Then, made coroplast fronts to screw in.



I gave the coroplast a nice duct-tape veneer job and screwed it on.



Cover the screws...



And finally, a license plate holder!



It's about the same size of opening on the lower grill as my Neon and, as long as I was driving as efficient as I could, not even summer heat was enough to over heat the Neon! So, I think this will be alright... though, I don't have AC in the Neon, so I'm curious how well it'll do on this beast.

[Ecky]

Be aware that the Insight has a water jacket in the exhaust manifold. It needs to dump more heat than you'd expect for a 3-cylinder, though you should still be fine in the summer if you're not climbing mountains, I expect.

With a 50% lower and 100% upper, I've seen water temperature approach 105c in cooler months (maybe 40-60f outside) when climbing grades.

[elhigh]

This is beautiful stuff. I love seeing this little car come together.

The Citrus color has got to be one of the prettiest I've seen on a car in the last 20 years. Why don't more car manufacturers offer colors on their cars? I don't mean going all the way back to brown, but we don't have to just assume that because it's a sedan it's going to be gray, right? Or that a thrifty little coupe is going to automatically be white?

I like my HCH1 but the damned thing is champagne, which is the red end of the spectrum's version of gray.

[Xist]

Did you block off your electric power steering?

[NoD~]

Alright Ecky, you talked me into it... got up early this morning and trimmed.



Still need to do the upper, but one thing at a time! Thanks for the advice.

elhigh: Yeah the color is awesome. There's some newer little Chevy(?) out there I've seen in a very close to the color of mine. Not sure what model it is, though. Had one park next to me at the gas station the other day. Should have taken a pic...

Xist: Yes I did!

Got new speakers coming in this weekend. Think I'll fiberglass a small sealed 8" sub into the rear passenger corner in that dead space and use the smallest, most efficient amp I can get...

Polk DB651 6.5" Coax Speakers
Kenwood KMM-BT315U Media Interface
NVX NMV1 Amp (200x1)
Infinity Reference 860W 8" Subwoofer

Since this head unit will let me, I'll likely get a pair of tweets on the dash, ran to the "Front" of the deck, and the coax to the "Rear" outputs. This will allow me to cross over the tweets on the dash at a higher frequency to keep them safe and clean, high pass the door speakers to keep them from trying to play bass they can't, and low pass and volume control on the subwoofer. One of my goals with this setup is to keep the weight to a minimum, yet be efficient so that it's not eating my 12v system alive. Hence, why all these components were chosen. (Not to mention, the price on these are great! The amp is maybe a little spendy, but size + weight + efficiency are worth it to me)

[Baltothewolf]

Nod, the spark comes in green. I drove one once.

[NoD~]

New speakers...



They are not the shallow models, but they fit without cutting on the doors (barely). I had to drill some new holes for the screws, though. I'll also need to take off some of the stock grill grating to get them back on. But the audio quality is pretty good on these, despite the price. Good enough for a head unit to power (all the louder I want anyways). Tempted to get a new deck... and amp... blah. Money.

Also, capped off where the rear motor was.



Trunk feels a little lighter in weight. Can't complain about that! I reused the same rubber gasket and bought a sink plug from Home Depot and threw on 2 coats of PlastiDip.