[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by Ecky

That's not too bad a lifetime mileage. Mine is around 65 I think, but I have Vermont winters to contend with, and used to tow a trailer with some frequency. The low miles of the car are very encouraging.

Yes, it's definitely a car I'd seriously consider were I back home on break from college.

Originally Posted by Ecky

How would you know when you've reached 80% or 90%?

Wouldn't there be a way to test the voltage and have the grid charger turn off at a certain point?

Originally Posted by Ecky

Yeah, the only other CEL(s) my car has ever had are from 1) a fuel injector kill switch, which would rarely cause a CEL which went away the next time I started the car, or 2) when my father-in-law drove the car for 700 miles with one of the spark plugs disconnected, and gummed up the catalytic converter.

Is the CEL disabled, or have you tricked the computer into thinking you're still running the IMA? Makes sense how you can have learn burn now if you don't have the CEL.

Originally Posted by Ecky

The Insight differs from the Civic Hybrid in that it's old enough that practically all of the signaling is analog. There's no CANBUS, no data streams, it's all just PWM and voltage. You can spoof any signal between ECU and IMA with tools you could have bought in the 1950's. With a little bit of education, it would not be unfeasible to have a system behave like stock, only with an entirely different controller and battery. Have you considered going into electrical engineering?

I'm actually studying computer engineering, and there are 3 or 4 basic electrical engineering courses required.

Originally Posted by Ecky

Some facts I've found with my IMA bypass:

The main ECU is what calls for auto-stop, and probably what calls for assist and regen as well. My car will actually go into auto-stop every time I hit the brakes if I spoof the battery SOC too high. The only problem is that there's no IMA to restart it so I end up having to start the car every time I dip below 20mph with the brakes on.

Sounds like a good idea...why the 20 MPH barrier?

I wonder if there would be a way to make the car auto restart once put back into gear even without the IMA, kind of like modern fuel injected vehicles do. Like have a switch that enabled an arduino to turn the car off whenever it was in neutral and back on whenever taken out of gear.

Originally Posted by Ecky

If you wanted to replace everything in the back (motor controller, battery, computers), it would be a lot easier than just replacing the battery. It's a matter of reading what the ECU is requesting, which would be an analog signal on its own dedicated wire (clearly labeled in the car's wiring diagram) going to the back of the car, and just using those as inputs for what would otherwise be an independent fully electric system. That's what the Insight's IMA system is, basically - all you need for an independent EV, but with the computer for the gas engine's computer controlling throttle. It wasn't well integrated at all. You could kill the gas engine and run on electricity alone if the battery were big enough and the motor a little more powerful.

This sounds so delightful and yet so expensive and complex at the same time!

Originally Posted by Ecky

It's more difficult to get consistently high mileage without the battery, but with more effort or ideal conditions you can still do it. This was my trip home from visiting another Insight owner earlier this evening. No pulse and glide, no EoC, just put the car in 5th gear and drove. No traffic on the roads and few stop signs helped.

[IMG]


My commute in the morning I typically get around 57-63mpg - it's mostly uphill. On my way home I deal with bad traffic but it's downhill, so I get more like 65mpg. At my previous job I was getting ~70mpg on my commute both ways without the battery.

That's really good. Do you find that CC reduces your fuel economy significantly? I know using CC in my Civic reduced fuel economy by 10%-20% depending on terrain.