Honda Insight w/Acura TSX engine - Ecomodding

[Ecky]

Here's a view around 3/4 up my hill. The road peaks at around 1,100ft, with the base being probably within 50ft of sea level.

I never bothered to remove my 75% grille block and, amazingly, I had no temperature issues tearing up the hill at 7,000RPM for hours on end.

[MetroMPG]

Man, it's going to be a sad day when imgur goes away and we lose all these (lovely, useful) pics!

[Ecky]

I know, right? Unfortunately I cross-post pictures.

Got my A/C sorted out. I used KPro's Nitrous input/output solution for triggering timing advance and activation of the A/C clutch, so the car now idles properly when the compressor cycles.

Did this sitting in a parking lot in Boston. When you're traveling for training and don't have any bad habits, there's little left to do with your time but something useful.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

12500 rpm?

[Ecky]

Some people rev these engines that high.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYjW9kSJ0lI

[19bonestock88]

That’s pretty insane, but I read about the Spoon engines going regularly to 11-12K

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by 19bonestock88

That’s pretty insane, but I read about the Spoon engines going regularly to 11-12K

Imagine if the original 3 banger could do 12.5k without banging and knocking to death?

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

Imagine if the original 3 banger could do 12.5k without banging and knocking to death?

I'm not sure there would be any benefit to it if it could, without some massive tuning. Julian Edgar has probably done the most Insight dyno tuning to date and IIRC he said that there isn't really any power available past the redline. I think he's up to around 120 hp at redline with his turbo setup and IMA delete.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

I'm not sure there would be any benefit to it if it could, without some massive tuning. Julian Edgar has probably done the most Insight dyno tuning to date and IIRC he said that there isn't really any power available past the redline. I think he's up to around 120 hp at redline with his turbo setup and IMA delete.

Yeah, intake and exhaust are both EXTREMELY small, the intake runners are around the size of a garden hose, and the exhaust port for all 3 cylinders is only marginally larger than a single cylinder's exhaust in the K24. I'm willing to bet there's a lot more power one could extract from the 3 cylinder if one replaced intake and exhaust, but I absolutely would not do this. It's a very purpose built motor, and I'd rather keep the torque, throttle response and economy down low and get extra power by over-driving the IMA. There exist current hacks to easily add 30% and 45% more output from it, assuming one has a healthy battery.

Julian's 120HP is pretty impressive, but he's using a turbo. Proportionally speaking, it would be like running 500HP through my current engine. It wouldn't surprise me if he's at the very limit of what the rods can take, as I'm sure Honda lightened them as much as possible.

The valvetrain shouldn't have any problems with big boost, but probably isn't good for revving much higher than it does. The bottom end can probably rev a lot higher safely but I would be leery of running as much boost as Julian already is through it. At those cylinder pressures, a slight error in ignition timing could be catastrophic.

[MetroMPG]

Jalopnik just discovered the Insight engine swap thing:

Some Genius Swapped a Honda Civic Si Motor Into a 220,000 Mile Honda Insight Hybrid

Boo:

As for output, the seller—who says the car can do 31 MPG on average—guesses that the engine makes 220 ponies.

Ha - just saw you have one of the top comments on the article, Ecky. Nicely done.