2000 Insight - TLC and ecomodding build

[Insight for life]

Originally Posted by cowmeat

How hard was it to set up that cruise control? Does it set by speed only? It would be awesome if it could be set by mpg. What kind of mpg range are you seeing using it? I could see there being a wild swing of mpg within a couple of miles an hour on the Insight, how sensitive is it?

I always use the cruise control on my wife's Explorer to speed up or slow down, rather than using the gas pedal. I'd say I have it on 90% of the time. By keeping the cruise on as much as possible and clicking it one or two miles an hour at a time to speed up or down, it holds the rpms (and mpg meter) way more steady than I possibly can with my foot on the gas pedal.

You could try a
vernier throttle locker?

[Ecky]

I had to lengthen it a bit. Tested on the highway to 80mph, showed no signs of flapping. I'm thinking of laying a bit of tape in a strip over the nose where it contacts, so it slides more easily when turning. No data yet on MPG.

[cowmeat]

I'm going to put the full belly pan on Ron Burgundy in the near future, and I'll get some extra pallet liners while I'm over there. Those things are handy for all kinds of projects, wish I had grabbed more last time I was there!
If you come back through any time soon, grab a couple and see if you can make that extension a one-piece job.

[MetroMPG]

Where did you get the pallet liners? Are those the 4x4 squares of thin ABS type plastic I've seen on pallets that are loaded up with something like oil jugs or windshield washer jugs?

[cowmeat]

A guy who lives about ten minutes from my house sells them (and also sells pallets, 55 gallon barrels, farm equipment, cows, pigs, hunting dogs, etc . . . .) for two bucks apiece. And yeah, they're the liners that you see them use when smaller items are placed on a pallet. They're super-strong, thin, lightweight, and cheaper than coroplast, unless you get it for free after elections.

He has thousands of the pallet liners, and he gets more in all the time, so I have access to a basically unlimited supply of them. He also has them in a bunch of different colors. I'm going with black ones on Ron Burgundy when I put the belly pan on.

If anybody is interested, I can see how much it would be to ship a bunch of them in a box. You could put like 30 of them in a box 6 inches wide. I'm going to say you could do a belly pan on a full size pick-up truck with 8 of them.

[Ecky]

Finally got around to making some wheel skirts. They're far from perfect, but almost certainly better than nothing.

I constructed them from some scrap aluminum sheeting I quilted together, and some aluminum flat to give the whole thing some structure and prevent the wind from pushing it into the tires.

[Ecky]

Since my last fillup and oil change I've been getting exceptionally bad mileage, and I feel like power is down at low revs too. As in, ~60MPG city trying my very best where I should be getting 75-85. Coasting seems unchanged which rules out things like sticky calipers, and the air filter is still clean. It might be because I dumped some Techron in with the last fillup, maybe a bad batch of gas, or perhaps because it's constantly raining and the air is so thick you practically drown in it, but I decided to get a set of spark plugs and a PCV valve before my big trip. Looking through the maintenance logs, I can't see any records of them ever having been replaced.

[nemo]

It interesting you should mention the Techron as a cause of lower mileage. While I have no actual evidence this is the case, I only use it now in the first tank of a long trip.The other things you mentioned are likely causes or contributors. As for the rain we still need more here, the grass crunches when you walk on it.

[Ecky]

Today I changed Gaptooth's sparkplugs and was shocked to find that the plugs were LOOSE. I don't mean that they weren't torqued down sufficiently, but rather, plugs 1 and 2 were backed out possibly several full turns, and 3 was only just snug. Plug 2's hole was full of soot, and both 1 and 2 had oil well up the threads.




After putting in new plugs and torquing them down properly, I took Gaptooth out for a test drive and actually shouted in surprise the first time I put the pedal down, the power increase was so noticeable.

EDIT: For the record, my cylinders are all "B" indexed.

[cowmeat]

Same thing happened when I bought Turtle!
It idled rough when I bought it, enough that I thought a motor mount was bad, but when I went to pull the first plug to see what condition they were in, it was loose.Then I found out they were all loose, and that the only thing holding them in were the coil boots!

This is apparently a common occurrence in Insights, so I would recommend that everybody with a G1 Insight periodically check them.