2001 Insight

[NoD~]

Ditto on the winter beating down on the mileage. It happens every year and for whatever reason, I always think I can get the same MPG's as summer... or at least, not such a harsh hit.

Fiberglassing... huge pain. I'd say layer it!

Maybe take a look at the way I did mine: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post516730

You have the shape already. Coroplast, a bit of scrap steel or aluminum, some spare retainer clips, and duct tape or paint later... I have mine a little on the long side, so when you close it, it forces the coroplast to angle a bit against the bumper, creating a decent seal without needing an additional part.

[Daox]

I'm a big fan of Darin's grill blocks he made for his Insight when he had it. They look very nice IMO.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...o-25055-2.html

[Natalya]

Yeah I liked the ones on the UFO, but I only took a good look at them one time when I re-painted them.

What I didn't know was that there was a thread where he described how he made them, thanks for linking that. But the attachments (as shown in the thread) must not have been durable because when I worked on it there was a bungee cord locking one in place.

In any case, this leaves me inspired.

@NoD~:
Where can I buy sheet aluminum? They used to sell it at Home Depot (like 10 years ago) but nowadays all they have is really thin flashing stuff.

[NoD~]

They do have some sheet aluminum at my Home Depot... I'm pretty sure that's where I got mine. Maybe hobby stores? Whatever I used was pretty dang thin. Can probably cut up a can or something?

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by Natalya

Yeah I liked the ones on the UFO, but I only took a good look at them one time when I re-painted them.

Didn't like my choice of neon paint?

when I worked on it there was a bungee cord locking one in place.

The lower section? That was intentional - it was set up as a quick release: pop the bungee off, and you could pull the block out -- its shape held it nicely in place with the bungee tension. (Which of course I never needed to use.)

[Natalya]

The paint was all peeling and stuff. I painted them black. The pic below is about 3 months before the UFO met its end.



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Actually, my update today is that I installed my snow tires yesterday. They're the same ones on black steelies seen in the above photo. I drove up here to Canada a few days ago, and winter is in full force (kinda early actually), so I went with the steelies+snow tires. I won't be here long, I'll switch back to my Insight rims + RE92s just before I go back south to Atlanta. I've been getting terrible mileage up here, it's too cold.

[Natalya]

At the top you can see last year's winter radiator block. I made it out of a pizza box lid according to a template that a member of Insight Central posted. But pizza box lids aren't very durable, and it needed to be retired, so this year I made a couple out of coroplast. You only need one, I'll probably donate the extra one to someone else.




This is where it goes in the car. It fits nice and snug. I don't know if it can easily be attached to an Insight w/o AC, but on ones with AC like mine you just drop it in.

In case you were wondering, the purpose of the triangular hole is to ensure that all fins of the radiator are at least partially exposed to airflow.

[Natalya]

Check this thing out. This is a discharger for the high-voltage battery. You can build something that will work with just two lamps and some high-wattage incandescent bulbs, but I had to make mine look cool. I took an old PC power supply, removed its guts, and constructed this. It has two 50W halogen bulbs inside, and a holder for a 300-500W halogen bulb. The power for the case fan is also wired up so that when plugged in it should run the IMA fan.

Round switch is for the 12V power -- fans and ammeter.

Double switch is for the 50W halogens -- run one or two.

Single switch is for the 300-500W halogen socket, but I haven't put a bulb in yet.


Basically you start with the super high wattage bulb then after a while you switch to two 50W halogens and then after that you go down to 1 50W halogen.

Maybe later I'll re-wire it with some relays and have one of my Arduino Nano clones programmed to do everything automatically.

[NoD~]

Dang! That looks like a great job on that. And your description sounds like you got some real zombie food up in the ol noggin. Good job!

[Ecky]

Color me impressed. Now I need to figure out how to put light bulbs inside mine too.