2006 Honda Insight MT Build Thread

[Daox]

That's pretty good news! No need to pull the trans out is always good news.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Been a while since I've been online! College has been busy. Still driving the Insight and loving it. Car has over 270K now.

No new mods but I really want to replace/repaint the front bumper and put some coating on it this summer since the stone chips that were on it from when I bought the car are really starting to bug me aesthetically. Plus I never had time to wash/wax and vacuum the car before driving back down to college after winter break so the car is dirty and that bugs me too.

Also the rear brakes went out about a week or two ago so my braking power is limited and I have to be careful where I park. Apparently watching tutorials on youtube about drum brakes wasn't enough, and the rear brakes were somehow not put back together right after I replaced one of the parking brake cables. Will be fixing in a few weeks over spring break. Everything else is running great; bleeding the clutch completely fixed the shifting issue from earlier.

I'll update my fuel log soon; I've been tracking most of my mpg but haven't uploaded it here yet.

[Ecky]

Be careful that you get the auto-adjuster levers on the right way with the rear drums or they will auto-adjust the other way. Ask me how I know.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Originally Posted by Ecky

Be careful that you get the auto-adjuster levers on the right way with the rear drums or they will auto-adjust the other way. Ask me how I know.

That might be, I'll see if I can figure out what I did wrong when I mess around with it over spring break before taking it apart. For about a week before they went out I noticed excessive scraping from them whenever I used the brakes, as if they were going bad or weren't tight enough, but braking was fine. And when I resumed driving, there would still be a scraping for about 30 seconds after I had resumed, as if they weren't fully releasing. Maybe I just need to replace the rear drums. Whoever told me that drum brakes are easier to service than disc brakes is dead wrong.

Does Nathan still run without rear drums? The braking at speeds below when I can use engine braking is cut in half and I can't imagine driving with it that way regularly.

[Ecky]

I thought he was running ONLY rear drums?

If you get a new hardware kit for your drums, don't trust Amazon to know what parts fit. I ended up reordering the individual components from Honda. I think they aren't bad to work on once you've pulled them apart enough to fully understand where everything goes, there just seems to be a much steeper learning curve.

[Gasoline Fumes]

Yeah, Nathan took the front rotors off!

[mpg_numbers_guy]

It's been.....4 months?

I also haven't really been tracking fuel economy much lately, although I did get around 60 mpg going 80 mph home from college with no hypermiling over 700 miles, 300 of which were VA/WVA mountains.

I fixed the dent in the bumper myself a while back. Rear brakes issue turned out to be a broken spring, replaced the springs and all is well.

Replaced the 12V starter as well that was showing it's age along with relocating the transmission ground wire due to one of the original bolts being too corroded to use and unable to remove the bolt.

12V battery just died this week so I'm looking at building a lithium replacement that'll last for more than 2 years.

The Insight manual indicates that the amp draw of the 12V should be <350 amps. 350 amps @ 13v is over 4kw of power, although I'm pretty sure the 12V starter draws less than 1kw of power..

HEADWAY cells have a max discharge of 200A which should be sufficient, but they're out of stock. Typical >32 *F to charge them. $10 a cell would be $40 minimum for 8AH, call it 6AH with age and usability. I'd probably use 8 cells.

Found another source of lithium that accepts a charge as low as -4 *F but it's $35 for 3.2V 20AH with max continuous discharge of 40A and max short term discharge of 200A, so would need 8 cells for that but it would be a decently beefy battery...$280 for 12.8V 40AH lithium. New batteries though.

Even with a cheap $50 BMS I'm still not sure about charging lithium using a meanwell. Maybe I should stick with lead acid but I'd really like to use lithium this time around.

[Ecky]

I used a lithium battery for a while with a Mean Well and had no issues. I was probably even a little abusive to it - I still used it as a starting battery over a Vermont winter, without the aide of the capacitor bank. This is the one I used:

https://www.batteryspace.com/lifepo4...assed-dgr.aspx

I think for very brief loads, you can exceed the discharge ratings on a battery by quite a bit. Amp draw from the starter motor will be greatest for the brief period of time where it's being powered but not yet spinning. This might blow a 250A quick blow fuse, but I had mine on a 100A breaker and it never tripped.

It's a bit inadequate for starting my K24 in winter, so I took it out, but it will be going back in when my capacitor bank is ready to go again.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Did the price change on that? I'm seeing $200 when I thought the pre-built ones used to be $280, hence why that 2nd option I was considering was building it myself using those cells. $200 isn't bad if it includes a case and some basic balancing boards. -4*F minimum charging temperature is tempting too compared to the typical 32*F threshold. 40A max continuous discharge shouldn't be an issue since the meanwell doesn't charge much higher than that and has had no issues so staying below 40A shouldn't be a problem at all.

Did you replace the connectors on that battery? They look pretty flimsy.

EDIT: Ah, I see now that the tabs can be removed.

[Ecky]

Yeah, removed the tabs. There's a version without balancing boards for something like $140, which is a steal in my opinion.