212cc engine swap gives a new life to an old Honda Insight.
 

its been a while since I last posted.

I built a 212cc powered Honda Insight for a video series I'm working on. The primary objective of this project is to get the car to go 50 miles per hour...Its a challenge but I think it can be done.

The fuel economy aspect of the project was never considered and was totally overlooked.... until recently.

Anyway, I figured this group would get a kick out of the videos...

Here is the fuel economy video, there are also a number of other videos on the car as well.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0zLfouT9kc



https://youtu.be/w0zLfouT9kc

Fun. I won't spoil the reveal, but I am sure that, at the speeds you were driving and with the road conditions you enjoyed, many an ecomodder driver could have beaten the 212cc fuel economy in a stock Gen1 Insight with ease.

EDIT: It would go faster stock as well.

What's the story with this project?

Cool project! Any future plans with the car?

I want to do a similar (temporary) project in my mercury. I actually already bought a 12 hp opposed twin for it too. I haven't watched all the videos yet so you might have already answered it, but why the CVT? I was thinking I could just do a simple chain reduction plus the metro 5 spd and be fine. I didn't do any calculation or anything, just my hunch.

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the possible engine modifications on the Harbor Freight 212cc predator engine. Instead of using a go kart to showcase the engine, we are using a car. The car is basically a big go kart.

While it is absolutely true a stock Insight will get better fuel economy, it was never our intention for this project to compete with a stock insight... it just worked out.

Anyway its just a jun project and I thought this group would enjoy the MPG video. There are another five videos that explain what what the project is about and what modifications were made.

The CVT 5 speed transmission we are using gives the car a big boost in acceleration. The CVT part of the transmission only works from a standing start. Once the car is moving the CVT stays in its High position, even when the transmission is shifted to another gear.

Is the CVT 100% necessary?... its hard to say.

We plan on making another five videos demonstrating various engine modifications on the 212cc motor. After that we will switch to the 420 CC engine and do more experiments.

This shows how cheap it could be to make a PHEV from a cheap electric car if it wasn't for emissions regs. and peoples need to have full power if they did something silly like emptied the whole battery.

Good point. I hope this project inspires people to innovate.

Absolutely did enjoy it, too. Good luck with the channel. I can see the production work going into these... stop motion and computer animation sequences, even!

I've been watching already (subscribed!) and enjoying the ride. Is top speed limited by power/drag, or by gearing/RPM at this point? Thanks for the MPG testing. Hoping to see MPG testing with the 420cc as well.

Displacement alone won't be so much of a deal breaker, what really defines if an engine is effective or not for a purpose is the power/torque curve. Maybe a 250cc motorcycle could even be a reasonable option if you were looking into an extreme downsizing which could still provide an acceptable overall performance.

Doing some math, many of those stationary engines within this displacement range would underperform some 125 to 150cc motorcycle engines coupled to a reduction gear in order to match the RPM input to a transmission. Well, what about experiencing a turbo into the 420cc engine? :D

Right now the top speed is limited by aerodynamic drag vs power curve

Sitting in the drivers seat of this car gives the best prospective of what is limiting the top speed. After 40 MPH the aerodynamic drag takes its toll and the engine struggles for every additional MPH.

With the way the transmission is set up, you shift into 5th gear at 40 MPH and the speed creeps up to the point where the engine stops making power at 4200 RPM.

Off camera I have experimented with ratio changes on the input shaft of the transmission in an attempt to keep the engine within its power band but this only makes the car slower. ... There just isn't enough power.

That is the exciting part of the project, because all we need to do is make more power... and the 212cc engine is easily modified for more power. Anyway, we only need another 2-3 HP to get us over the goal. I have the parts to do this and that will be in the next video.

Hey its pretty similar in performance to all the Gen 1 Leaf's still on the road today lol

Subscribed! Thanks for sharing this.

Mission accomplished! Thanks for posting it here.

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For those who may not know, fujioko had another excellent & fun project discussed here a number of years back:


https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1602181266

Thread: 1.0L Geo Metro engine swap into 1990 Mazda Miata

... which he later sold to some lucky person for peanuts:

For sale thread: 1990 Miata with 3 cylinder gas engine in Michigan

You're a man after my own heart, considering I own/have owned a 1990 Miata, multiple 1.0L Metros, a G1 Insight and a lawnmower! :D

Well done. And best of luck on your YT channel. I'm going to watch the rest of those vids tonight.

I'll have to check out the previous videos in the series, but at your tested speeds, it seems the 2.4L guzzler I have in my Insight uses very roughly the same amount of fuel as a harbor freight lawnmower engine.

I'm willing to bet had you used a Honda mower engine, you'd have had a few more mpg. :thumbup:

This might help:

http://ecomodder.com/imgs/collage-summary.jpg
https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthre...uft-25223.html

Honestly, it did better than I thought it was going to!

Watching how slow that thing is reminds me of driving the homebuilt ForkenSwift EV. It topped out around the same speed.

Yep.

Have you considered the efficiency route to your goal?

E.g. (but not limited to)

-Tire pressure (one guy on Insight Central runs 100psi+)
-Underbody panels
-Partial or complete grille block
-Mirror deletion or reduction
-Rear wiper delete

As far as improving the efficiency other than engine mods, I will explore that rout as soon as I hit the goal of 50 MPH.

At this point I cannot make any changes to the formula like external body mods because it would skew the results.

The car dose have the rear wiper delete and is running 40 psi in the tires. I have been monitoring under hood temperatures during this whole process and it looks like I can block part of the grill. This car was originally equipped with underbody panels but they were removed. I still have them and they will go back on.

LOL, Personally I was amazed with the results, the 'lawnmower' engine is running full throttle the whole time. No room for special techniques... just flat out foot to the floor. I'll have to check out your 2.4 guzzler, sounds awesome!

Right now I'm committed to using the 212cc and the 420cc engines because how ridiculous the concept is. Its for youtube channel building and gaining viewers.

Once I finish with the stationary engines then it will be on to other engines.

I do have a lot of experience with Megasquirt and engine tuning so I'm also toying with the idea of fuel injecting the 420.

Even though you qualify such concept as "ridiculous", and doing it mostly for entertainment purposes, the idea behind this and other extreme downsizing approaches doesn't seem so bad considering other purposes with a serious and mostly utilitarian approach.


Now that would be cool.

Originally the video series was to be about modifying the Predator engines for more power. I picked the Honda Insight as a base for proving the engine mods do work. The car also was to be used to bring in a bigger audience because of the unusual aspect of the project. I like to use the word ridiculous to describe what I'm doing because some of the audience views it that way.

It will be interesting to see where this video series goes in the future.

Any idea of the reliability or longevity of these engines after modification, and under this kind of duty cycle?

I imagine its a lot like boat motors. You would need to tune them down on power output (vs the car versions) since you're running them at WOT 95% of the time. But these things are tuned down already so I'm not sure if it would be a bad thing for the stock motor.

Been my experiences that cooling issues rear their ugly head and are responsible for the failure of some modified engines. If he can keep it cool, should work out

I can't wait to see him throw in a factory stock 20 hp motor. I would honestly get a kick out of a car like that that is able to maintain 70 mph on occasion and to see how many miles he got out of the thing before it blew up. lol

Honestly a kubota diesel or a Honda v-twin would be sweet to watch. Just need some more viewers to cash flow the project.

The car has almost 400 miles on it since it was finished. The first engine that was used was an older model Predator 212. This engine saw about 60 miles and was still running strong when it was removed. Basically I used that engine to set up all the systems in the car.

The second engine was brand new when it was put in the car. This engine has since endured about 40 dyno runs and has a little over 300 miles on it. The engine overheated once and has been subjected to over revving countless times. It still runs strong, but I'm going to retire it.

The car is now being fitted with another engine. This engine was a low hour engine and was my spare. Even though this engine is virtually brand new it is being rebuilt with stronger internal parts. I suspect this finial version of the 212cc engine will be a strong runner and be nearly indestructible.

So far the engines have been very reliable, but I have no idea what the life span is.

I have a thermalcouple on the cylinder head and actively keep an eye on the temperature. So far the temperatures have been in the safe zone at full power and with a full load. I often wonder how much more power I can get out of the engine before it starts having cooling issues.

Lots of engine choices, like you said, more viewers, then more engines. It will be interesting to see where this project ends up.

While you can warp valves, the piston pin failure is probably more interesting because you can't accurately measure that temp, you can only predict it with oil temp rises,and after the rod has exited the block, it's a wee bit late.

IIRC around 14 years ago BMW declared it would need only 22hp for a 1-Series to sustain cruising speed.


Even though they may be too heavy to be fitted into an Insight, those Japanese horizontal-single engines from Kubota and Yanmar could be interesting. They're quite crude, but are still praised for their ruggedness and are somewhat efficient for small farm machinery, small fishing boats and stationary equipments.

See I feel like you're on the same page as me. lol

20hp or less is all the insight needs to go 70 mph. Fun facts: A Guy has put a kubota 600cc diesel in a Ranger. He didn't do it for mpg but still gets 30mpg on some crazy big mud tire setup.
A old article I read said it took 15hp for a Honda gullwing to maintain 70mph. It was talking about regears to increase mpg on long adv riding.

I'm sure it's more likely to need less than 20hp.


I wouldn't be so willing to try anything smaller than 1.5L in a Ranger, especially if it's naturally-aspirated.

Its a four cylinder turbo diesel Kubota. The 600 would be cool for something else. Looking at his dyno video which was a poor state of tune he was making 36whp without boost and 75.5whp with 16psi of boost.

IIRC some Kubota and Yanmar 4-cyls ranging from 2.2L to 2.4L became quite common for engine swaps in the United States due to the lack of anything other than them and Volkswagen TDI's when it comes to light-duty Diesel engines.

My 420cc gets horrible MPGs!
 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BIY0DLS/

"You last purchased this item on October 15, 2015."

Maybe I should check the MPG, without the Sling-Blade running? :p

Enjoyed the video, I'm a new Sub!

subscribed! (on youtube)

212cc is just slightly larger than my 200cc motorcycle engine. Honda CL200 (same engine as a CB200 which is much more common). Though I wouldn't recomend you use that engine for a project like this because the carbs are too small (easy replacement of course but...) and the cam shaft is too wimpy. Nothing you can do about that.