The G1 Insight thread.
 

So I've noticed a lot of new Insight threads that pop up and die rather quickly (some of my own), and I was thinking...why don't we have a collective place to chat/work Insight?

If you can't find what you need at, or just don't want to visit (like me) IC.net, then here is the place.

I know a lot of people have Insights and will post on their build threads, but hopefully others find value in a central point for our little two-seaters :)

As much as I like this site, its worth it to branch out to IC for Insight specific questions. Its a good place to go looking for info even if you insist on not posting there. Same with PriusChat for Prius owners.

I'd love a dedicated forum for the Gen-1 here, consider me subscribed!

Vskid, I completely see your point- but very often I find there is an Insight idea/project discussion, and I completely miss it because of wording, the title, or it's the hour my glasses are at lens crafter's, and I miss it.

I am not saying DON'T use IC.N, rather it might be a good idea to make a go to area for the Insight, here. Slightly better than many dead threads lol.

Very good Idea, this thread could also be for the G1 Insight competition team!

Maybe we could start making a list of all the Insight owners and they're threads here so we could easily go from one thread to another without research. This could also be a good place to link interesting threads on IC.I know some people don't like to be on two forums but there is plenty of good info there too.

Your rear shock absorbers are shot? Maybe it's time for an upgrade! If like me your Insight has broken rear shocks, there is currently a group buy on IC for adjustable GAZ rear shock absorbers.

They are better than OEM and with the group buy they are also cheaper :). You save like 40$ for the shocks and more on the shipping. If you are interested, here is the link for the thread : GAZ Rear Shocks - Gen 1 - Group Buy - Ongoing Every 12 Orders - Insight Central: Honda Insight Forum


http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-hy...absorber-1.jpg
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-hy...absorber-2.jpg

I'd like the idea of a current active list of Gen-1 owners, some of the pages I go on have fuel logs that are six months or a year old.

You guys can always check out Turtle's page, I try to keep up with whatever mods I've done in the list, and I also started a thread in "success stories" that I shamefully don't keep up with as much as I should

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ght-29815.html

I helped Scott install a pair of these on a car last Thursday and it improved the ride a looooot. That combined with Scotts springs and you don't get that hard slamming when you go over bumps.

I don't think its a bad idea, but I think having a separate section could alienate non-Insight owners and make the forums more difficult to navigate. Using the existing tags function might work as a good compromise, as long as people tag their threads. insight - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com - Threads Tagged with insight

Does anyone know much about the rear defrost system? My fourth Insight has working rear defrost, but the third does not- I want to wire the whole camera system to it, three monitors and three cameras- turning on when I push the button, off with the button or when the car is turned off.

Searching IC, I found no information on it, and none of the manuals will load for me. Any advice, tips, or links?

Genius! Thanks UltArc

I've been wondering what to hook my reverse camera up to for full-time (on demand) power since right now it's powered by the reverse light, and that should work perfectly! I am the polar opposite of an electrical guru, so I just couldn't think of anything to power it with, but that should work.

My plan is to hook it up full time so I can use my DVD player for a rear-view mirror. Then I'll delete the rear-view mirror, and permanently hook the sunshade to the rear window so it never gets too warm over the battery compartment.

I 100% support you...as long as you explain to me exactly how you do it! :)

I am worried about too much electric use, popping a fuse (no big deal) or catching a fire (again, and a big deal).

I think it should work great, as I THINK I can power the front five units just after the switch, and ground to the car, and the rear camera would power to the non functional rear portion. (adjustments will need to be made at the rear when I remove the hatch, if I get to that project).

Edit: I'd like to make a grand list of builds, projects, active Insighters, and so on in an edit to my main post- but that needs a computer or a MOBILE APPLICATION! (Hint).

I have a bunch of PDFs and manuals available on my Google Drive:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4...Um8&authuser=0'

Let me know if that doesn't work for you.

The leaky seatbelt problem causes this. There is a blue plug where the seatbelt is behind the pillar where it leaks, and that is for the defrosters and trunk latch. The defroser is the first to corrode enough to stop working, and eventually your trunk hatch won't work either.

This guy!

2000 Honda Insight

I asked him if he P&G's a lot, but he hasn't got back with me yet. You'll know why I asked as soon as you read the ad

Ugh...some stuff was a little off, definite BS, but as long as the car is in decent shape, it seems like a fair deal.

Since the ad will eventually get pulled, can you copy the advert and an image or two?

Any progress or ideas on the switch idea? Might just jump into it tomorrow. None of those PDFs worked on Drive.

So, if a camera has a positive and negative, can I just cut the wire and hook those camera cords in place? Like snip it, and insert the positive to the beginning side, and negative to the exiting side?

When I got home from work a minute ago, I finally got out the floor jack and took a look under Turtle.

I sense some suspicious lack of aerodynamics concerning Turtle's lower shell!

Most of the aero panels are missing, and one of the rear panels got squashed pretty bad.

Also, no Fumoto valve, just the stock bolt. Everything else seems to be in pretty good shape otherwise for a car with over 200K

Hmmmmm . . . . . . . what to do about the panels!

And then it hit me! I had the perfect piece of aluminum to fabricate a front panel with! I have had this sign for years, it was attached to a piece of plywood, and after carefully removing it,
I now had a piece of aluminum that was already almost the perfect size for the panel!

Do you have the rubber "panels" that are in front of each tire, and have the wind deflector on them? They should be #2&3 in this diagram:

http://i.imgur.com/qwsunBl.png


Looks to me like you might be able to straighten that rear panel out, but some of the bolts and clips might be damaged. I bought a huge bag of clips on eBay, more than I can possibly use, and I figure I'll toss some in with the grid charger.

Thanks man!

I do have the rubber front and sides, it's 4, 5 and 6 that are missing. I edited my post above to show the piece of aluminum skin I'm making a single panel out of to replace them

I've always kept that sign around because I knew it would come in handy some day. It is 30" x 48", a perfect starting point for the panel!

Looks great!

You'll need 2 plastic clips for the front, 4 bolts for the rear, and 2 bolts for each side. You'll also need the little metal flange they screw into, if they're missing from the rubber sides.

PANEL, R. FR. FENDER (DOT)/FRONT FENDERS for 2002 Honda INSIGHT

I fabricated the whole thing in one piece. I'll post the whole process in the DIY section in a minute.

Turned out awesome, I'm pretty sure it'll give me 20 more horsepower and a 10 mpg boost! And of course Harry will get himself some much-deserved free advertizing if I ever flip Turtle!

Here's the DIY thread:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post456675

Does anyone know? I really don't want to set my Insight on fire.

I'll probably find out this weekend, it's on my to-do list! I also have to rotate the tires, and I'm also gonna swap out a bunch of LEDs Ecky gave me, and then hook the grid charger up and charge it tonight.
Soon as I get off work I'm going to dig in to it. It'll be 70 degrees today, so a perfect day to work on the car!

I suspect you're already getting well-read on the subject, but here's a guide that I roughly followed when grid charging my car:

Hybrid Automotive - Grid Charger User Guide

^ It seems to cover the basics pretty well. In my case, the voltage tops out around 170, give or take, and talk over on IC suggests that it's probably a good idea to let the batteries soak for a day or two after a full grid charge.

Thanks, man!

I'm getting ready to Google installation videos again just so I know what to expect before I tear it open. It would be pretty sweet if there's already a harness in place, but that's not how it usually goes, lol!

Even if there is, you'll need to adapt it to the plug I put on my charger. Installation is easy enough (IMO) that you're probably best off just using the harness I provided.

EDIT: When you run the harness out of the battery box, I suggest wrapping electrical tape around the wires a few times to prevent chafing.

Well, I hooked permanent power up to my back-up camera yesterday and it works perfectly as a rear view mirror! (no fires so far, Ultarc). (1)I used the power from the rear defroster, which I have never used before and wasn't even sure worked. Had some wire laying around and a box full of spade connectors, that's pretty much all it took.(2)(3)Ran the wires through the channel over to the passenger corner where I originally had ran the back-up camera wiring. (4)Hooked the wiring up, electrical taped the connections and tucked it in.

All done! (5)Now when I click the Navi over to the rear camera and hit the power button for the rear defroster I get continuous feed for the camera (ILO only when in reverse like when I powered it through the reverse light). Road tested it for about half an hour, and I can see 180 degrees off the back of the car, day and night. As a car comes up behind me, I get a pretty clear view of them once they're close. As they're passing, I can still see them in the rear view camera even though they're already in my blind spot on the side view mirrors! As a bonus, I can still play the stereo at the same time.


***Edit***
Kind of funny but the camera kicks off after like twenty minutes, I assume because the defroster automatically does that! I hit the button again and it comes right back on.

This of course was a simple process since I already have a back-up camera input on my Kenwood DDX512 double din Navi system, and I already had the back-up camera installed. All I had to do was find permanent power to it.

Ecky, I'm going to wait to do the grid charger until next weekend, since I'm off work the week after that and I'll have enough time where I don't have to rush through it. I did manage to change out some of the LED bulbs (interior lights and license plate light so far), all of them look awesome, they're not too much different from the old bulbs, not like a stark white. Thanks for those!

I bought one of those incremental drill bits and a bag of assorted rubber grommets to drill the hole in the box with :thumbup:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...7&d=1417358862

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...8&d=1417358862

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...9&d=1417358862

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...0&d=1417358862

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1417358862

Preparing to install the grid charger harness finally!

I have to run to Tampa first, but I'll have it hooked up by this afternoon. Think I'll watch the you tube video one more time first, lol.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1417889627

Take a look at my thread too, before you dig into it:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-29288-10.html

Will do! Thanks for letting me use it!

If you are smart enough to install the grid charger cable with success(which I'm sure you are) , doing the injector kill method isn't much harder.

It's on my list of things to do. :D

Success!

Got the grid charger going a while ago, started at like 146 volts and after a couple of hours it's up to 168. How high does it top out, and how long should I let it charge?

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...6&d=1417967257

Depends on the battery. Mine tops out around 170v, and I've seen examples of batteries that are 2-6v higher or lower.

From a low state of charge, it shouldn't take more than 8 hours to get the first cells up to full. However, you want to keep charging beyond that point. The cells that reach full first will start producing heat to get rid of the extra energy, and the cells that aren't as full will continue up toward full, thereby balancing the pack. My first grid charge I went 24 hours and subsequent ones I've only gone 12-16 hours. If the weather isn't terribly hot and the fan is running properly, you run very little risk of hurting any of the cells this way.

Consensus over at InsightCentral is that it's probably going to deliver the best results if you let the battery settle for 24-48 hours before draining it (driving with your clutch switch in will probably be fine) so as to allow permanent chemistry changes to occur. You could then do a second grid charge in, say, 3-7 days, with the same procedure, and then settle into a 6 months to 1 year interval.

After a grid charge the car may take some time to recalibrate, especially if you let the battery settle for a day. Voltage will drop back down to resting (~163ish?) even though the state of charge is much higher, so it won't recognize the extra charge immediately. You can use an OBD device to force a recal, unplug the 12v for a few minutes before doing much driving, or let the computer figure it out in its own time.

EDIT: 146v is absurdly low!

I'll let it charge overnight, as long as it isn't going to fry anything. It's overcast and about 75 degrees, and I have the windows down so I don't think it's going to build up much heat. There's no danger of overcharging it, right?

I ran it down with the clutch switch turned off before I charged it. Somewhere on one of these sites I read that it was good to discharge it first.

I experimented a few times with leaving the windows up while charging and found that it didn't add more than a few degrees to the temperature of the cabin, even after several hours. Overcharging may cause a *very* slight chemical degradation of the cells, but overall it's less damaging than continuing to run with an imbalanced pack. The real enemy is heat, and as long as the fan is running you should be fine. On a particularly cool night you can probably even safely charge it without the fan due to the very low current my charger produces, and some do actually grid charge without a fan.

I've read ideas about discharging first helping with a balance, but I'm not sold on the idea. It can't hurt though, and a slow charge @ 350ma is undoubtedly less harmful than using regenerative braking to fill it back up.

Yeah, I might be overdoing it on the regen button. It's there, so I hit it!

I might be better off after the grid charge to lay off it a bit . . . .

It's up over 171 volts now, and still slowly climbing. Should I worry if it goes much higher?

I wouldn't worry too much about the regen button, honestly, just saying that a grid charge is comparatively less stessful.

When the voltage stops climbing, it means most of the the cells are nearing full. You'll want to keep charging it at least 4-8 hours past that to get a balanced battery, possibly 12 for your first grid charge.

It's cycling between 171.5 and 171.6 right now, so it's still charging.
I'll probably let it charge overnight, I'm off all next week so I can sit it a day after the charge to let it soak in.

Oy Cowmeat, I've decided to use those moon discs on my trailer. I'm hoping to build a streamlined one over the next few months. I might use two for the front wheels on the core and leave the backs alone given that they're already covered, but not sure on that one yet.