Honda Insight w/Acura TSX engine - Ecomodding

[MakitaDiesel]

Bummer about the AC, your original plan of wiring it to ECU was my plan too. Doubt it will matter that I'll be running Ktuner vs Kpro. Do you just turn AC on and off as needed? Does it stall at stoplights?

Also noticed there is no clutch cover on your underside shot. It's a lightweight piece but I'd assume adds rigidity to the trans/engine and keeps debris from reaching the clutch and flywheel, especially considering your lightweight flywheel has spaces big enough for a squirrel to make a home! Lol.

Mak

[Ecky]

A/C toggles fine - climate control module and pressure switch are still controlling it - and doesn't stall the car, but RPM drop is precarious.

I rarely need it here though. It's June 13th and today the high is only 66F.

[COcyclist]

Originally Posted by hayden55

Get some weather techs. My 7 year old mustang still looked brand new when I sold it thanks partly to those mats.

I did not see Insight mats on their website. Living in snow country I prefer the rubber mats that have grooves and edges to contain water/snowmelt. I have had floors rust through when water got trapped under carpet. The deep rubber mats can be carefully lifted out and hosed and scrubbed clean pretty easily. These are now available in auto parts stores in generic “trim to fit” versions.

[MetroMPG]

Ecky: car looks fantastic! (Aside from those mats... I'm surprised nobody has done a custom batch for the community.)

I find it helps very much for me to keep my car clean, it seems to affect how positively I feel about it.

You mean I'll be less annoyed with my rolling-parts-car Metro if I tidy it up? But I just cleaned it 3 years ago!

There was a time I used to keep my cars immaculate. I was a "wash weekly and wax monthly" type until I snapped out of it one weekend and quit cold turkey. (OK, it's arguable the pendulum has swung a little too far in the other direction.)

[California98Civic]

FWIW, I find these floormats for the 2000-2006 Insight on eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lloyd-Mats-...edirect=mobile

[Ecky]

Been meaning to post here more, but it's the busy season at work, and I'm working hard to refill my wallet.

Since I took the motor out, my air pump has been missing. I've been driving the car around and just assuming the tires still had a lot of air in them, because hey, I always put 45+ PSI in them. The pump turned up yesterday though, and I found I had TEN PSI (10 PSI) 00001010 PSI in one of my tires, and all of them were below 30, which might have contributed to why my fuel economy has been so poor.

The other part of that has been idling and messing with engine tuning.

I spent some time last weekend getting cruise control installed, and woe is anyone else who ever has to work on any of the electrical systems in this car who doesn't remember what I've done. I'm 95% done tying my old Rostra unit into the S2000-RSX clockspring and steering wheel button combination I cobbled together.






Ended up tossing out the engine tune I was working on and started over. So far I've spent the last few days taking the highway route to work and holding various throttle positions (sometimes causing me to rapidly accelerate from 45 to 75) to collect data points on how far the ECU has to correct the fuel maps to get to 14.7:1 AFR. Right now I have all load and RPM below VTEC engagement set to 30 degrees intake cam advance and I'm adding and subtracting fuel to get the trims down to 0%. Next I'll do 20, 40, 10 and 0 degrees to get a completely correct fuel map for all possible cam positions, to the nearest 10 degrees, then interpolate them. Once that's done, I'll start playing with lean burn, but I don't want to start leaning things out until I have my fuel maps correct( which scale with target AFR) as I don't want AFR swinging wildly whenever I move the gas pedal.

So far I've discovered the car does not handle super low RPM with 30 degrees of advance - it stumbles quite a bit in some areas. However, I'm also finding patches where fuel usage (and power) are considerably lower. My hypothesis is that these are areas where volumetric efficiency is very low and/or I'm getting exhaust gases pulled back into the cylinder. If I find and select FOR these areas at part throttle operation, I can get engine load up.

[Ecky]

Started rebuilding my underbody paneling today.

[mpg_numbers_guy]

Nice fat exhaust there. Are you bolting the paneling directly to the car or onto the stock underbody panels?

Is 6th gear functional now?

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy

Nice fat exhaust there. Are you bolting the paneling directly to the car or onto the stock underbody panels?

Is 6th gear functional now?

6th gear is on hold. I'm going to need to take it to a specialist, still searching for one in Vermont. Will probably need to go without my daily driver to work for a week, and part with $1500-2000 to make it right.

The underbody panels I'm just using black plastic rivets to the aluminum underbody, there are tons of holes down there they fit into.

[Ecky]

Spent a few hours today getting really bad fuel economy in the name of getting good fuel economy.

Fuel maps exist because O2 sensors are only reactive. The ECU needs something to start with as the engine moves through various load and RPM. Sensors adjust the maps for environmental conditions, but having a map that's off has some implications. For instance, having the engine run rich every time the throttle is moved until the O2 sensor has a chance to correct it is a good way to get terrible fuel economy by dumping bunch of unburnt fuel into the exhaust.

I've read that many consider a 10% fuel trim (adjustment) to be acceptable in terms of throttle response and economy, and only bother getting it really close under wide open throttle for safety purposes - running lean at 7,000+ RPM with peak cylinder pressure is a quick way to blow up your engine. My goal is 2% or less, with the majority of cells reading 0 +/- 1%.

I found the biggest hill nearby and for around 4 hours, drove up one side, down the other, then back, then adjusted the fuel maps, rinse and repeat. I've mapped 5 different intake cam angles (0-40) from full vacuum to WOT, from 0-7,000rpm. Ideally I'd do the same thing above VTEC changeover for those cam profiles too, but frankly I just need the line of the curve for wide open throttle and the cell or two next to it, as otherwise I have no business being in the 5,000-7,600RPM range.

I also pulled an ignition timing map from a thread on Hondata's forums, from someone with a somewhat similar engine. My desired air fuel ratios are much leaner at WOT (only 13.5:1!), and the first time up the hill, after VTEC engagement it sounded like someone very angrily shaking a coffee can full of marbles, so I put ignition back to much more conservative timing.

I expect the curves of these fuel contours may clean up a little over time, but this is basically how my engine breaths at various cam angles:

(40 degrees is the one with the horn at the top left, 0 degrees is the more smooth curve)




The fuel maps basically also represent the torque curve, for what it's worth. Having a movable cam allows for the point(s) of peak torque to move around, both with load and RPM.