Honda Insight w/Acura TSX engine - Ecomodding

[Gasoline Fumes]

Originally Posted by Ecky

But where is it?

It's in the hose.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Gasoline Fumes

It's in the hose.

Awesome.

Not so awesome is that this tube doesn't seem to be sold separately. Looks like I'll have to raid the junkyard.

https://www.g1parts.com/oem-parts/ho...ZC1tYW51YWw%3D

[Gasoline Fumes]

Older Hondas have a really good separate check valve. I've even used them with diesel fuel!

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Gasoline Fumes

Older Hondas have a really good separate check valve. I've even used them with diesel fuel!

This was a great tip.

Stopped by a junkyard on my way home and they didn't have the G1 I saw a few months back but there were some 90's Integras which had some check valves.

One for the Insight and one for the Fit.

[COcyclist]

Vacuum canister possibilities- fire extinguishers have expiration dates and can no longer be used in schools and commercial transportation. There is probably an expired one in your garage. If you need a larger canister, helium canisters for party balloons are single use and could be repurposed.

[Ecky]

Did time trials out on the ice with Sports Car Club of Vermont yesterday and had a blast. My times were lousy though! Looking for some ideas.

1) I'm not an experienced driver in in this kind of setting, and many out there were regulars in rally and autocross,
2) I was running on 5 year old snows with about half the tread gone,

But even so, I had a stock EF hatch (with LSD) - basically a ~90 Civic hatchpatck - beat my best time by around 15 seconds on a 2 minute course, also in the unstudded class.

I had a hard time rotating the car - I was fighting serious understeer most of the time. It was even tough to get the rear to come out with the hand brake. With my tires I'm thinking the stock car probably would have been faster due to weight distribution in this kind of course

There's no arguing with the physics of weight distribution, but THAT said, what are some things I might try?

-I believe that on pavement, a stiffer rear sway bar would help move it more toward neutral. I'm not sure this would help on the ice, but it might be worth looking into.
-I don't know if putting ballast in the back would be helpful. It'd probably help with rotation, but also subtract front grip, and I'm not sure of the net effect on lap times.
-Maybe the answer is to brute force it with superstuds (compete in a different class) and just put the power down on the straights, where cars like Miatas are power limited?
-Maybe run fewer studs in the rear, or none at all, so I can swing it around corners?

What can be done to get the nose to turn in, in very low traction situations?

[Gasoline Fumes]

Disconnecting the front bar would be an easy thing to try. Unless the hardware is really rusty!

Less easy would be to shim the rear spindles for less/zero toe-in. But it might not be so great when you don't want the rear end coming around!

With your weight distribution, it might make more sense to try to get more grip from the front tires. Maybe wider front tires at lower pressure? On a smooth surface like ice, maximizing the contact patch might help. More siping (or studs) on the ice.

Maybe modify a pair of tires for ice racing. Lots of sipes. Check out the Team O'Neil Rally School YouTube channel for tire videos.

The LSD probably makes a huge difference coming out of turns. I don't remember if you have one.

Add weight behind the seats?

Have you asked other drivers for advice?

How good are you at driving in reverse?

[COcyclist]

I would suggest two things. Studded tires, and better technique. First, you have massively increased the power in a lightweight car (generally a good thing for racing). However, you will be in a constant fight for traction. Set yourself up with some extra tires on rims that you can swap out on the ice.

Second, you have minimal traction on ice and your tires' traction can only be used for one thing at a time- i.e. acceleration or steering or braking. If you expect to be able to brake while steering or steer while accelerating, you will be disappointed, especially in a front wheel drive.

I have been to several ice driving schools and the thing that impressed me most was that the line through corners was different than racing on pavement. On pavement the line is to start wide, clip the apex and accelerate wide out of the corner. On ice we were taught to do all of our braking in a straight line pulsing the pedal more rapidly as the car slows (with no steering inputs to upset things), slowly steer through the corner (using all the traction for steering) and to accelerate when the car was basically pointed in the right direction. Kicking the tail out is kinda fun but may not be the quickest way around the track in a front drive while you are learning.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by Gasoline Fumes

Disconnecting the front bar would be an easy thing to try. Unless the hardware is really rusty!

Less easy would be to shim the rear spindles for less/zero toe-in. But it might not be so great when you don't want the rear end coming around!

With your weight distribution, it might make more sense to try to get more grip from the front tires. Maybe wider front tires at lower pressure? On a smooth surface like ice, maximizing the contact patch might help. More siping (or studs) on the ice.

Maybe modify a pair of tires for ice racing. Lots of sipes. Check out the Team O'Neil Rally School YouTube channel for tire videos.

The LSD probably makes a huge difference coming out of turns. I don't remember if you have one.

Add weight behind the seats?

Have you asked other drivers for advice?

How good are you at driving in reverse?

Now that you mention it, I am running nearly 50PSI in 165 width tires. Not a lot of contact patch there.

For future events I might try disconnecting the front sway bar and see if it helps. No rust here at all, should come apart easily.

I do have an LSD.

Hopefully this summer I can put together a set of super stud tires for these kinds of events.

Originally Posted by COcyclist

I would suggest two things. Studded tires, and better technique. First, you have massively increased the power in a lightweight car (generally a good thing for racing). However, you will be in a constant fight for traction. Set yourself up with some extra tires on rims that you can swap out on the ice.

Second, you have minimal traction on ice and your tires' traction can only be used for one thing at a time- i.e. acceleration or steering or braking. If you expect to be able to brake while steering or steer while accelerating, you will be disappointed, especially in a front wheel drive.

I have been to several ice driving schools and the thing that impressed me most was that the line through corners was different than racing on pavement. On pavement the line is to start wide, clip the apex and accelerate wide out of the corner. On ice we were taught to do all of our braking in a straight line pulsing the pedal more rapidly as the car slows (with no steering inputs to upset things), slowly steer through the corner (using all the traction for steering) and to accelerate when the car was basically pointed in the right direction. Kicking the tail out is kinda fun but may not be the quickest way around the track in a front drive while you are learning.

If I move to studded, I'll be competing in a different class, but if my goal is to have fun that might be fine. There was a wicked fast supercharged Mini with superstuds out on the lake who I'd be up against. I have maybe 4 sets of nice lightweight Honda rims in the garage I can set up for this kind of stuff.



I think perhaps I just had less grip than those I was competing with, now that I'm adding it all up.

[Pressingonward]

Definitely start with wider tires in the front at lower pressure. I have no ice racing experience (sounds like a hoot though!), But I did some endurance racing in a stock four cylinder class on pavement with a 90 Integra. We had to use DOT tires with a 60 series sidewall, which made things difficult. Tire pressure was critical to keeping traction in the corners. I ran something like 38 front (to keep the tire from folding under) and 28 rear. I have no idea what you'll want for ice racing, but I'd wager a guess it will be less than I ran in the front. You can tune tire pressure by putting chalk on the sidewall and try out different pressures until you see the tire just start to roll under (wearing away the chalk on the sidewall right where the tread ends) from cornering- at least this works on pavement. YMMV for ice