Insight Gen 1 Underbelly (now with photos)
 

Finally got time and inclination to do a complete underbelly on my silver Insight. I used aluminum in the front and rear, where there is some heat, and 4' coroplast sections in the middle of the car. I was interested in measuring the diffuser angle at the rear and providing a flat diffuser section made that possible. Using my gravity type level gauge I got a number of 4 deg.+/-, which is near ideal according to Hucho; The diffuser begins just slightly in front of the rear wheels.

As an interesting asside, the Insight will roll on a 1 deg. slope.

I'm now looking at starting a boattail:thumbup: Probably a winter project, if indeed I can get the time from my other projects. Need to go back and read some of that early design stuff on 3 Wheeler's design thread. The scholarly paper of the Swedish graduate students arrived just a bit too late, but it should make good reading.

EDIT: photos added in post #17 - http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post319036

Ahem... did you forget the pics:eek:?

No, but I knew you were going to bring that up;)

I'm planning to take the car to a friends shop in next day or so to do some dyno testing, so will get some pictures on a lift. Then I'll have to figure out how to post them.

Anyone got a quick ref to picture posting methods????

I use Arragonis' method http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...der-18279.html
I got a free Photobucket account and downsize the pics to 640x480 so they take less time for people with slow internet connections.

Thanks Jim:thumbup:. Ooooo, Dyno-envy:D.

Looking forward to the images!

Insight belly is on my (horridly unmanageable) to-do list as well.

And.. Dyno??? A mystery project to post about later on EcoModder?

I have an old friend who has a shop which is partially devoted to race cars. He has a nice chassis dyno and years of experience using it. He gets highly repeatable results - no small task with a chassis dyno. Not sure that he would be interested in branching off into this line of work for "street" cars. I'll talk more about this after the initial testing is done.

I want to baseline the power curve on my two Insights and try to discover any power differences. For hypermilers, it is the ICE which really counts. Most actually use the IMA very little. Frequently well used engines will actually produce more power than newer engines, if the rings and valves seal well.

I'm also interested in increasing the ICE power output slightly. There is a trade-off between cruising speed, lean burn, engine output, and ultimately fuel economy. It kinda looks to me that Honda didn't quite get enough power for U.S. driving conditions. A major determinate on fuel economy is maximizing the time the engine is in lean burn. I would like to get to unconstrained lean burn at 55 MPH. Aero will help, but so would a very slight increase in engine power. As is, the car will do 55 MPH and stay in lean burn, but throw even a slight hill at the car, and it is a major challenge to stay in
5th and lean burn.

Sounds interesting.

I thought you might also be thinking about doing the most controlled possible tire pressure test. :)

Unrelated to the belly pan, Is your battery sytems and regeneratives fonctions still working on your 2006 Honda Insight?

Upload it to TinyPic.com and copy paste the link with IMG tags.

How much did the aluminium cost?

I was out just today surveying a possible test route. My "primary" has been ruined by highway construction. The test is on my list. I'll probably just do 60psi vs. 80 psi two way warm fuel consumption. Not hard to get "warm" in Richmond right now;)