new to em but not new to high mpg
 

hi guys, my names wade im i will just give you a little background about myself. i was born and raised in mn, i am currently still living in the northland. growing up in a family that is striken by brand loyalty my dads side of the family is Ford and only ford and my moms is GM. my dad has always cared about mpg for as long as i can remember due to his job which is an hour each way. he always buys a new ford every 4 years or so some of his choices though the years have been the aspire, 2wd rangers, focus and currently he just bought a brand new 2011 ranger 2wd which gets around 26mpg. my mom on the other hand buys nothing but suburbans and currently rolls an 07 escalade with the 6.0 which i think is just crazy. back in high school i was a gm fan had 89 deville, 83 cutlass, 83 fleetwood, and in 06 i bought my very last gm a 95 eldorado i owned the eldorado for about a year, with 3000 in mechanic bills, gas on the rise, and 15-19mpg premium only i had enough! so in 07 i went out and bought my first honda with mpg on my mind and found myself buying a 95 Integra gsr (i was only 19) but i fell in love with that car and still own it to this day, stored away. the integra got around 28mpg i drove it for 3 summers, and then did a full rebuild and now its my race/show car. since 07 i have owned 4 integras with all different set-ups, and 4 civics with all different set-ups. i currently own a 95 integra gsr, 95 civic ex, 94 civic ex. now i really stepped up to the plate and got my hands on a 00 honda insight. i love this car and i would love all the help possible when it comes to ecomodding. sorry to make this so long, also sorry for having a noob question but under many peoples posts on em there are bubbles with the em logo, their cars, and their mpg, how would i go about getting a bubble like that with my info?

Wow you said all that in one breath ! I feel i know you now lol. Welcome aboard, Lots of Honda Fans on this site so you will have no shortage of tips and advice, even if it is threw the search feature. Here's a tip to help you get fast results, use the ecomodder search function to find relevant post to your topic of interest.

You can get pretty good results with the 1st Insight just by driving it differently.
Especially if it's a manual.

If you want to mod it, you could go pretty far ;)

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ture-2117.html

Jim / 3-wheeler also made a smooth belly pan for (t)his Insight.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ture-2117.html

You'll need a fuel log for that.
(and maybe a few more posts - 10 IIRC)

Welcome to the forum. The Insight is an MPG beast - how long have you had it?

i bought it a month ago, still on the first tank of gas hehe, so far its been a love hate thing. ive ran across a few of the classic insight problems. it has 220k on it, new honda battery packs, new clutch kit, new factory bridgestone tires, no missing panels, all and all its in good shape, but i do have that classic second gear downshift grind, and the oil pan needs to be replaced and it could use a new motor mount bushing due to dry rot. i paid 6k for it which sounds high but there so rare, its a 1 owner car and i have all the service records. on my first tank so far i have averaged 52.3 mpg.

i have a insight owner question? with the second gear downshift grind, good or bad idea to change out the trans oil? as for my other problems the oil pans being replaced 600 bucks ouch, and i will be putting in a Fumoto quick drain plug so the oil pan prob wont ever happen again. the motor mount bushing is 75 bucks so thats a no biggie. advice?

I once was able to reduce synchro problems in a manual transmission by switching to a thinner oil. But I suspect the OEM oil "weight" in the Insight is already about as thin as it gets.

Have you tried double-clutching when going to 2nd? That's generally another way to avoid the crunchy sounds.

Wow - 600 bucks for the oil pan! Is there no other fix available? Have you searched around on insightcentral.net?

the way it looks to me is that its a honda only part on the oil pan issue. and when it comes to double clutching idk im trying the whole hypermiling thing and that makes me feel like in racing but it does decrease any noise.