Reviving a 2000 Honda Insight "beater" - Page 19 - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum

discovery · 06-22-2010, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red

Sorry about the delay in responding, finals sucked and I had a sister graduate so been busy busy. Computer Science and Engineering. BTW congrats on graduating! What'd you major in?

I think the main hang up is the BCM isn't designed for the feeding and care of a LiFo battery pack. And like Jamesqf said, the BCM would have to be circumvented or something to allow for this, as far as I've read. What do you do to your pack?

Yes you have to change the BCM and many more things in order to put it to work. The british guy web is http://www.solarvan.co.uk/ if not misstaken. I think it would be cheaper if a push trailer is made. In this case, when you go on a long trips you don't have to cary all the extra weight.

rcpmac · 09-16-2010, 02:23 AM

retepsnikrep · 09-18-2010, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

There's a guy in England with a lithium pack in an Insight, if I'm not mistaken.

Hmm... appears to be an additional pack for PHEV purposes, though, not a replacement of the OEM pack:

Yup:

The above is not quite correct.

I have two MK1 Insights with replacement lithium packs.
1 with 50 x 40ah Hipower cells and 1 with 50 x 20ah A123 pouch cells.
The oem nimh battery pack has been removed in both cars.

I also have Mima or a version of it fitted to both cars.

The lithium packs are managed by my own BMS and several other mods are also used to fool the stock electronics into accepting the new cells.

All the development details are on the Insight Central Forum or the UK BVS Forum.

Regards Peter

gone-ot · 09-19-2010, 06:20 PM

...pardon my ignorance of Insight acronyms, but what's a MIMA?

retepsnikrep · 09-20-2010, 01:59 AM

MIMA = Manual Integrated Motor Assist

Manual control over the IMA system to command assist and regen when the driver wants.

99mpg.com/mima/

gone-ot · 09-20-2010, 12:27 PM

...thanks!

...the first (and only) Honda I had was a 1984 Vivic 1.6L CVCC and I was doing good to understand what CVCC stood for (ha,ha).

Red · 09-28-2010, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by retepsnikrep

The above is not quite correct.

I have two MK1 Insights with replacement lithium packs.
1 with 50 x 40ah Hipower cells and 1 with 50 x 20ah A123 pouch cells.
The oem nimh battery pack has been removed in both cars.

I also have Mima or a version of it fitted to both cars.

The lithium packs are managed by my own BMS and several other mods are also used to fool the stock electronics into accepting the new cells.

All the development details are on the Insight Central Forum or the UK BVS Forum.

Regards Peter

What was the cost of everything? My pack is boned and I'm debating whether or not its worth it to sink $$$ into it, or just should for a Li conversion.

Daox · 09-28-2010, 03:54 PM

I'd get a quote from: Hybrid-Battery-Repair

Nden · 02-06-2011, 01:37 AM

great thread. i went to that MIMA site but they are no longer available =(. any1 got a link to where an assembled mima can be purchased? thanks!

Red · 02-06-2011, 01:44 AM

He was the only dude who built them. I don't remember if the schematics were ever made public or not.

IIRC he's been at the "gonna make a smaller MIMA" for almost a year now. Might want to shoot him an email to see if there are any updates. The website might be out of date