Speculating about a Bajoosed 5-speed Insight
 

I'll describe my 2000 Honda Insight 5-speed and my results, then hopefully someone can project what it might do with aeromods similar to basjoos put on his Civic.

Since the Insight is .25 like the 2010 Prius, it's Cd is exactly halfway between basjoos before and after Civic Cd. In other words, the aeromods likely would yield about half the results of the 92 Civic.

The results are about the same as stock except my use of the FAS switch on the MIMA installation and occasional the hot air intake.

The 5-speed Insight at 70F+ on a level highway with no load or A/C will lean burn up to about 65mph.

Cruising at 45 on a highway, the results from cold to hot weather is 75-115mpg - 85-95 being more a more typical range.

MPG at various speeds:

• 110mpg @ 40
• 100mpg @ 50
• 80mpg @ 60
• 60-65mpg @65
• 50mpg @ 70
• 35-40mpg @ 85+

Since there is a speed limiter, it maxes out at 113mph (I did it twice over five years ago :o )

The critical information is the % increase the Civic got after aeromodding.

A similarly modded Insight probably would get half of that % increase.

Guesstimating the AeroCivic improved 20%, I'll say a 5-speed Insight would improve 10%...



Cruising at 45 on a highway, the results from cold to hot weather is 90-138mpg - 102-114 being more a more typical range.

MPG at various speeds:

• 132mpg @ 40
• 120mpg @ 50
• 96mpg @ 60
• 72-78mpg @65
• 60mpg @ 70
• 42-48mpg @ 85+

I could be remembering wrong, but I recall the boat tail increasing basjoos' mileage by 17%. I think it would be great to see what a little aero tweaking could do for an Insight! We know that .25 is good, but can definitely be improved upon.

Funny, Darin and I were just talking about what we would mod if we had an Insight since so much is done to it already. We still came up with a fair size list... and I see he started a thread for it even. :)

Are you monitoring the AFR of the lean burn? You might get a larger improvement because of a more dramatically lean AFR as well.

I would love to see an insight with a boat tail....

:o What is AFR?

speculating
 

A 10% drag reduction will give you a 5% mpg improvement at a constant 55-mph,and 6% mpg improvement at 70-mph.You can play around with different scenarios and noodle the differences.

Then I need to half my projections to get close to reality.

I live maybe 15 miles from you in Lewisville, BTW

Phil, do you know if that formula also holds for lean burn conditions, or just stoichiometric?

You can also plug the numbers into the aero/rolling calculator:

Aerodynamic & rolling resistance, power & MPG calculator - EcoModder.com

But again, I'm not sure what the implications are for lean burn engines.