Towing in 4th gear on a Honda Civic

[samwichse]

You can charge at a standstill, but you will need to gas it manually or the car will bog down and die/stumble.

Sam

[Frankiec55]

*Waking the long dead here. Thought I'd share my experiences towing with a 5 speed HCH1. I have towed various trailers with my 04 HCH over the years. Mine has 120xxx miles, but the body is pretty rough. I hit a boulder on a dirt road a few years ago and bent the subframe, control arm, and unibody on the driver's side. The car sat for several years while I gradually rebuilt the whole front end. I still have my original IMA battery.

I have never towed more than 50 or so miles with my HCH, but I may in the near future. I have pulled 5x8 enclosed Uhaul Trailers while moving several times. It was always fine at 60 or so on the highway even in 5th. I don't think the loaded Uhaul was ever quite as heavy or sail like as your camper. I have also pulled a 16 foot flat bottomed aluminum fishing boat with it. It would struggle on the dirt ramp with the standard tires, but pulled it out just fine with 15" steelies and snow tires on.

I bought the IMAC&C chip that Sam mentioned above. I never got around to installing it, but found a great workaround for now that I love. I did whats called the Calpod switch mod. It seems fairly common among first gen insight guys. But I have rarely seen it done on HCH1s.

I basically shorted the 2 clutch safety switches together and ran them through a small toggle switch. When I flip the switch on, it mimics the clutch pedal being pressed in, and disables assist and coasting regen. When I flip the switch off assist and regen function normally. It is a little buggy but I am used to it. For some reason the cruise control only works with the switch in the on position and I get cruise control with no assist or regen.

The car gets a little confused when it wants to autostop sometimes. If the switch is on and I am gently braking to a stop while in gear the car will try to autostop while still in gear. Disabling the assist this way does not stop the DC-DC converter from charging the 12v battery.

I have read that you can do this with the brake light circuit too. This apparently makes the car think that you are pressing the brake and enabling full regen while coasting. I could see this being useful for towing as the regen would act much like a jake/exhaust brake on a semi truck.

It is nice being able to use the assist just enough to get you going and then winding the ICE out solo
To save your IMA SOC. That little 1.3 is pretty gutless solo at low rpms, but it gets the job done.

Overall though with the right precautions, I think the HCH is plenty robust for towing as far as Hybrids go. I have seen many 2nd and 3rd gen Priuses towing.

I have been perusing Craigslist all over the Midwest and East Coast for a manual HCH with a bad battery pack or blown head gasket but a good body to swap my low mileage drivetrain into. I am planning to flat tow it home with my current HCH.

[Ecky]

@Frankie, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you need both of the clutch safety switches together for the calpod switch? One is for deactivating cruise and does nothing else, and the other is for detecting when the clutch is depressed and is used in various ways by the ECU. Under normal operation, one is always open and the other is always closed (cruise switch, I believe) and by wiring them in parallel you've made it so either they're both always closed, or both always open, resulting in your losing cruise control without the clutch switch on.

Try taking one of the two switches out of the loop and see if you get cruise back.