2001 Honda Insight Mk1 - The OG hybrid now joined by a CRZ

[Jonnycoupe]

Havent really cained it at all tbh yet. Driving at 80 on the runs to work then slowing down like I would normally got me a trip average of 63 so Ive slowed down a bit now to get the lean burn working.

Current tank is 380 miles in and just under half left and thats sitting on 71 MPG average. It updates every minute so you really see how painful cold starts are, with the assist and the light car it takes a while for the engine to warm up aswell. Might look into a block heater to avoid that and keep the engine lasting as long as I can.

Its a light car with a little engine so I cant imagibe the MPG ever getting into single figures. You cant actually drop below 50MPG in fifth, as you give it more throttle the assist just increases to provide the acceleration demand.

 

[beermonster]

Quite impressive, this lean burn you speak of has been around before I remember an old GF had a company volvo V40 lean burn GDI and you could get silly mpg figures if driving sensibly why has it not been more widespread?

 

[MikeHunt79]

What sort of charge rate will they deal with? Im not too worried about the battery at the moment but nice to have some options. The car would be a bit slow without assist!

One of the Insight guys has a 40Ah lithium pack in his.

Im just gonna do a few things with shutting assist off manually so i dont rape the battery going up hills which means forced regen on the cruise and kills lean burn, also gonna do a mod to force the auto stop for downhill sections. Shame you cant decouple the engine from the motor to remove the pumping losses, the new IMA car actually close all the valves so theres effectively no pumping losses just a big air spring.

The battery is there to be used tho...

Take a look here:
http://www.vapextech.co.uk/acatalog/High_Power_Consumer_Batteries.html

D cells are near the bottom.

10000mAh is a low drain figure, I imagine it will be a little less with high drain.

Over at CPF they tested the 2700mAh AA batteries and they worked well even with a 5A per cell current draw. If you're gonna buy 120 cells tho it might be worth collecting.

Lithium pack is a waste of money IMO, it loses capacity even if it's not used... NiMh may be more heavy but IMO it's the best battery tech for the job...

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Quite impressive, this lean burn you speak of has been around before I remember an old GF had a company volvo V40 lean burn GDI and you could get silly mpg figures if driving sensibly why has it not been more widespread?

The combustion event with the sort of AFR would melt most engine. Insight drops to 25:1, although the new A-VTEC lumps potentially will run 65:1 as they have a very well controlled air fuel stratification and a small bowl in the piston for very local ''bang' with a good boundary layer formed to protect the piston surface from these temperatures.

From the Design SAE paper

A key feature of this engine is the
significant improvement in combustion efficiency through
lean burn technology. Technologies adopted to make this
possible include new intake swirl ports, which enhance
the swirl (mixture formation) inside the cylinders. A
compact combustion chamber and a high compression
ratio also help by improving the indicated heat efficiency.
This result in significantly shorter combustion times
compared to conventional lean burn engines, allowing
combustion in a leaner range with a higher air-fuel ratio.
This significantly improves the fuel consumption.
The new high swirl ports and compact combustion
chamber are evolutions based on conventional VTEC
lean burn technology. In the conventional VTEC engine,
swirl is produced by keeping one intake valve closed in
low speed operating conditions. However, in this engine
the intake valves and intake ports are arranged more
vertically to produce strong eddies in the mixture flowing
into the cylinders.
The conventional VTEC configuration has the inlet and
exhaust rocker arms each supported by a separate
rocker shaft. The new VTEC mechanism shown in Fig.10
combines these into a single rocker shaft, thus realizing a
significant reduction in size. In addition, it narrows the
valve included angle from 46​

​

° to 30°, allowing a high swirl
port shape and a very compact combustion chamber.​

Only problem with that is the NOx produced is very high, so its stored in a rather expensive material cat until the engine reenters rich or stoich running (the car will enter short periods of a richer mix whilst cruising aswell) to purge the cat. Other larger cars and engines would need a lot bigger cats to capture this NOx so it doesnt really feature on cars yet where they are products sold at a profit the end price would jump massively.

The spark plugs are amusing how they are indexed to match the head, so you buy a A,B,C or D plug so when they are torqued the gap faces the inlet valves. Anal

 

[Jonnycoupe]

The battery is there to be used tho...

Oh yeah, the MIMA stuff looks good where you control it manually when you have an appreciation for the terrain so you can soon optimise your commute to improve MPG by 10-15%. I know there are slight inclines where I could do with a touch more electric assist to maintain speed but in lean burn (100+MPG) but my only option is more throttle, a push on a joystick to up the assist would be far better option.

Problem now is triple figure MPG gets a bit addictive

 

[Fevvahz]

Love this thread. Some people just love to bite don't they. Loved Will Gills "please admit you have bought an NSX, its in the garage and this is the courtesy car."

I take my hat off to you Jonny - glad you've got one, as I remember chatting to you about it months ago. I was gutted to see the pictures of the Teg, but its just been an opportunity to try another 'engineering focussed' car. SteveJL posted the video of Jay Leno on Top gear - this thread seems to show how his point has gone over some peoples heads.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

70MPG last tank and 73 MPG this one so far (300miles in and still over half a tank)

Getting the hang of lean burn and getting the most out of the assist and it certainly seems easy to sit in the lean burn window with the warmer weather.

Great stuff

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Did my best journey so far yesterday from work with a nice sunny day and me not in a rush. 35miles @ 89.7 MPG

 

[Lashout_UK]

Does this have regenerative braking at all?

Great little machine, if a little quirky - but hell, just makes it more interesting...

 

[Simon]

Does this have regenerative braking at all?

Great little machine, if a little quirky - but hell, just makes it more interesting...

Yeah it does, braking charges the battery

 

[Lashout_UK]

I only ask because apparently the way to get the best out of that system is to brake hard and fast, then accelerate quickly back up to speed again?

I just wondered, becaues if that's the case, then I would guess the majority of people aren't taking best use of systems like that

 

[Jonnycoupe]

The braking regen is from the motor that does the assist. Infact at idle the IMA is continually assisting and regeneration to smooth that little 3 cylinder out (no balancer shafts - too much friction)

You can't really brake fast as you can only charge at 50A (7.2KW!) where as discharge is 100A, so really its best to brake slow so you convert as much Kinetic energy into electricity rather than heat, its only about 65% efficient though. Of course best is to not slow down at all Best really to try keeping battery as full as possible so you dont have forced regen during cruise, minimal load on the engine then for lean burn where you can sit at 120MPG at 55-60 mph. Unless of course you know theres a big down hill to charge then 5th gear never seems to let the car go below 50MPG just varies the assist to suit the demand on the engine so you can use plenty of battery to climb prior to any downhills to minimise fuel burn.

Its quirky for sure!

 

[OllyM]

Talk about sucking any fun from driving

Sounds awfully tedious to drive.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Talk about sucking any fun from driving

Sounds awfully tedious to drive.

Why?

You wouldn't know any different from any other car, well other than being way quicker in the real world than other 1.0 petrols. Just if you're a geek like me who knows a bit about hybrids then you can appreciate the extra stuff to get the most out the car.

Im pushing towards 100% capability of the car on the way to work, who else can do that ?! Teg was about 10% lol

 

[loltim]

Talk about sucking any fun from driving

Sounds awfully tedious to drive.

Don't you drive an Auto?

 

[Skeeter]

Don't you drive an Auto?

whip-tshh!

 

[Muffin`]

Don't you drive an Auto?

 

[[TW]Fox]

pwnt

 

[DreXeL]

Don't you drive an Auto?

I lol'd

 

[CrazySpeaker]

I don't think you can call the purchase of any car, with the exception of a 1920s Bugatti or something, an investment!


With regards to this thread, I quite like it

In fairness most classics will hold there value, and a lot of not yet realised classics will shoot up in value.

For example a few years ago Mk1 escorts could be had for pocket money. Now they cost loads.