TOPIC: PROJECT 2001 HONDA INSIGHT

AWESOME, Claudio!! I know you and the Pickle are just stoked about this! That's a really good lookin' Groove! Results like this feel SOO GOOD!! You just beat my all-time record of 72 MPG, in the '85 Subie Wagon.

With a Grin, I remove my hat, and bow deeply in your General Direction, good Sir!! Congrats!!!

Tracy G

Epic! I think it's really good to see that "great mileage" vehicles can get better mileage easily with a small groove! What a beautiful shape it creates too. Awesome job Claudio! Keep it up ☝

Hey Guys. I would like to share some info about the Insight. First, I like the groove. I need one on mine (one of mine. I have three Insights). I have a donor throttle body to groove, but I installed it to check it out first and it would not run correct. So, waiting to get a new donor throttle body. Anyway, tou-che' on the work. I'll be comparing your work with mine so I will do it correct.

I would like to also share some other information about the Insight. The Insight is a good choice for mpg and to add the groove, wow! That should be incredible. I have three of these cars. Economy on mine runs 60s on highway and just under 50 in the city with stop and go traffic lights and stop signs. These are ungrooved vehicles. Two of them use the hybrid batteries, 120 D size nickle-metal-hydride rechargeable batteries. The third, runs on the three cylinder engine only. These cars have under 100hp from factory. Manufacturer mpg given on these cars was 60/70. City/highway. 70mpg is really hard to achieve without any mods or even drafting on the highway. Now to address some of those questions. The Insight uses synthetic Mobil 1 oil as manufacturer recommended. There is a MAP sensor. 2000 was manual shift only. 2001 thru 2006 were optioned with CVT automatic. The manual shift cars would achieve a "lean burn" state in cruise mode. In lean burn, air to fuel ratio reaches 22 to 1. The ecu reads the emissions in the exhaust and allows the Nox to elevate some then lean burn licks out back to the normal air to fuel ratio. The ecu will allow this cycling to go as long as throttle use is minimized during driving. The Insight has a cat converter for the Nox.
The cars are fun to drive. Kinda like a gocart.
I am straight up interested in grooving mine. Thank you for sharing your efforts and results.
Now, on another note, a friend of mine that used to have an Insight achieved over 100mpg on his car. He installed a system which allows the driver to control the charge rate on the battery pack and motor assist using the battery pack. He covered the underside of the car with corroplast board. He said that was the most significant mod for mpg. And, one more important mode he did was GROOVE the throttle body. I believe he told me Ron did the groove. I never got to see the handywork done on the groove.My loss. He lives too far away to visit and recently sold the car. His commute to work would bring him past near where I live and yielded a short visit and lunch before heading home. Man, that car was fast! That Groove did it! I have included a pic of his dash with mpg. His trip was 300+ miles driven. There is no way to cheat the reading. To reset the mpg resets the miles driven.
Hint hint: the groove was significant in those results.

Any questions on Insight?
Ken (maxmpg)

that's inspiring Ken!
Well, my '85 Subaru GL wagon, 1.8L OHC, 5 spd. car achieved 72 MPG one summer night a couple years ago. This engine was carbureted, a Grooved Weber carb. In pre- ECU configuration, as the ECU no longer had effect on the engine. I did have a Plasma ignition mod, I ran the tires at 50 PSI or so. And the engine was treated w/ RVS.

not bragging here, just pointing out what I did using an earlier car. The Subie had I think EPA economy ratings, all in the 20-30 MPG range.

I'd say that besides Grooving yours, more gains will be found in reducing parasitic losses. Tire press., treating engine and trans with appropriate RVS products. Making a home made belly pan sounds worthwhile too. Spark plug gap increase, the PCV mods, would be in order too.

While the famous Groove is the Star- the Lead Singer...the rest of the mods form the Band and backup vocals.

And that's how you get a HIT!!

Tracy G
Gadgetman Reno Nevada

Tracy,
That's great achievement. Over double the mileage improvement? That's a winner. Our forum needs a "spec sheet" location to share improvements for many to improve too. I know, the information is out there but lets make it easy. You have accomplished what many strive for. Congrats!
Ken

Hey Tracy. I have a donor TB on its way to me to do your recommendations. It will be a same type TB for my Insight. Waiting to hear more about the results on the one Claudio grooved.
Ken

So i have a little more news about the insight. I did find out hes using 91 octane religiously. His last tank during recently was an average 59 mpg but we had 2 weeks of 15-25 mph winds and rain storms during this time and there is a good 6 miles of up hill driving. He also said that on the clearer days it would increase slowly. He recently texted me that he would send me more pictures and give more info when he can. Our schedules are so different that is why the cumminctions are slow. I have told him about the rvs treatment and the mods that Kenneth Smith's comment about the corroplasting the bottom of the insight. We will see what he decides because I am ready to help.
On a related subject, One of my techs at work gave me a junk tb to practice on that looks like the insight tb but its for a acura sedan (tl-s model). It has the same style of pathways that i will have to do with jb quick for the insight. This the first try and I would make a lot more perfect on the final result. Just preparing for when it's go time!

Hi Claudio. It's good you got to practice the Groove/JB weld combo here. So in the second pic, it looks like you opened a channel leading to the right edge side of the throttle shaft. That's how I've done it when I needed to. Some TB's I need to study for a bit to decide just what combination of techniques to use, when doing an IAC re-route. When I need to make a dam or wall using epoxy, I always try to make it pretty thick for stability. And I always clean, then rough up the underlying metal to promote adhesion for the epoxy.

Doin' Great, Claudio!

Tracy G

Hey Tracy! I talked to my friend about RE doing the groove with the channeling the air for the IAC. We will be doing it this spring when he has more time to fiddle around. Hopefully we will get some more mpg out of his Honda so be patient everyone I am doing my best to get my hands on that tb soon.

AutoSpeed - Temporarily Offline

Claudio - you might be interested in reading this article, because there's a sidebar piece that pertains to this car:

AutoSpeed - Temporarily Offline

Now I bet you're thinking about reading deeper into Ron's EGR delete thread, right? see you on that one...

GregK, It looks like you tried to copy a link into your post, but it failed to materialize. I still have not figured out how some are able to do this and others not.

I inserted it again, Preston.
It seems you have to use the HTML editor with the toolbar icons to insert links/videos etc. It's a bit of a pain, and slows the process, but it is what it is.