I was doing a comparison of specs between the 2010 Insight and 2011 CR-Z, they are both L engines and it looks like the block and pan are all the same but there are some big differences. The Insight uses the LDA while the CR-Z has the LEA engines, key differences are 8 valve (LDA) vs 16 valve (LEA), 10.8 CR vs 10.4 (LEA), i-DSI and Pause(LDA) vs not (LEA), 87HP (LDA) vs 113 (LEA), 87 lbs ft (LDA) vs 108 lbs ft (LEA), 73mm x 80mm bore x stroke (LDA) vs 73mm x 89mm bore x stroke (LEA).
From what I can see it looks like the CR-Z is stroked to 1.5 and I am sure the piston head is a bit different for the 16 valve set up. With the efficiency that the i-DSI brings I may look at dropping in the crank and rods from the CR-Z to stoke out the motor and them run a cold air intake and exhaust set up to gain power. I would love to get the engine over 100 HP and 100 lbs ft of torque as it would really liven the car up. I am also going to look into just dropping in a CR-Z engine all together rather than having a mix of parts. I know it hurts MPG, but I would be happy to get just 40 MPG and have something unique rather than mod it for 50MPG. I came from using 91 octane and getting 25 MPG so 40 is a great number.
Sounds like a lot of work to drop in a CR-Z engine for only a little add in HP. I thought about doing a K Series swap if my engine goes. If you like the CR-Z engine but want more power and if you could. I would sell the Insight and buy a CR-Z and drop in the Mugen supercharger that's about to come out soon. Love to hear you working on the Insight engine. This is one of the things I have wanted to do. But it's very hard to find anything but OEM parts. Please keep us updated.
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I am going to look for a CR-Z owner to see how many of the sensors are the same. The 2011 and 2012 CR-Zs have the same IMA and transmission so everything should bolt up nice, it helps the CR-Z is based on the insight. I figure since they are both L blocks, if I cannot drop in the whole CR-Z engine I might just grab the crank and rods from the CR-Z and us them to stoke out the motor. Then use a bored out throttle available for the CR-Z and get an intake. I have to look at the exhaust side to see what I can work with there, if it is a single port exhaust then it might not be a lot of work to get a custom exhaust with 2 high flow cats. Even though it would be a couple grand to get a CR-Z engine in the car it would be cool to have an Insight with CR-Z power. I like to be different.
The issue will be the CVT, many times they are torque limited and if I am reading material correctly ours has a "low range" limit of 123 lbs ft. If I boosted I would push more than that at the bottom end and the CVT would either just back it off or break. I thought about a supercharger kit with only a few PSI would get me there, but cost wise it might be cheaper to get either the LEA internals or a low miles used LEA engine.
I do like your line of thinking though, boost is usually the answer.
Well, increasing displacement is one way to get mo power. any machine shop should be able to stroke out an engine using under sided bearings for the rods and grind the crank rod journals. The problem is it will bump the cr unless you also add a spacer plate to the head.
I doubt you would fine one but using the head gasket as a template you can make one. Heck you maybe able to use a l15a block n intrnals.
Maybe your line of thinking is like mines in that if this car had 15-30 mo hp it woul be a really nice one to drive?
Well, increasing displacement is one way to get mo power. any machine shop should be able to stroke out an engine using under sided bearings for the rods and grind the crank rod journals. The problem is it will bump the cr unless you also add a spacer plate to the head.
I doubt you would fine one but using the head gasket as a template you can make one. Heck you maybe able to use a l15a block n intrnals.
Maybe your line of thinking is like mines in that if this car had 15-30 mo hp it woul be a really nice one to drive?
Since there are a few different sets of internals on for the car I figure I don't need to machine my stock or custom order anything. All the L engines are 73mm bore so it is crank and rod size that is different. I just have to figure out what I am going to do with pistons if I keep the stock set up as it could push the CR to 11.0:1. I sort of like having a DSI engine, if it does not look like I can stroke it out I may opt for the LEA engine swap. The car would be fantastic if the engine push just over 100hp and 100 lbs ft of torque.
I dont know about pushing the cr that high, from what I see of the timing Id rather lower it a few. The iDSI would be something nice to keep with pushing the cr that high.
My idea was to add a spacer to lower the cr, then get the civic NOS kit. Id also do something to advance the cam timing in relation to the crank. If I had a better understanding of the i-pause-vtec Id see about getting the cam ground.
It seems on the generic honda the cam has several profiles, 3 in all and it switched between the 3 throughout the rpm band depending on needs. Then of course you got the other things honda does that fools with duration and lift.
Id like to keep the mpg feature, then when I punch it have a race cam profile for passing, then revert back to mpg.
Running all motor I could get a good amount of power with an 11.0:1 CR, it would need 91 octane, but I am user to filling up with it. If I could keep it at the 10.8:1 CR then thats fine too, the extra displacement would still build up the power and then it would be looking for a throttle that would work that is larger. If I keep getting 50MPG I figure running 1.5L and iDSI, even with a larger throttle and intake, I would still hit 40-43 MPG and the car would be around 130HP and 160 lbs ft gas/electric. That I could be happy with as light as this car is.
Wouldnt it be nice if you could use the lower part of the crz engine and block and bolt on the insights head?
Ive driven a stick and cvt crz, both were dogs, at least the ones I drove with low miles. I think after a few thousand the car becomes more agressive.
I do know hondata makes a programmer for the crz, no plans for the insight.
Ever since the alloy heads were introduced to the market Ive done lots of head gaskets and have no problem getting a head job or machine work on the upper end. The lower end is another story as it usually needs to be removed from the vehicle and in this case I think honda uses a special friction reduction coating on the cylinders and pistons, so boring it over and using oversides pistons may result in a loss of mpg as well as poweroutput.
On the other hand the hch usies a 1.3l engine and makes mo power than us. Think the same applies to the fit, so guessing the trade off in lower numbers is mo mpg?
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CR-Z Engine parts in Insight
Id also do something to advance the cam timing in relation to the crank. If I had a better understanding of the i-pause-vtec Id see about getting the cam ground. 
