Old pressure plate

New pressure plate

Jack and stands method. I used a transmission jack with wood to support the engine from the bottom.

 

Insight transmission with 3.21 FD

HCH1 transmission with 3.6 FD

Driving experience? I love the HCH1 transmission! I used to have to rev out to 4k in first gear so I can get to 2k in second gear to keep the engine in its power band. That's changed now, only a little over 3k in first to get to 2k in second. I can use second gear bewteen 10-18mph without lagging the engine. Acceleration is improved in all gear and feel way more than 12% as the FD ratio suggest. The car can climb small incline in 5th gear now on highway! It requires way less downshift just to maintain speed. The IMAless Insight actually feel FUN to drive!

Sigma Projects, thanks again!!!

What about MPG? Constant 45mph with 6 stops got me.

 

Insight transmission with 3.21 FD

HCH1 transmission with 3.6 FD

Driving experience? I love the HCH1 transmission! I used to have to rev out to 4k in first gear so I can get to 2k in second gear to keep the engine in its power band. That's changed now, only a little over 3k in first to get to 2k in second. I can use second gear bewteen 10-18mph without lagging the engine. Acceleration is improved in all gear and feel way more than 12% as the FD ratio suggest. The car can climb small incline in 5th gear now on highway! It requires way less downshift just to maintain speed. The IMAless Insight actually feel FUN to drive!

Sigma Projects, thanks again!!!

What about MPG? Constant 45mph with 6 stops got me.

Wow, that looks like the solution for me too. I want to go without the IMA for now because I don't drive the car often enough to keep the pack in reasonable condition. Thanks so very much for your generous and very useful write-up. I found a couple of 5 speed cars at nearby wrecking yards. It looks like the synchros would not be the issue that they are with the G1 MT. What a great idea. MANY THANKS!

 

Thanks for sharing this with the Inightswap community.
Great details.
Good to hear of another way to keep these car on the road.

 

Great write up and pics, thanks!

Is it a plug and play with speedometer too?

This would be even cooler if the speedo works correctly with the new final drive ratio.

 

Insight VSS (vehicle speed sensor) plug plugs right into the HCH1 transmission VSS sensor and speedo works fine, hence how I got MPG figure and mile recording.

 

Awesome! Btw the studs on the stock transmission can be transferred over to the HCH1 trans. I swapped them over because I liked how the Insight studs were made just long enough to bolt on the bracket.

Also the speedo gear is ran off a gear on the differential and are the same teeth count and since our diff is the same size it shouldn't have any trouble even if you put the original in. My speedo seems fine even with the fit speed sensor, but at some point I will hook up my friend's Honda diagnostic computer to see if the computer is noticing any speed discrepancies.

 

So the full transmission works with factory axles? It looks like Sigma did a gear swap and you did a full transmission swap.

 

They do, I did a gear swap (including the differential) of Honda Fit gears into the HCH1 case, but the differential itself between the GD3 Fit and HCH1 are the same.

 

That’s really amazing information! Great work. It certainly increases the pool of parts, doesn’t it?
Now... my curiosity is peaked about the possibilities on the CVT side!

 

Nice work.

Is the input shaft bearing different on the G1 V HCH1 gearbox?

Are they different parts? Sizes?

As we know the G1 can have ISB problems, I have never heard of an hch1 with ISB issues...

Any difference? Wonder if a part swap is possible etc..

 

I posted about this a while ago. ISB between the two are different. They have the same ID and bearing height, but the OD of the HCH1 is larger, you would have to machine out the bearing location on the bell housing.

 

Epic! My trans has a bad grind in 2nd, would love to fix it but after reading this I'd rather just replace it with an HCH trans.

 

Do I need to change out the clutch and all that to the HCH or is all that compatible?

 

Insight clutch fits HCH1 transmission input shaft but you need to read post 1 again to get all the details.

 

What about the rear motor mount?

 

All 1G insight brackets will bolt up to the HCH1.

 

Weight of Transmissions?

in earlier posts you showed the weight of the different clutch discs; what is the weight difference between the HCH1 and the Insight Gen1 trans?

 

in earlier posts you showed the weight of the different clutch discs; what is the weight difference between the HCH1 and the Insight Gen1 trans?

I don't have any good way to balance the transmission and measure it's weight using my small scale. The same method doing both transmission net 62lbs on HCH1 and 57lbs on Insight transmission. So, not much differences in weight but my method might not be exact.

 

Cool hack!

 

Well, this is interesting.

My gas-only Insight with HCH1 5 speed transmission.

 

Idk what's more interesting;

- You have a lower gear ratio yet the 0-60 time didn't change from stock

- You went from 80mph to 100mph in 0.0 seconds :grin:

 

I'm honestly surprised they were able to get 11 seconds with the stock insight. Then again they're probably trying many times to get a perfect launch. You can even hear the tires chirp in the video

 

Now the next question is what happens when a HCH1 transmission is paired to an Insight with a working IMA?

I ask because I remember reading that the CR-Z would not provide assist or regen if one changed the gearing in the transmission. The speculation was that was because the ECU could no longer calculate what gear the car was in.

I'm fairly certain the Insight ECU also calculates what gear the car is in. So the real question is what happens with the IMA when the ECU experiences unexpected relationships between engine and vehicle speed?

 

If my setup with Fit gears doesn't cause any issues there's no way that Tryingbe's setup with HCH1 gears would cause any issues. The only thing I see for myself is that engine doesn't request assist nearly as much so battery is getting charged up much faster than before and since it doesn't know about the gear change while I'm in 5th it still thinks I should up shift

But even with my short gearing if I hammer it I get full assist and when braking I can get full charge.

Idk what's more interesting;

- You have a lower gear ratio yet the 0-60 time didn't change from stock

11 seconds for Tryingbe's setup seems pretty good considering he's not on a track, he doesn't have IMA, the mileage on the engine and he's not trying that hard.

 

Do you have full rpms or are you limited to around 5500 like the usual IMA bypass is? If you're still at 5500 I bet you could shave same time off by getting the full redline.

 

There is no 5500 rpm limit if Ardiuno Uno is used to bypass IMA.

But even with my short gearing if I hammer it I get full assist and when braking I can get full charge.

So, what you're telling me is you potentially have the fastest non-turbo/non engine swap Insight around. Find a straight road and make it official!!!

 

I have some bad news. My GPS reported that I was going 10% slower than what my speedo says so my 0-60 time would really be my 0-54 time.

On my turbo dodge, the speedo senor is driven by the axles so speed is also accurate as it can regardless what transmission it is attached to. I haven't look yet, but I don't think the HCH/Insight speedo is driven by the axle.

HCH1 and Insight tire size different are only 7.2% while the FD different is 10.8% so the speed different would probably because of the FD.

I'll have to investigate later. But car still "feel" a lot faster so that's a plus.

 

In the Insight transmission the VSS sensor is driven by a nylon gear on the side of the differential. This is effectively the same thing as being driven by the axles. I have to imagine that the HCH1 trans is much the same.

The problem is likely that the gearing for the VSS sensor on the HCH1 transmission is different.

 

But the gear you're in certainly does... hence why IMAC&C rally mode makes the car so much more fun to drive ;-)

So how does the ECM know what gear you're in to limit assist/regen in the lower gears? That's the real question...

 

Did you see how different your speeds were between your GPS and speedo before you changed the transmission? I should check with mine sometime. The speedo gear on the differential is the same between HCH1 and GD3, but have different speed sensors. The standard GD3 tire size is pretty close to the 1G Insight. Could swap in the GD3 speedo sensor and see the difference.

 

Did you see how different your speeds were between your GPS and speedo before you changed the transmission?

Yes, actually. 1 mph difference or so on the Insight transmission and GPS. Mostly due to if the speedo see 44.1mph, the gauge will display 45mph.

 

HCH1 speed sensor.

Insight speed sensor.

 

Sorry I didn't take pictures, but I put the GD3 speed sensor in the HCH1 case. I just swapped over everything just in case when I was building my trans, but like I mentioned the speedo gear on the diff is the same part number as well as the diff itself. And the GD3 Fit and 1G insight both come with the same size diameter tires 23" as a standard option. My current tires measures slightly smaller so I knew it was throwing my speed off ever so slightly since RE92 are suppose to be 23", but my Dunlop Direzzas are spec'd at 22.8" so it's off by 1%.

 

My big idea is use an Arduino Uno to be inline of the VSS and the car's wiring. Looks like someone already got there before I did, so I just need to modify the codes and wiring to my needs.


https://members.rennlist.com/tom86951/Speedometer Calibrator Page1.html

 

These codes didn't work for my car. I'm writing my own codes now. Found out the cluster topped out at 124 mph.

 

Nice, I wish I knew the know how to retrofit my 80's digital cluster to read an actual digital signal instead of the speedo cable.

 

Funny, I did just that for my GLH. Taking a 89 Daytona digital dash and speedo sensor to find in my car and made it work.