Here she is as I got her. She had a bumper and light but those quickly came off to make room for what was going to happen next. Yes my garage was a mess. I am working on that as well, haha.

 

I hate to bust your balls, but I don't think you will get 50-55. I think 40-45 is more realistic. The TSX itself is rated for 31mpg Highway, so I think a 50% increase by going to a lighter, smaller car with the same engine is more feasible.

As for the rest of your project, it looks like it will be a cool car!! Please keep us updated!

 

subscribed... out of curiosity but how much are your custom fortune auto coil overs costing? I tried to have them made for the insight through a few connections but they wouldn't entertain the idea. But they did make a suspension setup for a Honda CRV for a friend which makes no sense to me.

 

Balto, that's why I am not just putting the engine in a lighter car and hoping for the best. I have a few other tricks that I hope will get me to my goals. The stock TSX final drive is 4.760, the custom final drive I have is a 3.4, drastically different. The TSX at 70MPH is at 3,100RPM, with my final drive I will be at 2,200RPM. On top of that I plan to make a cruise/lean burn tune, I have done this in the past to other cars and the results have been fantastic.

Buis02, My Time Trial car is sponsored by Fortune Auto so I have pretty much the best relationship you can have with them beside working for them. The coilovers were not made for the Insight per say, they start life as a 02-05 Civic Si coilover that was modified with custom valving and springs.

Here is a picture of the Time Trial car.

 

Oh ok, you might be able to get 50 if that's the case. Thanks for the response!

 

That makes sense. I'm with Sportcar Motion. They are sponsoring a build rite now but we tried to get them to make one for the insight as we were thinking about going K24 like you but held off. Now we're looking for other options in regards to suspension. Maybe you can get them to make setup for the fronts and rear lol.

 

Buis02, Haha small world. Loi helps me out every once in a while and I have bought some parts from you guys. Love the Black K24 CRZ build, that thing is sweet.

I tried to get Fortune to do rears as well but they weren't interested when I asked either. Still working on it though.

Thanks,
Mike

 

Haha the Black K24 CRZ owned by Daniel is nice. It has gone through a lot. The unfortunate news is that he is parting it out I believe. Last I heard was that he was going to buy a Porsche or something lol. If you know anyone that's interested, Morgan & I are selling the white FD2 w/ the jap spec front and rear end that was featured on a few magazines.

Haha keep pressing Fortune to get them to do it. I'm sure the insight community would jump on those quick. I tried to get Andy V. to help persuade them but it was a no go lol.

If you're looking to get mounts I would definitely hit up Brian from Hasport for the mounts. I believe he's going to do a limited run on them.
Steve

 

Steve,

I tried to get a hold of Brian but he didn't have any available and he was not sure when the next run was going to be. I would much prefer to have his mounts it all just depends on timing.

Sucks about that CRZ I really like that car.

That FD2 is killer as well. Would love to have that. Do you have an Ad listed somewhere so I can get the news out? Message me on Facebook so we don't crowd this thread any further. Haha

Thanks,
Michael Lewin

 

I started by taking the everything in the rear including the IMA battery. The Previous owner was kind enough to leave me all this stuff in the rear compartment. Looks at there are some brass looking things back there....

Got the foam out and started to remove the battery and converter. All of these was pretty. Stripped it down until I had a clean rear section.

 

Looking good. I'll take the 9mm bullets jk. What are you doing with all the stuff you are yanking out of the car? You should hit up user Eli and see if he needs the core battery or something.

 

Nice and good luck

 

Buis- I sold the engine but still have the rest of the parts. I need to get rid of them so If anyone is interested let me know.

Next I wanted to tackle getting the engine removed. This is pretty normal except for the power cables running to the rear.

Normal looking Insight running gear and....


Bam... Its out.



I have a bunch of parts if anyone needs anything.

 

Now that all the running gear was removed I can start working on the custom parts I would need to make to achieve my goals.

I am going to be jumping around to different areas of the car as I have a chance to complete tasks. All of these things are happening at once so I am sorry for being so manic.

I'll start with my suspension.

Like I said in the beginning I plan to use Fortune Auto 510 coilovers. These coilovers started life as 02-05 Civic front coilovers. I am using spindles from a civic as well because it allows me to use a larger axle and brakes. From there I had Fortune install their new high range adjustment valves and 4K springs.

I used kinematic software to calculate a spring rate that would give me a decently comfortable ride as well as having the ability to stiffen up when I wanted to go roundy round. Fortunes new high range adjustment valves allow you to artificially add spring rate. This is great as it will allow me to have that smooth ride and weekend fun car with one setup.

Here are the Fortune Auto 510 coilovers.



Clearly the first problem would be is that the tophat on the Fortunes are not the same as the tophat needed for the Insight. I looked around for tophat/camber plates but could not find anything for the Insight, so I decided to make my own.

This is what I came up with. This is the second version as I designed a first one and I didn't quite like the range of adjustment. You can see the difference in the comparison below.





Here are the first and second design 3d printed. Black is the first and blue is the second. The adjustment slots are shifted upwards slightly and this gives a slightly higher range of adjustment.

 

Once I was happy with the design, I had the tophats machined out of aluminum.

Here is the new tophat compared to the one for the Civic.



The next issue to tackle was the lower control arm ball joint. I have seen other setups where people weld the Insight spindle insert into the Civic Spindle. I planned to go this route but with a custom made insert.

Here is the insert I came up with. Pretty simple and easy to press into the Civic spindle and weld.




After I did this I realized that with everything installed the lower ball joint pin hits the axle. I could cut down the pin for clearance to the axle but then I would lose the cotter pin. On top of that, I thought about serviceability and I would have to remove the axle every time I had to do something with the the lower control arm. This is why I decided to start over.

The other option would be to modify the lower control arm to accept the standard Civic ball joint. I started by removing the ball joint from the arm and facing both side flat and parallel.

Here is the arm after machining. Oops I nicked the arm a little with I was removing the ball joint. This is just a test arm anyway.

 

With the arm ready to accept an insert, I designed one with correct taper and came up with this.



The insert will be pressed into the arm and than have a backup snap ring to make sure it doesn't move.

Here is the insert 3d printed and pressed into the arm. This one does not have the snap right groove but you get the idea.

 

Nice fab work! Are you planning on opening up the hole so you can make adjustments for the suspension from up top? I'm only asking because it seem like there isn't much space between the hole and the studs with the stock insight configuration. I think that's why most people that do the swap end up keeping the stock rsx/ep3 top hats and making new holes on the chassis side.

I guess you can just drop the suspension (if you don't open up the stock hole) whenever you want to make adjustments but that would be super hard to do when doing an alignment...

 

dkim48- Yeah I plan to clearance the top a little so I can adjust it on the fly. Ill post pictures once I get to that point.

Here are some pictures of the finished lower control arm insert. It fits really well and will make sure the suspension works like its suppose to.

 

I just thought you guys might like to see the suspension that I took out of the car. Someone who owned it before me slammed the poor Insight. When I got to the front suspension this is what I found. They had cut the springs and Zip tied everything together. As you could guess the car never touched the springs, it just rode on the bump stops front and rear. I drove this car 5 hours home and my back hurt for a week. I hate hellaflush kids. haha.

 

Subscribed for what appears to be a fantastic build.

 

Front Struts

Will the adjustable struts bolt to the Insight spindles or only to the Civic?

 

ZX1206, right now they will only fit with the Civic/RSX spindles. I am working with Fortune Auto to make a lower mount that will work with the Insight spindle.

Thanks,

 

Thank you,

I spent an hour or two trying to find info on my own answer. I think the info I found says the Insight bolt points are wider than the Civic. The person making the post said they milled 2mm off each side to make them fit. Does that sound accurate?

 

ZX1206, Not positive on the measurement but the Insight spindles are in fact wider than the Civic spindles. I have both and can measure them and compare.
I thought about modifying the Insight spindle in my project but there are other issues that I would need to resolve that weren’t worth the hassle.

Thanks,

 

Quite the build you have going sir! The total I milled of was 2.5mm from each side of the spindle, adding up to a total of 5mm. It really wasn't all that difficult, and took around 2hrs to do each side, including drilling new holes to accept the RSX tophats. The method I used was slightly different when it came to the tophat, as I had spacers cut out and anodized, instead of milling new parts to exact tolerance. Six of one, half dozen of the other I suppose.

 

So its been a month since my last update and I have been working as fast as I can on the project when the Race car allows it. Race cars are worse than significant others and need way too much attention.....Moving on.

I started preparing the engine to go into its new home. I did some general maintenance and cleaned up the 80K mile engine the best I could. I put it up on an stand and sprayed down with engine greaser. I used a wire brush to get off the heavy soils and that seemed to do the trick.




All Clean



I stated my engine mods by replacing the stock K24 VTC that is limited to 25 degrees with one from a 02-04 RSX that allows for 50 degrees of actuation. This should help me make a little more power down low in conjunction with my other mods, with no determent to the rest of the system. This was as easy as swapping the cam pulley.



Pulley on and timing all lined up.

 

moved this info to new post