Driving w Ima disabled, behavior of Auxiliary Starter

I tried to recreate the problem where the auxiliary starter strains to start, and wont, but I couldnt make it do it tonight.

I had a previous theory that it might help to hold the clutch half way, turn the key all the way, then depress the clutch all the way, somehow delivering a higher voltage to the auxiliary starter and making it function well.

Now, because it is starting strongly everytime, I want to say that the change might have been that by manipulating the 12v battery contacts, and making a better connection, that made the difference to make the auxiliary starter work stronger.

I only saw one ghosty thing, that i couldnt recreate. I have a little cigarette plug voltage meter. and while i was messing w starting it again and again tonight... this one time i saw it sit at a reading of like 11.4volts. I cant remember exactlly what happened, and if i did turn the key when it read 11.4. But i could never make it read low again, and it was always reading like 12.2 with the system all powered up, in the II? key position, where its powered but your not turning it to start. The cigarette outlet voltage meter always reads about .2 lower than what you would see on a multimeter at the battery, is what has seemed to happen in the past.

Cheers yall

Whoa, whoops, I wrote this last night and never clicked post. New interesting mystery incoming after this post.

Thank you eq1. I am curious to see that "feature" happen. Im assuming you have to be holding the key to start position, while you let the clutch back out. Just for any passing by readers, I think that only applys to cars that are set up as they normally would be involving the IMA. I dont think ive ever seen the IMA electric motor start the car, when you are in the IMA disabled mode which I am in, with HV battery main switch off, and the forward 2 bcm plugs pulled out.

I forgot to add that my 12v battery is only about 2 years old, and i dont think I abused it to bad. I might have let it get low when i wasnt driving the car much, but I think I noticed in time and put a trickle charger on it.

My new theory i thought of today is that when I had a slight scare on monday when the car didnt start right away, I might have let the 12v get low bc my drive home from work was so sluggish (getting in and out of DC is a bumpy maze) and I sat at stop lights frequently and even though i was driving an hour or more, maybe the time at the lights with only the radio on and no fan or ac, was enough to take my battery down a bit.

Heres a question for yall.... for a 12v battery.... if you put your multimeter on it and read say 12.8 volts... This related to how many Joules of energy are in the battery, but not an exact reading of energy. So since there are different cells in the 12v battery, couldn't you get a reading of again, say 12.8 volts, but with a few cells out of balance, your battery is a bit low on energy, relative to a battery w balanced cells that also reads 12.8 volts?

I try not to be a consumer, but it makes me wonder if one of these new fangled little battery packs would be good for a G1 Insight driver who wants to go disabled IMA for a while. looks like theres a lot of cheap ones on ebay for around 50 bucks. I assume the cheap ones arent that well made. Does anyone know if you can plug one of those power banks into your cigarette lighter plug, and have it be in parallel w your 12v car battery and add a boost of voltage/power, without having to open the hood and connect the red and black clamps?

Haha this sounds wreckless, but it would be interesting to just rig a harness for your 18v Makita/Milwakee etc tool batterys ====> rig it to your cigarette ligther and give some voltage just for starting up, in IMA disable mode. Then switch it off quick. That way you eliminate the possiblity of some Yuppie thinking your Honda sucks bc you needed a quick jump from someone.

Since Ive got my little cigarette plug voltage reader, today and in the future when in heavy traffic, I think im gonna not worry about my mpgs and just e brake and rev the engine to 1300+ where it starts to give out about 14 volts.

Oh speaking of, for people who want to run without ima, you might want to learn the e brake start trick. You might need it if your going off a stop light and going up hill. You are in first gear but the clutch is in, you hold the car from rolling backwards with the ebrake, then rev the engine and let out the clutch, and drop the ebrake. Its just so you dont bog the engine from the car rolling back a bit.

Just in case someones new. If youre in ima disabled, driving from a stop light, you want to rev to around 3 - 3.5k in first gear but not hit 4000. Over 4000, the car makes too much voltage and shuts off power to the 12v. the red battery light and e brake red light come on. Although they go away in about 40 seconds, it can make you nervous. After 3.5k in first you take a bit of a deep breath and wait, but it takes a while for the engine to spin back down to the ~ 1700, 1900 rpm where 2nd gear wants to be. Thats the main problem of this ima disabled mode, you dont have much power and are often bogged down. You need to get good at double clutching into 2nd. You generally have to rev in neutral higher than you expect. Someone wrote it up really well, but I think to down shift to 2nd at 30 mph, you have to rev a touch over 3000.

Gonna trickle charge a bit. Cyall round

So theres some spooky mystery behavior. 2 times on my long slow commute today, I was watching my cigarette lighter plug voltage meter, and with the engine revved up over 2k etc, it wasnt showing the 14.2 volts that It usually would. It goes to 12.2 volts. After I stopped and restarted it was working the right way this morning, but it did it on the way home, and I stopped and restarted, and then it was normal for 5 minutes but then went pretty weird. It would read 12.2 a while, then go to 14.2 for a sec, then go down, then show 13.8 etc for a bit.

On the way home i really wanted to keep my battery charged up so, at stop lights I would rev the engine a touch to see it charging at 14.2. This leads to my first wild guess... could there be something that is sensing that the 12v battery is getting too high, and the car is intentionally discharging it? My second wild guess is that, with the ima system disabled, the ima system electronics occasionally try ? diagnose it self, and this uses a lot of power and drains the battery...

I should get advance auto to check my 12volt just to know.

Oh one last weird thing. I had to get gas so Id have enough to drive to work tomorrow, so I risked it and went to the gas station while this weird stuff was happening. Again it strained and would start. Again a nice man tried to help me push start it, but again as I was about to clutch pop start it, I just turned the key all the way and it started up pretty strong... I didnt do the clutch drop start. Why would the wheels turning a bit make the car start pretty strong, instead of strain?

It doesnt seem good for the car, but I had never clutch drop started the car before so I did it on a hill in my neighboorhood. In case someone else has never done it before. Rolling at 5 mph seems to be plenty to pop start the engine. And so your not lurching the car, you just drop the clutch real quick, and step it back in, in about half a second.... you dont really leave it in first, you just use that to roll the engine over, then go back to clutch in idle.

Hope someone thinks this is helpful or interesting. C'yall

Quackman40 said:

Thank you eq1. I am curious to see that "feature" happen. Im assuming you have to be holding the key to start position, while you let the clutch back out. Just for any passing by readers, I think that only applys to cars that are set up as they normally would be involving the IMA.

Click to expand...

That's right, not an issue if you've bypassed. I probably shouldn't even have mentioned it, I wasn't thinking closely enough about your problem/s. As far as holding the key in start position, no, as I recall it happens with key at position II.

A few points about the rest of your rambles:

-DCDC drops into low power mode off and on, under various circumstances, where it will only uphold about 12.2V. It doesn't do it if you have headlights ON, it does it more often than not if you have climate control OFF. You can defeat that 'feature' (low power mode) entirely by disconnecting a wire (WHT/GRN, or maybe GRN/WHT) at the DCDC grey connector in the IMA compartment. A lot of people do that when they go IMA disable.

-Having drained the 12V battery more than usual, as you mentioned, could very well be one of your problems.

-I've never been crystal clear on whether an IMA bypass with switch OFF + 2 BCM connectors pulled prevents the ultimate DCDC disable when the IMA pack is too drained. Sounds like it might not. The DCDC will disable if one of the stick-pairs in the pack falls too low in voltage, which essentially means at least one cell goes empty. Seems like that kind of disable would be averted if you've pulled the BCM tap connector. And I think it might disable if the overall voltage is too low. But it also seems like that would be averted with tap connector pulled (there's no total pack voltage, at least from BCM). In any event, you probably need to do a more serious bypass, or at least it wouldn't hurt. You disconnect the pack entirely... Here's a link to an older thread that I'm pretty sure covers it, or you can search "IMA bypass" and peruse stuff: IMA bypass adapter

Actually, this is a link to just the last post in the thread, a sort of later summary.

-lithium jump starter pack: get one, even the cheap ones work fine. I think I bought one from walmart, an "Everstart," for like $40 or so.

-Here's a link about using cigarette lighter for supplementary 12V power, I made a little lithium pack for that purpose, almost never used it, was a pain, etc. I don't know if there's anything on the market that'd work similarly: DIY lithium IMA 'jump-starter'

Thank you Eq1. You saved me alot of stress and I can finish my work week, knowing that I just need to have the lights on and it wont go into the weird mode where it wont charge the 12 volt.


Did anyone figure out why the car does this strange thing when your ima is disabled? The thing where instead of charging 14.2 when your rpms are up, it cuts it out and goes to 12.2...

When my jobs finished Im gonna grid charge and go back to normal for a bit. Although with out my clutch switch to disable max braking regen, I think im hurting the old battery. Oh I suppose if i have to stop quick, I could just go to neutral, and use only ceramic brakes.

Thank you for the home made jumpstart pack link. You guys are a lot better at electronics than me.

Is the discussion based on you having a light weight 12v battery made out of nickel metal hydride sticks, to save weight vs a lead acid battery?

Does anyone know what happens if you connect too much voltage to a lead acid battery, but only for a short amount of time? Say 20v dc... As I always have my tool batteries with me for work, it would be cool to learn of other uses for them.

Out of curiosity. What would happen if you ghetto fashioned a connector from a 18 volt tool battery, and aligator clipped it to your 12v lead acid? The battery would be taking charge so wouldnt the overall 12v car system just see like 13 volts or so, and climb as the battery charges? If the car is made to see 14.2 V when driving, even if it did see 18v doesnt seem that different. Besides the car trying to protect itself, I dont see how a few more volts would start burning up wires. But im probably being ignorant here.

I have a lot of schooling but it seems Ive settled into a more caveman approach of life, as the quote goes, " The school of experience is expensive, but fools will learn no other way."

I have an old deep cycle battery sitting around, im curious now to charge it with a normal charger to 12v + , then hook a makita battery to it, and see what my multimeter reads.

Could anyone give an answer to why the car does the jittery chirping, when trying to use the auxiliary starter but there is not quite enough voltage? Why does the insight sound this way? does it just have a small starter for a small engine with a weaker solenoid? Usually a half way dead battery on a car, makes the solenoid go in a touch and snap back, and make a very loud click click clack. Thanks yall