[Balto]

We have no direct evidence of it without testing, but after reviewing camshaft snap stories a few years back I noticed there was speculation that it was oil starvation. But some photos showed clean engines which suggested that if this were a cause, it might not be the only one.

We asked @CherryBomb what her coolant tank looked like when she started her engine swap for a snapped cam, and I think she reported that it was dry. It has been reported that the temp gauge is insensitive to elevated temps. And when a car needs burping, the air trapped is at the highest point, in the head.

So could locally elevated temps in the head occur from an unnoticed slow coolant leak? And can that lead to bearing failure, seizing and a snapped camshaft? We won't know without testing.

But since I don't want to find out, and with what may be circumstantial evidence, I decided to mark the high and low temperature coolant points on a piece of tape stuck to the reservoir, and have a sticker in the fuel filler area reminding me to check the level at every fill-up. Because at 200K miles, a leak could spring up any time, something we also read about here. I check my oil level too.

No, it's a metallurgy problem. The cam keyway chips and it eventually slips on the cam gear. I'd need to see more spin camshafts to confirm, but it definitely isn't a cooling issue.

 

[stevevetter]

Checking ALL fluids every week is suggested on ALL vehicles.
In the OLD DAYS, when you got gas, you checked everything under the hood at the same time. IRW

I wouldn't worry about the timing belt, the G1 is chain driven.

I was going to add the part about G1 having a timing chain which is rock solid.

Also as a CVT owner maintaining 90 mph on the regular it only requires partial throttle to do so in most flat conditions, and CVT doesn't have lean burn.

@sasmyth , most of your points don't hold here. If you don't like somebody intent on going 90 most of the time then fine but most of the reasons you give don't hold.

@*sean* gives a better specific reason, though my experience with high-speed cross country trips is that the intended 'sustained 90 or 100 mph' tends to have lots of interruptions.

 

[insightbuyer]

One thing that I will mention from experience is a dead battery. When I did this same trip in the past NY to Las Vegas, I pulled over someplace to sleep in new mexico in the middle of nowhere, even though I was parked in a McDonalds.

I was just so tired I went right out and I forgot to turn off the lights. I believe I fell asleep with the car running and then turned the car off later without turning off the lights. I awoke to a dead battery.

Of course nobody had jumper cables as I was asking numerous people, but I walked through the desert a bit to a store and someone lent me a pair of jumper cables for a deposit.

I now have a LTO Lithium Ion battery as my 12 volt instead of a lead acid and I have installed a low voltage cutoff switch. This has already saved my battery twice from full discharge, once when I left an OBD2 reader connected to my OBD2 port and another time I left the dome lights on.



My last low voltage cutoff broke so I searched for another low voltage cutoff switch and I found another one on Amazon that I think will work well.

Amazon.com: 10-30V 80Amp Low Voltage Disconnect LVD Module, for 12V 18V 24V Battery : Automotive

Buy 10-30V 80Amp Low Voltage Disconnect LVD Module, for 12V 18V 24V Battery: Replacement Parts - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

I will set it to 12 or 13 volts, and that works well with my LTO battery which is fully charged at 14 volts. The starter motor is not connected through this device. Having this device is the nicest thing to have because you never have to worry about a dead battery. No more double checking everything when you leave the car.

 

[*sean*]

Oh, another reason, and not trying to rain on your parade, but you asked, and having seen one of these in the distance and arriving one minute after it happened... you can fix a broken fender but you can't fix a broken neck... I still remember this vividly enough more than 25 years later, and, well, you asked, and maybe this will make a difference.

Another reason not to be tooling around at 90 is the unexpected. Something mechanical could that could go wrong. There are so many old RE-92s around, that may or may not have been overinflated, and tend to delaminate. Or you could hit a puddle on one side and start rotating. Or a pothole or road debris. Or wildlife. Or another driver that does something unexpected. Or a small distraction. Or a brief moment of exhaustion. A rapid avoidance maneuver. Amplified perhaps by worn shocks or too much weight in the back. At 90 mph, such a situation could quickly lead to loss of control, taking out not just yourself but others who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The one I saw damn near took out traffic in the opposite direction. I helped the officer push the car, which had rolled 360 degrees, out of the fast lane in the opposite direction.

I don't think there is anywhere in the US currently where 90 MPH is legal. In some places, it's no-longer-a-traffic-violation illegal. For example, in Virginia, if you're doing 20 over or more than 85, this is considered reckless driving and is a class one misdemeanor, and no longer a traffic violation.

https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title46.2/chapter8/article7/

https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my-three-days-in-1613604053

Again, not trying to rain on your parade; this is simply relaying first hand experience of "what can go wrong".

 

[*sean*]

No, it's a metallurgy problem. The cam keyway chips and it eventually slips on the cam gear. I'd need to see more spin camshafts to confirm, but it definitely isn't a cooling issue.

I was referring to kind of failure shown in this post, where the snapped camshaft is next to a galled bearing that likely siezed: What causes camshaft failure?

So key failures are a thing, too? Great.

 

[doctorgonzo]

The Insight is the modern equivalent--the spiritual descendant of the 1930's Tatra. The Tatra was a Czechoslovakian make that built big sedans with small V8 engines, maybe somewhat like Ford's old flathead V8, but with very, very swoopy, Insight-like aerodynamic bodies. Whatever horsepower those old V8's Tatras made, they put it to the maximal use on the German autobahns. Once Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, the Tatar purportedly became a favorite of German officers, who would of course normally not pay market price for them and just seize them. Legend is that Tatras racing down the then-new German autobahn killed more German officers than combat or bullets did. The Insight, thanks to it's low coefficient of drag, and even with a switched-off IMA, belies how capable it is of traveling rapidly on America's interstate highways.

 

[insightbuyer]

The last time I drove in those south western states, the speed limit is something like 70 or 75mph, most cars push 80 to 85mph. To keep up with traffic as I remember you need to push about 80 mph.

Maybe things have changed but this surprised me and why I take the southern routes and not the mid country routes to las vegas.

Colorado is nightmare also for the insight because of the mountains. I remember stuck at like 35mph because of a dead ima battery.

 

[stevevetter]

One thing that I will mention from experience is a dead battery. When I did this same trip in the past NY to Las Vegas, I pulled over someplace to sleep in new mexico in the middle of nowhere, even though I was parked in a McDonalds.

I was just so tired I went right out and I forgot to turn off the lights. I believe I fell asleep with the car running and then turned the car off later without turning off the lights. I awoke to a dead battery.

Of course nobody had jumper cables as I was asking numerous people, but I walked through the desert a bit to a store and someone lent me a pair of jumper cables for a deposit.

I now have a LTO Lithium Ion battery as my 12 volt instead of a lead acid and I have installed a low voltage cutoff switch. This has already saved my battery twice from full discharge, once when I left an OBD2 reader connected to my OBD2 port and another time I left the dome lights on.



My last low voltage cutoff broke so I searched for another low voltage cutoff switch and I found another one on Amazon that I think will work well.

Amazon.com: 10-30V 80Amp Low Voltage Disconnect LVD Module, for 12V 18V 24V Battery : Automotive

Buy 10-30V 80Amp Low Voltage Disconnect LVD Module, for 12V 18V 24V Battery: Replacement Parts - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

I will set it to 12 or 13 volts, and that works well with my LTO battery which is fully charged at 14 volts. The starter motor is not connected through this device. Having this device is the nicest thing to have because you never have to worry about a dead battery. No more double checking everything when you leave the car.


View attachment 102113

Good point. I presumed (but recommend) but for any such trip one has an 'emergency bag' with some basic tools, flashlight, reflectors and or road flares, AND a modern small jump-box. If one is just working with the typical lead-acid battery, then the jump box makes one self sufficient and can get one out of a situation like this.

 

[atikovi]

Don't forget bail money.

 

[Dougie]

Checking ALL fluids every week is suggested on ALL vehicles.
In the OLD DAYS, when you got gas, you checked everything under the hood at the same time. IRW

Yeah but when driving across the country, you put on a month's worth of miles every day. Check the fluids every single morning. My wife always rolls her eyes when I go out to the hotel parking lot in the morning with a handful of tissues to check the oil, but it is worth the hassle!

 

[insightbuyer]

Just wanted to let you know how this 2600 mile trip went if anyone is interested. I have done this for the 3rd time since I owned the car since 2012. I drove the 2600 miles in about 50 hours straight, ouch.

The car was fine, and my complete transmission rebuild and clutch replacement I did just weeks before the trip also held up, which I was worried about this as I did a lot of work.

However, the insight is really not a great car if you want to push the normal 10MPH over the speed limit, which is around 85MPH in half my trip. Not having cruise control is a nightmare, especially if you have a sensitive right knee. I basically had to hold the gas pedal to the floor in 5th for most of the trip, with downshifting constantly to 4th and sometimes 3rd, just to maintain over 50MPH. My MPG for the trip was around 51 MPG. Mountain areas are a nightmare to drive in, especially when you are tired, knee hurts, and its just painful to shift and constantly modulate the gas pedal.

Of course I had to disable my assist because the battery would just drain at those speeds and its better to just disable the assist.

If I do this trip again with this car, I will install a cruise control module. I will then probably just throw the car in 4th in many parts of the trip to not have to even deal with constant down shifting. When you have such a long trip you don't really care about MPG at that point, you just want to get through it as fast as possible as it gets a bit painful towards the end. I may even just leave it in 3rd to maintain the 75MPH speed limit in parts.

At this point, I wonder why should I just not get a Tesla with a 500 mile range. Insight was great in the past, but now I question why I even bother with it when a Tesla offers much better MPG, decent range where I don't mind stopping to charge every 400 miles, much much more power, plus I can get the cybertruck which has much more room and I still get a eMPG of around 100. The autopilot would also be great and could have saved me the few times I was falling asleep also during the trip.

The insight to me is just basically becoming more obsolete and when I see Tesla cars I really feel this. I feel the insight in the past was a cool technologically sophisticated car that had the best MPG on the road, now it doesn't even offer that with Tesla cars beating it out in every way.

The only thing I really like about the insight now is that nobody would ever want to steal this thing so I don't have to worry about that, and the frame is aluminum and so I don't have to worry about it rusting. I will just keep the insight as the car I use when I need to park in places I wouldn't trust leaving a more expensive car.

 

[mudder]

I never use 5th gear at higher speeds... 4th gear for hours is more pleasant than constantly downshifting.
I looked at getting a Tesla a couple years back... it would add five hours of charging to twelve hour trip, which would make it two days instead of one. Keep in mind a Tesla going 100 mph is only going to have around 130 miles of range.

 

[Balto]

Just wanted to let you know how this 2600 mile trip went if anyone is interested. I have done this for the 3rd time since I owned the car since 2012. I drove the 2600 miles in about 50 hours straight, ouch.

The car was fine, and my complete transmission rebuild and clutch replacement I did just weeks before the trip also held up, which I was worried about this as I did a lot of work.

However, the insight is really not a great car if you want to push the normal 10MPH over the speed limit, which is around 85MPH in half my trip. Not having cruise control is a nightmare, especially if you have a sensitive right knee. I basically had to hold the gas pedal to the floor in 5th for most of the trip, with downshifting constantly to 4th and sometimes 3rd, just to maintain over 50MPH. My MPG for the trip was around 51 MPG. Mountain areas are a nightmare to drive in, especially when you are tired, knee hurts, and its just painful to shift and constantly modulate the gas pedal.

Of course I had to disable my assist because the battery would just drain at those speeds and its better to just disable the assist.

If I do this trip again with this car, I will install a cruise control module. I will then probably just throw the car in 4th in many parts of the trip to not have to even deal with constant down shifting. When you have such a long trip you don't really care about MPG at that point, you just want to get through it as fast as possible as it gets a bit painful towards the end. I may even just leave it in 3rd to maintain the 75MPH speed limit in parts.

At this point, I wonder why should I just not get a Tesla with a 500 mile range. Insight was great in the past, but now I question why I even bother with it when a Tesla offers much better MPG, decent range where I don't mind stopping to charge every 400 miles, much much more power, plus I can get the cybertruck which has much more room and I still get a eMPG of around 100. The autopilot would also be great and could have saved me the few times I was falling asleep also during the trip.

The insight to me is just basically becoming more obsolete and when I see Tesla cars I really feel this. I feel the insight in the past was a cool technologically sophisticated car that had the best MPG on the road, now it doesn't even offer that with Tesla cars beating it out in every way.

The only thing I really like about the insight now is that nobody would ever want to steal this thing so I don't have to worry about that, and the frame is aluminum and so I don't have to worry about it rusting. I will just keep the insight as the car I use when I need to park in places I wouldn't trust leaving a more expensive car.

Bruh WHAT? Why were you in 5th gear at 85??? I do 75-80 out here in Cali constantly (which has a lot of hills), and I basically lived in 4th when I was running the stock trans. I would never use 5th for extended periods above 75, you're just asking for constant up-down-up-down shifting. Things are different now with my HCH frankentrans, but yea. You tortured yourself for no reason.

 

[Calpod]

I happen to have both vehicles and if it's just me and my wife for a 12 hour trip I would take the Insight every time, unless I need the extra space or have a 3rd person with us.

You can't beat Autopilot for long trips.

 

[stevevetter]

Okay I'm 53 years old and have some of the usual stuff including weird stuff like I had a stroke at 36 and left side weakness all around. That being said it's not so severe that I don't competitively race in Spec Miata and other platforms.

If you're making long distance trips or even commutes and complaining about pain and knees or legs and one in cruise control, you just need to accept the fact that you're old and you need an older cushy car for most of your needs.

An average healthy person should be able to drive, to their tolerance of being awake, long stints and whatever vehicle they plan to drive otherwise it's just not for them.

Done plenty of 30 to 40 hour straight stints all by myself in my insight, my S2000, and a CRX all within the last five years or so.

And I'm a fierce anti-cruise control person as you are taking away one of your focuses on controlling your vehicle and therefore also being aware. Until we have enough good self-driving vehicles (of which I'm also a firm believer and I believe it'll be here sooner than most people do) using a tool like cruise control to take your foot off the brake and or gas is just one step closer just saying take your hands off the wheel and fall asleep.

Glad to hear the car held up well.

 

[BruceinLA]

Bruh WHAT? Why were you in 5th gear at 85??? I do 75-80 out here in Cali constantly (which has a lot of hills), and I basically lived in 4th when I was running the stock trans. I would never use 5th for extended periods above 75, you're just asking for constant up-down-up-down shifting. Things are different now with my HCH frankentrans, but yea. You tortured yourself for no reason.

No tesla goes 500 miles, or even 400 miles on a single charge. No EV does. EPA range is not real life use.

EV range is shady. The MFG says only charge to 80%, and run it below 20% before charging in day to day ops.

That means you are only using 60% of the EPA MAX range, so if Tesla says the EPA estimated range is 300 miles, you "use" 180 miles of range most of the time, this is why a home level 2 charger is so handy.

You can charge to 100% if you drive off immediately, like on a long trip, and you can drive to 0% if you feel lucky in that charging will be available exactly when you need it... but hvac use will cut into range, as will cold temperatures.

The best all around compromise is still a Hybrid, maybe an Accord if comfort is important.

 

[insightbuyer]

I never would have thought many of you would keep it in 4th, I figured most would try to push the max mpg, which would be just keeping the car in 5th most of the time as it seems that has the highest MPG on the dashboard. That being said, I'm going to be keeping it in 4th as I don't really care for the money savings as much as I used to.

I'm really considering the Cybertruck and they will have a 500 mile version. I figure, on these long trips to stretch out the charge to 80% or 90%. I have a lot of experience with batteries and always keep my charge rates around 60%, but its fine to push 80% when necessary, like on a cross country trip you do very rarely.

That is why I mentioned the 400 miles. The range may very well be less when pushing 80MPH.

 

[Tynow]

I agree with the sentiment above. If I'm going any faster than 70-72 MPH, fifth gear is not a viable option.

When we had the mid-atlantic meetup this last fall I got my first chance to drive through some real mountains with the Insight, and I can tell you that fifth gear was only used if I was on the downhill grade.

My commute to work on a 65mph highway has a ~100ft elevation delta start to finish. When going downhill I'll use fifth, but on the way home I usually stick to fourth.