After searching for about a month I was able to come across this 2000 Honda Insight, 5 speed manual with ac and cruise control. I was able to pick it up for pretty cheap ($1400) due to a non charging ima battery. It has a 174k miles and overall is in pretty good shape. Driving my Escalade at an average of 16mpg over 20k miles this last year has killed my wallet. This car should pay for itself in savings in about 6 months. I travel all over oregon to do mobile tuning as well as I enjoy the outdoors allot, hiking, camping and just taking road trips for fun. Due to bad ima battery it was not charging the 12v battery so I found a write up online about cutting two wires for the dc-dc converter and sure enough that fixed it enough to be able to drive and charge. I plan on removing the ima battery, bcm and mcm to help reduce unnecessary weight as I just plan on using the car on the gas engine. I would love to build a lto battery pack down the road but that will depend on total price of the battery conversion. Other option would be a k20 swap with an accord 5 speed but that will be down the road as well. For now I'm enjoying the 47mpg in town in traffic in winter. I've been able to pull mid 70s on the freeway as well.

This car will remain mostly stock besides a few little things. It's getting all mb quart speakers and a single 10" powered sub. I have added a partial radiator block off for winter and was lucky that the previous owner also had purchased a few parts from Honda that were missing/ broken including one of the front splats for the driver side as well as a trunk latch assembly.

So far I've been very impressed with the handling of this car. It really is super fun to drive. It could definitely use a bit more power especially down low since the ima is no longer working but it's still enjoyable to try to pull the most mpg out of the car.

Both feel great. The tranny seems to have either a bad input shaft or bad main shaft bearing so I plan to replace that down the road and throw in new 1st gear synchros but other then that it shifts great. Just deleted the rear wiper arm and motor on the car, never been a big fan of rear wipers on hatch backs. Also aired the tires up to 60psi from 32/38 that they were at and that made a huge difference in how the car feels. It feels lighter and more responsive and I'm sure I will pick up some more fuel efficiency from it as well.

Just pulled the ima battery today to relieve the car of the excess dead weight. It tested at 0 volts at the terminals. I'm gonna see if I can find someone local who has a grid charger and see if it's save able if not I'll see if anyone wants to buy the pack to mod or use the case. The car feels a good bit better with out the pack now.

Also going to build a small spoiler for the rear hatch ill be posting pictures when it's done.

After a couple weeks of driving it I went through my first tank of gas at 440.3miles from 9.512 gallons. Some insight owners consider this poor fuel economy but honestly it very happy with the car. Allot of this driving was in town, in traffic and done in short trips. The only gripe I have is the lack of power the car has especially from 1k-2.5k rpms. It feels pretty dead down low.

ive been brain storming on what engine to put in it thinking first I'd like to go k series like quite a few others have but just last night a lightbulb in my head went off, why not just put a really basic turbo d series in it. The insight hubs appear to be the same sized splines as crx hf knuckles are. The hardest part would be the mounts which really shouldn't be that bad and the cool thing is once it's setup for d series I could easily swap a b series into it if I felt the need too. I can find complete d series swaps for about 200 local, as for the wiring I would run a ek engine harness 96-98 or 99-00 and I would only have to run a few wires (just did an engine harness this way on my crx drag car. I'm planning on a d16z6 or d16y8 with a evo 8 16g turbo on it. I believe I could easily make 200-220whp reliably and maintain pretty decent fuel economy. That much power would make a car this light capable of 12 second passes all day long which is plenty for a little daily.

I weighed my car last night after removing the ima battery. It was 1750 without me in it and about a 1/4 tank of fuel. With me it was 1950 and I'm 175lbs so it's probably closer to 1775lbs. I really enjoy this car but even a stock z6 or y8 would be a huge upgrade in terms of power output. I plan on trying to source a dx tranny, shouldn't be very hard. Most people around here sell d series for next to nothing. Interested in people's feedback. I Could tune the car my self as that's what I've been doing for a living since 2010 and I know I could lean out cruising as well as most areas of light throttle to help with fuel economy.

Backwards in technology but it will be very simplified platform that I know very well. What appeals to me is the ease of replacement parts, potential to make power and massive aftermarket support. Only way I would want to go k series is with kpro and that alone would cost more then a full healthy d series swap. Just because it's older doesn't mean it can't make power as well as fuel economy. Plus the d series complete swap will be very equal in weight to the current engine and ima stuff and keeping the cars weight down is a big priority for me.

as for the engine being the wrong way around, I don't see why that particularly matters to be honest. The battery will have to be moved regaurdless and custom mounts will be made either way. I don't see anything that would really cause clearance issues on a d16z6 or d16y8. Those engines are very compact and should fit in without issue. I see it as more of building a more modern crx that has creature comforts and safety features but still in the same light weight package that a gutted crx would provide.

While that's true for naturally aspirated builds I have to slightly disagree when it comes to forced inductions potential. I used to have a ls turbo eg hatch that made 314whp with 280tq and had peak torque from about 3800-6500. I know single cams aren't known for having gobs of low end torque but it's also going to be pushing a really light car in the first place. K series are great, I'm not trying to knock them but cost vs benifit ratio what I want this car to do I think a d series will be great for it. I will get it up and running naturally aspirated firstand check to see what I can get for mileage out of it before turboing it. Odds are I will go with fairly small injectors that atomize well. I had a ef sedan with a turbo mini me on dsm 390cc auto injectors that was able to pull 44.6mpg from a tank with a si tranny and quite a few pulls done as well. It wasn't fast but it was fun to drive and best of all I didn't have to down shift to 3rd gear on large hills like I do with this 3 banger lol.

I wouldn't be opposed to either. The z1 motors are pretty funny when you tune them on a chipped p28 the cross over to vtec sounds just like a b series lol, without going anywhere. And yeah this thing is a turd lol. But my awd crx should be up and running soon and I hope to daily that a little and enjoy it.

So I picked up a y8 tranny, d16a6 Bottom end and d16y8 head for a total of $100. After cleaning the parts I started thinking and I think you are right ryan, I am going to try to trade the y8 trans for a cx/vx trans and look for a z1 or y5 head and hopefully trade my y8 head for it. Once my awd crx is up and running I'll rebuild the a6 with just new rings and bearings and make sure everything is good to go in it as I source the proper head and tranny.

Yeah I actually had a dream about this the other night after reading about pumping losses. That's when I decided to try to find a vx/cx trans.


Last tank I got 517 miles on 9.44 gallons, this was mostly city with a trip to Eugene and back. 54.6mpg on the ice engine only in winter and traffic and it seems to improve each time I drive it because I'm learning how to drive the car better each day.

Picked up a d16a6 bottom end, d16y8 head and y8 tranny for $100 total. Been working on the head, ported the exhaust and will be polishing them to reduce any carbon build up. I also dimpled the intake ports to hope to atomize fuel better and did a little blending on the port to valve seat area. Not looking for max flow out of it just hoping to pick up what ever easy power there is to be had from some time with my tools. I plan to have the cam reground so where each right hand side valve has about half as much lift until vtec further aiding the swirl effect that the y8 ports already have. Pretty positive 45mpg in town will be easy to achieve even beating on it from time to time.

I have some exhaust that came off a customers Integra that has 3 inline resonators on it I will use for the bulk of it. Also the turbo will quiet it up a good amount.

As for the head ill just relap the valves, verify that they are all sealing and do new stem seals. It's not worth the money to put new guides and seats into it. I've fixed much worse seats that that by lapping valves plenty of times.

Tore my y8 transmission down to inspect it. I bought it being told the gears were all good but it made bearing noise. I found that only the input shaft bearing needs replaced which I figured right off the bat. I also installed a phantom grip lsd, first time using one so I will definitely give an unbiased review of it once the swap is in. I also steam cleaned the transmission case, it was pretty gross before, I should have taken a before pic. I decided that I wanted to keep the shorter gearing because I do a lot of in town driving and wanted the car to be more fun. I calculated out the difference in 45mpg vs 80 mpg and going from regular to premium and it looks like about an extra $10 a week, I can live with that, anything will be better then this 3 cylinder running in the somewhat limp mode you get from deleting the battery without running an audrino.

Yeah I figured for $30 it was worth a try. If it doesn't do anything I'm out $30 I guess.

phantom grip, works so good you'll never even know it's there, lol.

. And yes the insights limp mode and 4K battery lights are two of the big reasons why I wanna put a different motor in it. I know just being able to tune my a6/y8 it will be 100x more responsive and just much more of a joy to drive. This 3 cylinder wouldn't be so bad if it ran to its potential but it's definitely handicapped and it's getting old.

Been a bit since I've done anything to the Insight. Today I lowered it, I got a set of tien lowering springs from a newer Hyundai Genesis and ended up using the rear springs cut in half for the front and rear. Pretty happy with how it sits, the rear spring rate is a bit more then the old shocks can handle. I built some shock extenders so the rear struts are at full extension when the coil springs are just barely touching top and bottom spring perches. Unfortunately I broke the driver side outter tie rod when tightening it too much with my impact on reassembly. New one will be in tomorrow morning so no big deal. Happy it broke when I was putting it back together as it was more then likely already weak.