Grid Charger
Grid charger owners and location, as well as some service links for hybrid services
Grid charger code V3.0 manual
Understanding the charging and balancing process
Pack discharger
SOC reset device
Insight Battery pack lifter
Grid charger test adapters
Reprogramming the charger
Installing the Genesis One Universal grid charger in an Insight
Installing the Genesis One Universal grid charger in a First Gen Civic
Harness options
The Universal Grid Charger
MIMA Pack Whack and rebalancing the battery
Mikes Insight
EV Insight with a Prius heart
Grid charger Operating Instructions V1.2
Designing a PHEV system for the Civics, Insight 1 and 2 ------------Micro V-Buck PHEV
Doug's V-Boost
Randall's Insight
Paul's Adventures in alternative evergy
Western Washington University X-Prize car
BlueBird1
Finding The Best Hybrid Mix
E-wheel for any vehicle

Engine Blanket 10/23/07

A brief rundown of the first round trip commute with the blanket.
All temps settle out nicely, after a few miles on the open road. Leaving the garage and getting through town, things are up and down, but once into the cruise then everything starts flat-lining. The reading at the clutch housing is a steady climber over the length of the commute, up to ~150(F) at shutdown. During the in bound comuute, I tapped out of MIMA and let the IMA do some charging to see if that would spike the temp in the housing any. It did seem to make it rise at a faster rate, but still no spike in the display, just a slow steady rise. I also blasted(for me) up some hills at 50 amps of MIMA joy, but still no spike. The 4 probes in the cat area, hang together at ~200 during the cruise. Not much wind to speak of on the drive or during the shutdown period.
OBD coolant ~195/200(F). I regulate the coolant temp with the climate controls(interior radiator) and the passengers window. I'm still running the full radiator block.
Shutdown ambient 47.4(F).

So after the commute shutdown:
Shutdown for 10hr27m.
Ambient 36.2
Inside the blanket: highs of 53.7 and 53.9 at the clutch housing and #2 coil pak. Low of 45.5 at the lower O2 sensor wires. About the same at the CV boot. This area at the lower end of the cat is open kinda like that pesky hospital gown thing. The blanket just wraps around from the sides, although it is zipped around the bottom panel, and pretty well closed/zipped up on the top. This is where the fresh intake air is drawn in across the cat on the way to the air fliter.
OBD coolant temp 63(F).

The area that has my attention at this point is the intake air. I have been experimenting with somewhat superheated intake air over the past year, and I have seen IAT on OBD between 160-170(F). As for optimizing FE, it appears to me that anything above ~120-125 does neither good nor harm. With the blanket around everything, the (IAT) is settling in on the 170 in a steady cruise. This is more than I want to run constantly. I have already made a manual change in the intake air supply for the next round trip commute test. I don't have an adjustable, automatic damper setup,....yet; to regulate the cold and warm air mix; but I do have some hardware options that can be changed quickly.

I did a visual underhood inspection of the blanket while making the change in the intake air. Nothing to report there. I figured there may be some wear where the front axles exit the blanket, but no noticable damage yet. I have some more of that conveyor belt material that I had intented to make wear guards out of, but I thought to hold off for awhile and let the wear, tell me just exactly where.