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proawemike
proawemike New Reader
9/10/15 10:44 a.m.
DirtyDiesel wrote: wow, I wish I had HALF the fab skills you have, truly impressive work. With all the extra engineering you put into this, it would be great if you could sell these updated mounts or the plans to make them so that others could benefit from your additional work. I've been wanting to do this swap forever but I'm not good at fabrication. This looks like the perfect do everything car, I've always wanted a CRX but now they are so old you are replacing everything and scared to drive it in the winter, with the insight you could do everything with it and not be too afraid of finding replacement parts. Great work!

I have always enjoyed CRXs as well. The big thing I hate the most about older cars is rust. With this car that is something you dont need to worry about which is really nice.

spoolin
spoolin New Reader
9/14/15 9:53 a.m.

Why didn't you just send the mounts back and start from scratch with your own. I picked my project kswap insight up yesterday. It came with the factory mounts for the 1.0l. I thought rather than buy innovative mounts I could cobble something together with the factory insight mounts and the factory Kseries mounts.

ProAweMike
ProAweMike New Reader
9/15/15 11:43 a.m.
spoolin wrote: Why didn't you just send the mounts back and start from scratch with your own. I picked my project kswap insight up yesterday. It came with the factory mounts for the 1.0l. I thought rather than buy innovative mounts I could cobble something together with the factory insight mounts and the factory Kseries mounts.

The stock Insight mounts are very soft and the rear mount has a tendency to fail with the stock 63hp the insight makes. With the kseries they would be useless in short order.

I tried to use the stock mounts before I started to modify these but RSX or TSX mounts, but they don't come close to lining up at all. I got a really good deal on the mounts so I decided to cut them up as they at least gave me a starting point and would save me some time.

spoolin
spoolin New Reader
10/30/15 12:10 p.m.

Whats going on proawemike?

84FSP
84FSP HalfDork
10/30/15 9:33 p.m.

Needs more updates! Love the plan.

proawemike
proawemike New Reader
11/25/15 3:25 p.m.

I would like to apologize for the slow updates. Many things have been happening with the car I just haven't had much time to upload the photos and make posts.

With the mounts completed I wanted to move over and work on the front spindles. For the spindles I decided to go with EM2 civic parts. These spindles and hubs will work perfectly with my custom suspension components and will also accept the larger axles that are used with the K-swap.

I started with some well used parts off a 2003 Civic EX. I popped the bearings out in order to start the rebuilding process.

 photo IMG_20150802_142157116_zpsgbcetfjs.jpg

From there I cleaned up everything in a sandblaster and came away with some very nice looking parts.

 photo IMG_20150802_212239096_zps9rkg9pwf.jpg

Now that everything is clean we are ready for some paint and reassembly. I went with a standard black chassis paint, just to keep everything clean. Now to press in some quality bearings.

 photo IMG_20150809_150151434_zpsucfnodtc.jpg

Now the snap ring.

 photo IMG_20150809_151555010_zpsihk3tbxi.jpg

Unfortunately this is where I failed and didn't get anymore pictures until I was done. So here are the uprights in all their glory with a new bearings, ball joint and new high strength wheel studs.

 photo IMG_20150809_161723527_zpsarw5cj7f.jpg

HunterBenz
HunterBenz New Reader
11/25/15 5:03 p.m.

This project is awesome. Nice fab skills too!

wheelsmithy
wheelsmithy GRM+ Memberand HalfDork
11/25/15 6:22 p.m.
proawemike wrote: I would like to apologize for the slow updates. Many things have been happening with the car I just haven't had much time to upload the photos

You just dispense the eye candy that is this thread at whatever pace suits you. Always informative and trick.

Maniac0301
Maniac0301 New Reader
11/26/15 11:22 a.m.

One wonders if there isn't a relationship to a couple of muppets in Shropshire. The writing style is very similar. Awesome build thread the work looks amazing, the goals are lofty, and the end result should be very cool and full of sleeper goodness.

84FSP
84FSP HalfDork
11/26/15 9:00 p.m.

Loving this - the fab work and thought put in are epic.

proawemike
proawemike New Reader
12/3/15 11:22 p.m.

Next up is the S2000 cluster install. I decided to go with an AP1 S2000 cluster as the Tach is centered leaving the temp and fuel gauges on each side. The symmetry appeases my OCD the way an AP2 cluster never could. I wanted to make a jumper harness instead of cutting up the stock harness just in case I decide to change something in the future.

Here is the stock Insight cluster for reference.

 photo IMG_20150617_204133664_zpsq6g0dacd.jpg

I started by finding connectors that were the mating pairs for the wiring in the insight.

 photo IMG_20150818_193750925_zpsb5v0et5a.jpg

I then took the pigtails and the wiring diagrams from each car and started to solder the jumper together.

I ended up with this mess. I really need to clean this part up.

 photo IMG_20150818_193808397_zpseibkmse5.jpg

To ensure that the S2000 cluster outputs correctly, a converter is generally needed. The white Molex connector at the bottom connects to a K-tuned dash converter in order to manipulate the signals and convert to the correct values.

 photo k-tuned-s2000-dash-speedo-converter_zpsdy5ffxof.jpg

Now that I have a plug and play harness I need to get this cluster mounted. I needed to fill in some space as the S2000 cluster is smaller than the stock Insight cluster. I used a piece of abs to make a surround to fill in that difference in area.

 photo 019d2575-8c37-438b-9785-72d6c56561b7_zpsflv9jqdd.jpg

Next I needed a way to mount the cluster as it sat back further in the housing so I measured and 3D printed some stand offs.

 photo IMG_20150819_221010997_zpsdyndjh71.jpg

You can see here how the stand offs hold the cluster at its bottom mounting locations. I allowed a for a little bit of adjustment with the slots which helped line everything up.

 photo IMG_20150819_221907585_zpsrd96b49j.jpg

Here the cluster is in place, the surround is glued on for a final time and I am ready to reinstall the dash to hold it all together.

 photo 1664eb4e-98c7-4949-8dd5-c942928d35ac_zpskizibodg.jpg

The dash holds the top part of the cluster in place ensuring it wont move. With the surround and dash it place it looks like it was meant to be there......Kinda.... haha

 photo IMG_20150819_223202431_zpshl6umqmb.jpg

And here it is all powered up ready to go. Can't wait to rev out that tech.

 photo IMG_20150820_212310486_zpsofhvqwja.jpg

DaewooOfDeath
DaewooOfDeath SuperDork
12/4/15 12:35 a.m.

This car is going to be awesome.

Kind of cool/disappointing that you can make a hybrid more fun, faster and probably cheaper to build, without losing efficiency, by getting rid of the hybrid parts.

proawemike
proawemike New Reader
12/4/15 8:05 a.m.
DaewooOfDeath wrote: This car is going to be awesome. Kind of cool/disappointing that you can make a hybrid more fun, faster and probably cheaper to build, without losing efficiency, by getting rid of the hybrid parts.

If I was really looking for a challenge I would figure out a way to use a LiPo battery and integrate some small hub motors on the rear wheels. I am sure you could get some extra economy and functionality out of it.

jfryjfry
jfryjfry New Reader
12/4/15 8:45 a.m.

Photos no worky :(

Acme Lab Rat
Acme Lab Rat New Reader
12/4/15 9:03 a.m.

Switch to imgur, man!

proawemike
proawemike New Reader
12/4/15 9:26 a.m.

Fixing the issue now. Come back in a bit and everything should be correct. Sorrrrrrrryyyyyyyyy

proawemike
proawemike New Reader
12/4/15 1:59 p.m.

All fixed sorry for the issues.

Acme Lab Rat
Acme Lab Rat New Reader
12/4/15 2:14 p.m.

Sweet! This is far too cool to only see a few of the pictures!

Petrolburner
Petrolburner HalfDork
12/4/15 3:29 p.m.

Dash looks awesome!

chandlerGTi
chandlerGTi UltraDork
12/4/15 4:41 p.m.

Wild

beans
beans Dork
12/8/15 10:01 a.m.

Awesome. I've played around with the thought of an F23 powered insight as a pure drag/street.... uhhh, "fun" car. The weight and aero is just too hard to ignore. I'm just too cheap and don't have anything to fab with.

proawemike
proawemike New Reader
12/15/15 2:20 p.m.

Beans,

I definitely think an F23 would be interesting. The K series is just so cheap right now that its hard to pass up for the performance.

I am going to weigh my soon, excited to see where it ended up.

AntiArrhythmic
AntiArrhythmic New Reader
12/15/15 10:22 p.m.

In reply to proawemike:

I heard F-series Insights can be pretty fast. Ahem...bisimoto...ahem

Scottah
Scottah Dork
12/16/15 7:25 a.m.

Question on sand blasting the knuckles. What did you do to protect the bearing surfaces?

proawemike
proawemike New Reader
12/16/15 12:18 p.m.
AntiArrhythmic wrote: In reply to proawemike: I heard F-series Insights can be pretty fast. Ahem...bisimoto...ahem

Never said they couldn't be fast, just that K series are so cheap and make great power.

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