Hi Msantos, Thanks for the information. You also said you added sacrificial anode electronic rust protection to all four corners. What is the main purpose for this?

Cheers & Happy T-day




- Added IMA assist inhibit dead pedal button.
- Added sacrificial anode electronic rust protection to all four corners.
- 5W Solar power panel to trickle charge the battery.
- Added blue floor lighting to the rear seats as well which is much better than to have the lighting for the front passengers only.
- And a few little other things to enhance the use of interior space (PDA, GPS holder, rear center cup holders, etc).


Cheers;

MSantos[/quote][/quote]

 

twuelfing;

Yes, a better state of charge would help FE. Unfortunately not for very long and especially true if the charge is not managed responsibly. In fact many HCH-2 owners will notice that their FE success in very demanding urban environment depends more on the skills and attention of the driver to keep a good state of charge than it does on the initial state of charge of the battery.

For many of us the intial state of charge is irrelevant - as long as we do our best to avoid unnecessary regens.

Simply put - you can deplete the battery in a matter of 2 minutes or less and when that happens we lose it all because the IMA will come closer to triggering a forced regen thus taking away any inital FE gains you made. This becomes particularly relevant during the hot summer months when operating the AC in Auto mode as it will easily consume a chunk of the IMA's SoC potential.

Instead of making it our goal to charge the pack because of minimal and fleeting returns, we decided instead to focus on improving the management of the battery's SoC. That's is why we have the assist-inhibit module. I've had the second revision of it installed in my car for almost 2 months and it has its benefits particularly in stop and go traffic.

Many Prius hypermilers have often advocated this principle for good reasons. Riding the pack at the earliest opportunity is not as desirable as ensuring a useful state of charge. Then when the time and conditions are right, you use the pack's EV power to really maximize the travelled distance (or power the AC) and get great FE in the process.

Cheers;


MSantos

 

It is meant to prevent visible and hidden corrosion from ocurring in the vehicle during the long northern winters. As tradition has it, the salt and sand that is spread on the roads to help traction in icy roads can do a number on our vehicles.
The electronic rust protection is just one of many counter-measures people like myself are better off adopting.

Cheers;


MSantos

 

how about a forced auto-stop?
there are a great number of instances where i cant get up to 7 mph to get the car to shut off again, but i am stuck in stop and go traffic.

I have had the car idle for several minutes in traffic simply because I couldn't get it to auto-stop. But when i get to move more rapidly again and then stop it will shut off. Traffic circumstances seem to prevent auto-stopping more than it should.

It seems that being able to autostop the car when i am not moving would be useful.

 

That is indeed a good question: One that has been of a perenial kind at this forum.

It is not hard to identify several probable reasons why Honda's engineers may have tuned the autostop the way it is. We've confirmed through Honda Canada that the autostop regimen (among others) is managed by the software and they assured us that the driving parameters are not a mistake. They remained vague and they obviously have their reasons and concerns to do it this way.

I also agree - it is annoying - but for the time being many of us will have to perform a warm powerdown routine.
Simply put the car in N while depressing the brake. Switch the ignition to (I) and then to (II) to reboot the electronics and powerup the accessories. When it is time to resume, simply switch to ignition to (III) to start the iCE and put the car in D and release brake to advance.

It is not as elegant but for some of us it works OK for now.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

I have some friends I went to school with that are EE, ME and CS majors from my Purdue University days. We are currently looking into forcing the engine to auto-stop at will, augmenting the high voltage battery pack with additional capacity as well as working on some of the windows CE navigation "issues" such as overriding the incessant "your entering an unverified area" prompt.

There is also a log file being generated by the Navi that we are attempting to decipher.

I dont know that anything will come of our pursuits, as they are free time endeavors and 2 of the guys helping are in grad school right now and the other 2 of us have full time jobs, however we are working on some things. Maybe a real hybrid will come out soon, that actually hybridizes the 2 power systems we have. The electrical grid and the petroleum distribution network. Until then we will continue to investigate.

If anyone has any logic documentation for the hybrid system, relevant schematics or any information that may help I would love to see it.

I am glad that there are others on this message board that investigate the why and the how of these technologies.

 

MSantos,

A few quick questions.... 1) any reason not to put the car into park at traffic lights etc. vs. neutral? 2) any known mechanical problems for doing this? 3) has anyone investigated just how much fuel is consumed during this type of idling in a HCH II? I would speculate to say not much.

I think the biggest question to me is item #2. I usually keep my cars for over 120,000 miles and do my own maintenance/repairs which I am not sure I am going to be able to do on this hybrid.

For example, I usually back my car out of my driveway in N and in II (acc. mode) then down a small hill into our deadend street (no other cars to worry about) to help save some fuel. The other day, when I moved the ignition to III the car did not start. I had to put in park to start it. I was very surprised but I am beginning to wonder if this might have some negative impact on the starting system now that I have 9,500 miles on my "dream" car.

Cheers

wrote before:
That is indeed a good question: One that has been of a perenial kind at this forum.

It is not hard to identify several probable reasons why Honda's engineers may have tuned the autostop the way it is. We've confirmed through Honda Canada that the autostop regimen (among others) is managed by the software and they assured us that the driving parameters are not a mistake. They remained vague and they obviously have their reasons and concerns to do it this way.

I also agree - it is annoying - but for the time being many of us will have to perform a warm powerdown routine.
Simply put the car in N while depressing the brake. Switch the ignition to (I) and then to (II) to reboot the electronics and powerup the accessories. When it is time to resume, simply switch to ignition to (III) to start the iCE and put the car in D and release brake to advance.

It is not as elegant but for some of us it works OK for now.

Cheers;

MSantos

 

Honda does offer a "complete" library of support and training documentation that is VERY insightful and well worth the expense. Particularly for anyone looking at making enhancements on the HCH-2.
However, they do not provide low level schematics of the surface integration modules and components nor do they expose any of the microcode or the various software routines (even in pseudo form) for each/any of the sub-systems we're interested in.

I concurr, whatever we do has to be done carefully with sensible planning and the best possible documentation we can get. Anything thing else is just guess-work and not worth the expense.


Cheers;

MSantos

 

Any suggestions on how/where to receive this documentation?

 

Some folks have quantified the FE penalty while idling to be as much as 10%.

There is negligible impact on the life expectancy of the CVT by just transitioning between N and D since it exacts the least amount of strain (if any) on the transmission. I am careful however in doing so when the vehicle has come to a complete stop. If we do not follow this then the potential and un-necessary wear quickly becomes an issue.

At the end of a drive it is always recommended that we place the transmission in Park. Some folks (like myself) will even engage the parking brake before switching it to Park. This will prevent the mechanical thump-lock sensation which may translate into long term wear. This, by way, is also the recommended way to handle just about any vehicle anyway. Of course, we have to remember to undeploy the parking brake before switching it from Park to Drive (or Reverse).

But in the end, if we do this regularly then it becomes an instictive good habit that will pay off in the long run.

Cheers;


MSantos