S3 E46. MPG ? We test the fuel economy on the 719 cc diesel powered Honda insight 

Merry Christmas

Right off the bat the fuel economy is suffering from a lack of racing stickers on the windows, but 67 is nothing to sneeze at ❤🎉

"It's not my problem, that's how engineering is done". That is a true statement if you ever worked on a vehicle.

Jimbo wants a super unique daily, and we love him for it.

Merry Christmas to you all and God bless our Jimbo for all the effort he puts into entertaining us with his one of a kind projects!!!

I am so glad I found this channel. It is so enjoyable and entertaining. Thank you, Jimbo, and have a wonderful Xmas and a great New Year!!!

I don't know why, but I have been waiting and waiting to see you fix the transmission in the Renault. The fact that that thing does not go into reverse bugs the crap out of me.

In fact, they DO put electric heaters in cars. My diesel truck has an aux. electric heater (from the factory) built into the HVAC system to provide some heat while the diesel engine is warming up.

Still 11mpg short of a Lupo 3L. You should probably block off the stock brake ducts with some cardboard as well. They're not of much use when you aren't completely hooning the thing and they add a lot of drag. When you get the belly pan on, you can also cover the entire exhaust tunnel to get a completely flat floor. The exhaust shouldn't get hot enough to cause any problems when you do that (I've seen people do this to VW 1.9 TDI's with no issues so). Drag is the biggest source of resistance past 35ish mph, so lowering drag, especially with an engine as weak as this, should increase acceleration past that point by a decent margin.

8:00 These are cooling fan for server, it can pull lots of currunt. Normal small power speed control can't handle that. If you want to control these type of fans, use "PWM fan governor speed control knob" ,find out the PWM wire from the fan and connect it to control speed.

Having driven a Dakota with a busted heater core across the Midwest in December, I can affirm that heat is a good thing. Merry Christmas!

Thumbs up for "store bought vomit"...well, thumbs up in general but that phrase made me chuckle.

Merry Chrysler Jimbo! I was expecting the upper 60's for mpg and I can't wait to see the supercharger added to it!

Merry Christmas! No need to rush. I'm perfectly happy watching this series for another year.

Merry Christmas Jimbo and Everyone!

Big turbo will be a great muffler 😂😂😂

Use some coroplast to completely block off the lower opening in the bumper cover. Helps aero and excess cooling of the radiator.

This man hit almost the same fuel economy as the hyper-optimized VW Lupo 3L with backyard engineering and Amazon parts. Not to mention it's still NA!!! Bravo sir. Been watching your shenanigans for a while now, and I look forward to seeing what else you do in the future!

Any plans for compound forced induction once you wring every erg you can from the supercharger? That roots blower and a turbo would compliment each other nicely as far as efficiency curves

I used to own a Smart ForTwo diesel, and your fuel mileage is better than I ever got. I love this content, please keep it up. Some day I hope I get to see your project in person.

Jason, yet another legend donating very fun and useful item to Jimbo and the Channel! Thanks from a fan you practically drove by on your trip, and Merry Christmas!

Maybe a set of manual shutters in front of the radiator like an old Soviet car.

The 300 mpg vehicle used steam from the exhaust to reinject into the engine, so far as I recall. There was a crush order against, them. It was a production car, I believe.

Mercedes developed a car that used exhaust gas energy to create steam?, and injected the steam back into the engine. Does the kubota engine have glow plugs? Could you have a double injector system? Could you use water vapor in the exhaust as the steam?

Interesting bit of random data. My daily driver is a 2006 Diesel VW Jetta. This car contains an electric grid heater in the HVAC system, known as the aux heater, that'll warm the cabin up in cold winter days before the very small diesel engine can ever possibly start to produce warm water. Took me a few years to realize said heater wasn't working, but once I figured that out and fixed it (cold solder joints on some SMD resistors, easily reflowed with a hot air work station) this car now has the best thing I've ever experienced in my life. Warm air almost immediately from the HVAC and heated leather seats. I'm absolutely in love with my Jetta.

Wow, the Insight has been hanging around for three years, how time flies. I can hardly wait for the stupidcharger to be installed. With the streamlining you should get much better mileage. We'll see. Keep the videos coming.

It would be cool if ypu could get something like a Nissan Leaf, Focus Electric or early cheap unloved EV like a Spark EV (395ft/lbs TQ) that was wrecked cheap from copart and use the EV drivetrain in conjunction with something like this diesel to make a hybrid of sorts, run the electric motor in the rear, give it electric awd, it would definitely help performance, be perfect in town for short trips where the diesel wouldn't even get warmed up, if ypu were in a big city in stop and go and the diesel would shine exactly where they do, steady state cruising, of course the benefits of regen braking and all that are there too, you also have two ways to move the vehicle if there is a malfunction of one system, you could use the EV A/C system as well and if you have a full battery you can remain with climate controlled for a very long time without wasting fuel.

When the video started I said to myself 70mpg, 67 is great, I would imagine that boost and the belly pan might get it up to 70mpg, I think boost would help because it would accelerate quicker and then it could transition to light throttle sooner. I wonder if a tall narrow E load rated tire that can take 80psi would help mpg? Less rolling resistance and lower rpms at cruising mph.

67 mpg thats amazing. I knew the insight had good aerodynamic characteristics and a light weight aluminum chassis but I didn't think is would have been that much better than the Saturn. Once you get the belly pan and supercharger on maybe you can hit 70. Merry Christmas and a happy new year🎉

I love these videos you produce @robotcantina8957 I myself like fuel efficient vehicles. Drove Ford Festiva and Fiesta. The Ford Festiva I got roughly 47MPG in town and highway some times almost 56MPG. Speed has never mattered to me. So seeing your experiments is nifty :D Plus having a fuel efficient vehicle helps with saving money as I have never had much. Personally on the Fiesta I really wish I could change up the configuration on the car so I could get it to go more than 40MPG.

I saw that VGG sticker. That guy's sense of humor is wired directly to my funny bone

I used to have to completely block off the radiator on my Saturn in the winter time if it was ever gonna blow anything you could call heat. Gotta love the weather up here In Hoth 🤣

Gotta love this way to start a sunday.... I see this up, immediately get the coffee pot going, grab a muffin and enjoy..... Looking forward to getting to the boosted portion next!!

Have been on a binge to catch up with these, and it is worth it!

Everytime I see one of your videos it makes me realize how lazy I am and what I did not accomplish on my own projects....lol 😢

I had a secondary heater like that on my 1987 Suzuki samurai with a soft top. It worked amazing and actually made it drivable in Minnesota winters.

Enjoyed the video. You really must love what you do on your channel. You make the process of modifying the drive train of cars seem so easy. lol Thanks for sharing your fun with us. Phil

YEP ! The smallest and most meaningless things in life usually give us the most satisfaction. Here we have a perfect example. A car that should have been scrapped and melted years ago, powered by a concoction of parts not intended for a road vehicle have come together to make a very entertaining series. Thanks, Jimbo and RC Support Team for all the entertainment !

Always a good Sunday when there is a new upload from Jimbo! Merry Christmas!

Did anyone give Jimbo a welfare check? I'm worried that the gnomes got him.

Merry Christmas keep up the good work jimbo.

My goodness, you've invented the first personalized passanger side testicle heater. You better paten that before someone steals you idea😁

Merry Christmas to you, Jimbo and your loved ones as well!!!

My '70 VW had a big hose wrapped around the exhaust manifold. A scoop next to the engine cooling fan drove "hot" engine air over the exhaust pipe and into the dash board. It took a half an hour to make it kinda "warm" in the car. But it was free heat. And Merry Christmas.

I love how chill and knowledgeable Jimbo's presenatation style is. Great relief from everyday stress.

In Germany we had several cars that do that kind of fuel economy figures from stock! For example the Audi A2, the VW Lupo/Up or the Renault Clio. I don't understand why such cars aren't built anymore...

I love this channel and these videos! I am always looking forward to seeing the next one. In this world filled with millionaires, and cars with 1,000+ hp, numbers are not impressive anymore. Who cares anymore if a car in town can do 200mph and gets 8mpg and costs $2 million? That's not interesting. However, what is really interesting and impressive is what could be done with less and someone could afford it. Keep up the great work!

I rode in Hummers in the military, so I got used to the heater blasting my crotch while my driver froze. Better than the private stuck up in the turret with the 50 caliber machine gun I guess.

Nadolig Llawen 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Jimbo and your family too! Thanks for everything that you submit to our entertainment, every week!

Takes me back to the 40s and 50s when cars did not come with heaters. It was a dealer installed kit that sat right where you put yours. My old 1954 Buick had a rear heater core as well as a fan and switch for it.

I had a friend in high school who would run a little electic heater in their car on a timer overnight, and it would get the interior nice and warm for the morning and it would stay warm long enough to get to school.

Love to see the VGG sticker in there. Turns out all the YTers I watch seem to be fans of other YTers I watch or like.

Years ago, I had a friend who had old VW bug, but needed heater for the car. I recommended an aftermarket stand-alone 12V rear window defroster just plugged into cigarette lighter.

Merry Christmas, excellent video as always. You reminded me of an experiment I did that is quite useful: I hooked a Chinese diesel heaters exhaust pipe to a large steam radiator that was exhausted to the outside through 3/4" pipe (actually 2 different ones over 3 winters) and it recovers a large amount of heat for cooking, heating water, and just extra heat like a heat battery of sorts. I also hooked several gasoline generators to it and it works in the same way with the benefit of silencing the exhaust nearly completely. That brings me to the point: I wonder if you could duct exhaust from a generator or diesel heater to that $60 heater core blower unit you showed, it seems like it would work to recover extra heat-it would be fun to try at least. Anyway, thank you for all the great videos, they're all excellent.

Thanks for the inspiration, overland diesel is building adapters for the kubota 03. i got a V2203 im about to put in a 85 Toyota pickup. It is just nice to see some of the random odd projects you do. i look forward to them every sunday

Yes. Merry Christmas and happy new year. 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

Allways a pleasure to see you work.i would love to do something similar but my old companions of poverty stupidity and ignorance (which have served me well up to now) are the great barrier that I find so hard to get over .have a great Xmas to Jimbo and all watching 👍

LOVE the VGG decal. Since I found you and Derick I don't know what's on TV anymore. Can't wait for next Sunday. Merry Christmas!

Thanks for your great videos over the last year, happy Christmas.

A DUAL Kubota 3 cylinder supercharged diesel engine Honda insight?!? Maybe? Lol

I thought you were installing a wood stove :D Merry Christmas!

You: "What does this Honda insight and the Renault have in common" Me: There both owned by a crazy yet inventive youtuber.

Wow! You are dedicated, uploading on christmas eve!

Merry Christmas to Jimbo and the rest of the crew🤗😎🤗😎

Wow, 67 miles per gallon. That's pretty d*** good. Can't wait to see how the stupid charger helps or hinders the fuel economy. Hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas Jimmy.😎👍👍🇨🇦

The vice grip garage sticker in the engine bay if very fitting for your style of engineering

I'm fully expecting to see a supercharged and turbocharged kubota come out of this.

I hate knowing that putting a supercharger on this will not increase the fuel economy. There is a reason almost all modern engines use turbochargers instead of superchargers. Superchargers increase power but not so much efficiency. While turbochargers give you both when utilized correctly. Also, blocking off the radiator is not the best solution to your over cooling issues. Finding a higher temperature thermostat is the real answer. I used to run a 195F stat in my small Isuzu diesel to help with efficiency and cold weather heating. It made a huge difference compared to running a colder thermostat with the radiator completely blocked off. If I remember correctly, the optimum temperature for a diesel engine for fuel efficiency is over 200F. Keep up the good work. Even with my nitpicks I enjoy your videos!

firts turbo, now supercharger. next both? aka a twin charged diesel,that would be cool.

I have been watching a lot of edison motors videos and i was thinking about how to downscale their idea of an electric vehicle with a diesel generator to a small car and how efficient it would or wouldnt be compared to just a small engine. I think that this could be a really interesting project for this section of the automotive community and it seems like there really isnt anyone doing it right now. The one channel ive seen do anything remotely close to this was grinhardplumbing and their cheap Chinese car with a gas generator on that offroad trail which was... interesting lol. Jimbo im not sure how much knowledge you have with electric motors, battery management systems and generators, i dont know a whole lot myself, but i feel like it could be very approachable with all of the videos i have seen recently suggest.

Merry Christmas Jimbo! Another good episode.

Merry Christmas and thanks for another interesting and cool video. Can't wait to see what the new year brings.

Not using the gnomes to their full potential. 😭 They would have so much done by now and even be singing Merry Christmas to you!

hope things are going well, im assuming bad weather made doing any driving footage not happen, if your not feeling good, hope you get better soon!

Yay tweaking! “I should have saved them... but I didn’t.” 😅

Your simple explanations using first principle engineering to explain things is the sign of someone who seriously knows their stuff.

Dual Kubota diesel engine-powered Insight. Jus' sayin'.

I’m not sure how effective it would be in this application but I’d suggest maybe installing a hot water valve to help the engine heat up. It essentially just bipasses or blocks the heater core from getting coolant flow to help the engine get and stay warm. Again idk how much this would help in this application as the only time I really still see them is in Toyota’s for some reason

Happy holidays jimbo.. ❤❤

Christmas eve coffee and Cantina, cant ask for much more! Merry Christmas, Jimbo! Do the Gnomes celebrate? Tell em happy holidays for me!

Sunday and Cantina... Merry Christmas!!!

3.5l/100 is still more, than a factory diesel VW Lupo 3L-s mpg 😂

Merry Christmas and thanks for your hard work!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays Jimbo! Thank you for the video so close to Christmas. Best wishes for you and yours from Oklahoma.

Keep the good work Jimbo Merry Christmas and a Happy SAFE New Year to you and your family

Id love to see a heater experiment by running the exhaust pipe through a reservoir of water and piping it through copper plumbing pipe through the cabin with a small pump. Maybe a straight through muffler could be modified to turn it into a water heater? My thinking is that the exhaust will get hot before the coolant, and be more efficient at heating the car? Saying that the heater matrix will help take heat out of the engine, which may be more important in the summer when you maybe start feeding over 1bar of boost pressure and or propane or nitrous oxide into it.

Excellent work as always! Merry Christmas Jimbo and crew. I appreciate you all every week when I get the notification of a new video

I love this channel. Here in Germany experimenting on an old car would NEVER be allowed. Keep up the good work!

Merry Christmas Jimbo, and all the gear heads in the comments! 🎄

Merry Christmas Team Jimbo! :D

Merry Christmas and love that fuel economy

Bro just use double sided VHB tape. It's a heater core not an engine mount.

Wonderful. Merry Xmas

James, there is a new kind of car battery and lead-acid battery design that uses "vomit" (that's muriatic acid, what you called "vomit" of course) instead of the outdated sulphuric acid and with it new carbon negative ion technology. Though no lighter than recently obsolete prior lead-acid batteries they can deliver the watt/hours and and faster charging as LiPO batteries at fraction of the cost.

Another great video thank you, 3.5L/100 km, that's amazing fuel mileage. A very Merry Christmas to you and yours this year Jimbo; and very best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Tesla uses a heat pump. A Bolt EV uses 7kw and is just resistance heat!

Update! Loved it

I guessed 65 mpg. Only 2 mpg off. Great work so far on the diesel Insight, or the Dieselsight

Early Robot-Cantina? Best. Christmas. Gift. Ever!!!!! Merry christmas and happy holidays Jimbo!

Awesome sauce brotha 😅... I started guessing 70mpg but then was like na to much for first try n said 50 ... should stuck with first instinct lol ... but man I love the content, keep up the rad work jimbo ... peace and love bro keep it rad stay safe and build on l8z fam and happy holidays n have a good new year