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Took the Insight in a little over a week ago for scheduled maintainence, but it's in the shop today to fix the SRS light - that means the airbags might not deploy. The seat belt harness will be replaced to correct the SRS problem and while it's there new brakes will be installed.

Then I might attempt to install MIMA on Sunday.

good luck, the MIMA is by far the neatest aftermarket part I've ever heard of

you Insight guys are lucky

Good luck with it! Mike did mine in about half a day and I think it would have taken a lot longer on my own given all the headscratching I would have had to do.

The hardest part is feeding the wiring harness through the wall behind the seats. But I think you have a nifty contoured tube to slip it through- I only had a wire fish. It took me forever just to get the wire fish to come out in the right place. ;)

"you Insight guys are lucky" nope. all skill. mikes that is... :)

"you Insight guys are lucky" nope. all skill. mikes that is... :)

touche'

you guys are lucky to have a guy like mike!

OK, I'm tired of being in the dark. What's MIMA and why isn't it in the glossary? I've seen it several times and still don't know what it refers to.

MIMA is Manual Integrated Motor Assist. It is a system allowing the manual control of assist and regen in a Honda Insight. It was designed by Mike Dabrowski and you can read more about it in this (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/mima/t-plug-in-mima-install-2063.html) thread.

Interesting topic by the way, but I'd be a bit concerned about pushing the battery past its cycle limits and causing premature failure...

MIMA stands for Manual Integraged Motor Assist. It gives the operator full manual (or programmable) control over Honda's hybrid system (IMA). It only works on the Insight. MIMA consists of a computer board (PIC microcontroller based) about 4"x8", a wiring harness that ties into the existing wiring harness, a joystick/button module and a display module. With the joystick, the driver can apply varying amounts of assist or regen at any time. The buttons change modes. There's the full manual mode, and a programmable mode. The display indicates the current mode, and has an ammeter showing the actual amount of assist or regen. I could go on and on, but I'll just say that it is really bitchin' and you should check out Mike Dabrowski's website at www.99mpg.com for more info.

Interesting topic by the way, but I'd be a bit concerned about pushing the battery past its cycle limits and causing premature failure...Part of the beauty of the system is that the BCM's rules governing the pack are not overridden. If the battery is too hot, for example, assist/regen will still be limited. Those of us with the system have probably put well over 100,000 miles on it, collectively.

Interesting topic by the way, but I'd be a bit concerned about pushing the battery past its cycle limits and causing premature failure...
As fenrir says, the battery stays within Honda's limits with MIMA.

I'd just like to add that there are many different ways to use MIMA. I'm a fairly novice user and I use it mainly to add in Regeneration beyond what Honda's controls call for. So I'm probably being gentler on the battery than the stock system.

I almost never use it to add in Assist, though if one were feeling sporty one could do this a lot, which would add cycles to the battery (within Honda's range).

I'm not skilled enough to use the modes where you (a) totally manually control Assist and Regen, or (b) program in mpg values where you want Assist to stop and Regen to start.

A HUGE plus for me is the optional FAS module, which makes FAS seamless and safe. To FAS, you simply pop it into neutral and press down on the joystick button for about 2 seconds. This cuts off fuel to the injectors, and now you're coasting along WITH full electric steering and airbag protection, WITHOUT having to key off and then reboot the computers (which interrupts these functions), WITH the DC-DC converter supplying power from the 144v battery to the 12v system so that battery does not run down, and WITH a safety which will turn on the ICE if the brake booster vacuum drops too low. When you are ready to restart, you just depress the clutch and pop the car back into gear and the 144v battery restarts the ICE instantly. Slick!!!

This is an outstanding innovation. Too bad the different communications protocols make it much more difficult to do for HCH.

Not to mention that the MIMA platform is THE foundation for building a plug-in (or otherwise re-chargable) Insight. IMHO

If I ever buy an HCHII, I think I'll take it to CT, and let Mikey have for about 90 days.

Randall