[Diesel_Dave]

Yeah, heaters are one of the next thing on my list of mods. Coolant heater will be the first because it's already on the engine. All I had to do was get the cord for it ($15 on Amazon). I have the cord now, I just need to screw it on. The thing is I can reach the heater hookup (with my hand), but I think I'll have to take the oil filter off to actually get it off (which I have to do shortly anyway because I'm overdue for an oil change).

I'm looking into using the coolant heater for a few reasons. Since we moved, my commute is now 25 miles rather than 40, so the warm-up time affects me proportionately more than it used to. I started carefully watching my coolant temp warm up times after I intalled the upper grill block. In the morning, with the ambient temp 60 to 70 F, it still takes around 2 miles before the temp gauge moves (140 F) and 10 miles before I get up to 200 F coolant temp. Once I get up to temp the FE definitely improves.

What I don't know is how much of the FE warm-up penalty is the coolant temp vs. oil temp vs. tranny temp vs. axle temp, etc. If I had to guess order of importance is oil, coolant, tranny,axle, but that's just a guess. Of course if I pre-heat the coolant then my oil should warm up faster as well. Eventually, I'm thinking up getting some of those pad heaters for the oil pan--maybe even the tranny & axle too (we'll see).

BTW, anyone know the cheapest way to monitor temps (oil, tranny, axle, etc.)?