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Old 10-08-2011, 01:59 AM   #9 (permalink)
California98Civic
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Coastal Southern California
Posts: 6,299

Black and Green - '98 Honda Civic DX Coupe
Team Honda
90 day: 66.42 mpg (US)

Black and Red - '00 Nashbar Custom built eBike
90 day: 3671.43 mpg (US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redyaris View Post
For this winter I have bought a 4 amp 'Inteligent' battery charger that I will mount in the engine bay and plug in with my block heater at home and work, because of EOC in the dark, morning and evening.
My experience suggests: battery charger good. Even better when alt is disconnected. Experiment. See what works for you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MorphDaCivic View Post
Just wondering what is the lowest morning startup temps that would justify the hassle of adding an engine block heater?
Well, here is a study summation cited in the wikipedia entry for "block heater": http://www.hydro.mb.ca/your_home/hom...ck_heaters.pdf.

But more directly to your question maybe is this graph from MetroMPG's great site:

http://www.metrompg.com/zoom_image.h...20watt%20graph

It would seem to suggest a real benefit is engine warm-up time, even when starting from relative mild winter freezing temps.

And here is his data for engine warm-up and fuel consumption:

http://metrompg.com/zoom_image.htm?H...m%2Dup%20graph
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See my car's mod & maintenance thread and my electric bicycle's thread for ongoing projects. I will rebuild Black and Green over decades as parts die, until it becomes a different car of roughly the same shape and color. My minimum fuel economy goal is 55 mpg while averaging posted speed limits. I generally top 60 mpg. See also my Honda manual transmission specs thread.




Last edited by California98Civic; 10-08-2011 at 02:31 AM..
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