[js335]

we live in a house and I have considered a coolant heater but the only catch would be that she comes and goes at random times except to make a very short trip every weekday morning and afternoon to take the kids to and from school. I could put it on a timer for those times but the rest of the day would either not get preheat or would be just running all day wasting electricity. And seeing how many times she pulled my extension cord down the driveway until it got yanked out when I was running a battery charger/desulfator on the van, I don't think this would be a very good idea.

One of the first ideas I had was a long tube in tube exhaust/coolant heat exchanger with maybe a coolant temp controlled exhaust diversion/bypass valve to help warm-up fast then bypass as to not overload the cooling system in the hot summer. This got me thinking about my first turbo build I did one winter, instead of freezing for a couple of miles I could give it one hard acceleration and have warm air almost immediately.

I get the whole small engine w/turbo better than big engine concept, and swapping in a small engine was something I considered, like maybe a 1.0 metro engine with a belt driven booster electric motor(think honda IMA), but I have done the whole "put a radically different engine in a car it doesnt belong" thing before a few times, and its time and money consuming not to mention a lot of work. maybe one day. If I were to do all that work I would just put an ALH TDI in it, injectors, tune and call it good.

I am thinking faster warm-up times, higher dynamic compression ratios under load, more go with less throttle = sooner/lower shifts and with little to no management it should run a little lean. I don't know, a lot of variables, I'm not a real engineer, just a backyard one. It will be something that will need to be monitored and tweaked and may or may not produce results. I need to do a full tune-up and establish a good baseline while I am gathering parts.

I'm holding out for a little bit for a single T3 or similar turbo but on the plus side I did talk to a friend today that has a pair of K03's for me for very cheap if I want them.