As I mentioned in the my
black 2004 Prius build thread (which met an untimely demise
), I replace it with a grey 2004 Prius that I picked up earlier this week. Thankfully, I was able to remove a bunch of the mods I had done to the black Prius, so it'll be a process to reinstall them on the grey Prius.
To facilitate that, yesterday I headed over to BenNelson's house so we could both do some winter prep on our Prii. His build thread is here if you're interested:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ius-24076.html
We got a few things done on his vehicle, and then we moved on to mine. We started by installing an OEM Toyota block heater for the vehicle. I don't really have any good images of it because all you'd really see is me laying on the ground with my whole arm stuck up into the engine bay. I couldn't even see what I was doing, I just had to feel around to get it done. But, I've installed four of these block heaters now (one on my Matrix, one on Ben's Prius, and two on my Prii), so it wasn't a new experience.
The next thing we worked on was grill blocks. We started out with the standard pipe insulation for the upper grill block. I had never previously done this, but it turned out quite well, and looks pretty decent on a grey car.
We also made a lower grill block identical to the one I had on the black Prius. It consists of two blocks of wood what are screwed together to pinch the grill. The only difference is we zip tied the ends of the grill block to seal things up better. Details on how I mounted the original grill block can be found here:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...hod-15335.html
I DEFINITELY noticed the full grill block advantage on the way home.
On the way to Ben's house there aren't any roads where the speed limit is above 50 mph. The temperature was about 30F on the way out and 28F on the way back. On the way there I struggled to maintain 160F+ coolant temp. Every time I slowed down for a town or something I had to cut the heater fan back to low or off. If I wouldn't, the coolant temp just plummets. Then, while traveling 45-50 mph I was able to kick the fan speed up to max and get heat. With this, the car would just stay warm.
On the way home, I was easily able to blast the heat during the higher speed stretches (thankfully after a chilling day of working on cars heat is much appreciated). On the coasts through town, the engine didn't cool off nearly as much, and I was able to keep the fan speed higher.
I don't have the scangauge calibrated at all yet, so I can't give any mpg numbers, but it was a noticeable improvement.
There is still a ways to go before this car is up to the black car's specs, but this was a substantial jump forward to bridge the gap. I also never had the upper grill blocked on the black car (always planned to, just never did) and I can already see the advantage it is going to give me in winter.