Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Lee
I've always figured that it didn't really matter where the temp knob was set as far as mpg and warm-up time; I thought if the blower was off it wouldn't exchange enough heat to really matter. But then, I didn't have the instrumentation to really check it out either.
The difference in warm-up time between heater control cold or heater hot can't be much, can it? And after the engine is warm I don't see how heater control knob position can affect mpg at all.  However I can see a negative mpg effect from the alternator load increasing with higher blower settings. |
Watching the coolant temp and just shifting the temp control I can bring the temp down from say 204 to 194 or 190 in a few seconds. No fan at all. Watching my voltage meter and switching the heater fan on I can watch the voltage start to drop by increments of a tenth of a volt per fan speed level. But you're right: I have no sure idea how much or if my position of the temp selector to cold improves MPG or warm-up time because there are more variables. However, I have observed that it SEEMS that as the car warms up during driving, I may be able to make the coolant temp fall from say 120* slightly faster during an EOC glide if the heater temp selector is in the red. But again, not sure of that last observation. I'm just assuming that if I can manipulate coolant temps that easily, then there's probably some effect on FE. Hypothesis.