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Interesting train of thought here. I had assumed that synthetic oil alleviated most of the 'cold oil' problems – is this not the case?
I was also looking into an alternator-free engine and thought of power generating shocks/springs supplemented with a small battery, but the cost outweighs the benefit at the moment.
Thanks for the tip Euromodder, I'll look into it. I also want to get rid of the roof bars as I don't use them and they just cause turbulence along my roofline. I've already fitted smaller, aerodynamic door mirrors to easy the airflow.
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For me it's not really a cold (viscous) oil problem, but heating the oil sump gently (the lowest point in the engine) will warm the whole engine up, and that will reduce the amount of time the engine spends at fuel-guzzlingly low start-up temperatures. You can get electric coolant heaters too, which I'm sure work at least as well, if not better, but I don't like the idea of the noise they generate.
Power generating shocks sound like a great idea. Are they available commercially?
Roof bar delete, ...nice. I was thinking of doing that, and making them easily removeable and re-fittable by cutting round holes in the head liner to give ready access to the fixing bolts, and using sticky tape to cover the holes when the bars are not being used. PVC insulating tape is remarkably good at keeping the weather out of things and it comes in a wide range of colours.
The standard method of roof bar removal involves removing the entire head liner, and I'm not sure I can be bothered with that. Also, I might want to carry things on the roof at some point, although I haven't felt the need for a few years now.