[Blue Angel]

Well, it's that time of year again... time to start thinking block heaters.

Circulation heaters typically work on the thermosyphoning effect where hot coolant rising out of the heater pulls cold coolant in, but this very slow circulation leads to an engine that is heated more on one end than the other and takes a long time to heat up.

I bought a 1000W Zerostart tank-type circulation heater to install in my Cruze. I would like to install a circulation pump in line with it to speed up the warming process as well as heat the entire engine side-to-side a bit more consistently.

Question: Has anyone here done something similar, and if so what did you use for a circulation pump?

I have a drain pump from a dishwasher I'm planning to use but since I haven't started installing it yet I thought I'd ask around to see if there are better options? One thing to keep in mind is BUDGET... I know there are some pumps designed specifically for this but they typically cost 100's of dollars. This needs to be relatively cheap.

One thing I though of would be a water pump from a small engine like a motorcycle or snowmobile, if such a thing were available as a separate unit that didn't mount to an engine block?

Suggestions welcome!

EDIT: Operating on 120V would be a nice to have as it would work on AC wall power along with the heater.