OK. A word about Kat's block heaters. They suck. They burn out quickly. In hindsight, I should have read some reviews online, because they agree with what I have now experienced.
First off, the cord never really fit into the heater correctly and I had to monkey around with the terminals to get it to make a circuit.
Secondly, just the other day I plugged it in and it worked for 10 seconds and then fizzled out. I monkeyed around with the cord again, but soon realized that the heating element went open circuit. Crap. No, I never ran it dry, and yes, I did properly purge/de-aerate my cooling system before ever plugging it in. This sucks because it is such an annoying heater to change on this car.
I plan to try a different brand of block heater. Hopefully I can get a replacement from NAPA where I bought it and then sell it on eBay or something. But that's a bit of a moral issue for me, as I will be knowingly selling a piece of crap....
Side note. I did a test for EOC vs idle coasting in neutral. Over 6 days I alternated each method and averaged my results. All were ~55F mornings, 8 mile round trip commute and 2 hour block heater cycle for the TO WORK leg of the trip.
Average for three days idle coasting in neutral:
TO WORK: 4.9L/100km (48.0 mpg)
FROM WORK: 7.9L/100km (29.7 mpg)
AVERAGE: 6.4L/100km (36.7 mpg)
Average for three days EOC.
TO WORK: 4.2L/100km (56.0 mpg)
FROM WORK: 6.6L/100km (35.6 mpg)
AVERAGE: 5.4L/100km (43.5 mpg)
DIFFERENCE: +18.5%
Not having a block heater in the morning (35F mornings) has now increased the TO WORK leg to 5.9L/100km for an overall MPG change of -14.8%, which sucks. I tend to P&G much less at the beginning, at least till there is heat coming from the vents.
EDIT: I picked up a Zero-Start/Temro block heater and installed it yesterday, and I rant about it here:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post456137