Block heater and new pcv valve installed, and the box cavity is back in action!
OEM block heater is 400W
Hard to see, but that orange wire plugs into the heater.
What an adventure it was installing that thing...
Lost about a gallon of coolant through the hole the heater screws into.
First impressions: Very good!
I had it plugged in for about 2.5 hours before leaving, outside temp was around 75-80 degrees, and when I started the car, the temp read 124.
I neglected to notice until I was about to exit my neighborhood that I had left the heater on, but if I didn't do that, i'm pretty sure it would have hit operating temp as I was exiting the hood, which is about a mile. It just feels so much better to start a pre-warmed engine, it felt smoother, and dropped down to about 800 rpm instead of its usual 1000 rpm cold start idle. If I didn't leave the heater on I could have probably had DFCO ready for my first stop sign.
First pre-warmed trip: 44.9 mpg
A bit more traffic than usual, so mpg could have been better, but prior to getting on the highway, mpg was definitely helped by the heater. I usually line up at the highway reading about 30-32 mpg depending on stoplights, but this time it was at 34 mpg.
Recently I have begun measuring oil temps due to curiosity, here are the results:
Outside: 55
Oil pan: 135-150
Outside: 65
Oil pan: 140-150
Outside: 82
Oil pan: 160-170
Oil filter: 170-175
That's some cold oil! That's hypermiling for you.
I'm probably gonna insulate the oil filter, then maybe the pan and see if I can get some more reasonable temps, they should be around 210.
Tank avg reads 37.5 right now, including all the idling I had to do to bleed the cooling system. I think a new tank record is not out of the question this time around.