|
glow plug based coolant heater
Some glow plugs draw 15 amps so depending on the plug it can put out 150-250W of heat. So how about mounting 3-5 of them in the intake line going to the heater core. It would load the engine down by making the alternator work harder. That also helps warm the engine up faster. If there were 5 of them running it would be ~1000W of heat being put into the coolant along with the extra load from the alternator.
On most cars the heater core is on a bypass so it circulates no matter what the thermostat is doing. It would also put a bit of heat into the heater box to give a bit of heat to help keep the windshield clear.
I figure my car takes about 5 minutes of driving to reach operating temperature. I don't know how much faster it would warm up with a setup like that though. Anyone got any ideas?
|