|
I knew about this mod, but haven't actually insulated the hood. I've sealed the hood seams through with truck topper foam, works ok but the hood can be a challenge to pop sometimes since snow melts and freezes in the crack.
I've been thinking about doing something like this on my prius since as you say, warmup time is 3-4 miles with a grill block and lately my trips are both cold and short trips so should be a massive improvement.
I haven't seen any info on this idea before, but another concept I've had that's similar to this is oil pan and transmission heaters that run only when the engine is cold assuming you don't have an easy to access outlet to pre-heat the vehicle. The theory is to warm the engine up quicker to get it to operate more efficiently, but the extra load while code might offset any benefits. It could be possible to use the prius logic and run the heaters off a spare battery then once the engine is warm, recharge the battery back up off the engine, or take it inside to charge off the grid/battery bank for the house.
Anyway, sounds like I need to throw some fiberglass insulation over my engine and see how much of an effect it has short term to I work out a better long term version =).
|