Circulating Tank Heater Install in 2000 Honda Civic

[pletby]

Thought I'd start a new thread for this as I didn't have much luck searching for successful installs in a Honda Civic.

The heater is a 1000 Watt Circulating Tank Heater that needs to be low in the engine bay to work properly. I first installed it too high and the circulation did not occur. Then I installed it very low (bottom of tank slightly below the bottom of the rad actually) with a nice gradual rise to the heater core with no dips and it seems to work great.

I did not follow the instructions where they said to splice into the lower rad hose as a supply for the heater. I simply put the heater in between the engine and the heater core, but with long hoses to the heater location. So far this is working ok, and removes the radiator from the circulation loop.

So to simplify, coolant flows from engine to circulating tank heater to heater core, to engine.

It's possible to replace the heater hose where it comes out of the block under the distributor without removing the distributor, but it is a tight spot. Remove the air intake and it's doable. The rest is pretty easy to get to.

Do tighten your hose clamps after a few runs. Do bleed air from your system more than one time to make sure you have it all out. Do check your connections for leaks often for the first few weeks. Do monitor your coolant temperature to detect possible leaks. There, that should help prevent most failures.

Here's a graph of Temperature vs Time I did this morning. The weather has cooled off to normal temperatures now. Ambient temperature was -11F. It's been a warm Fall/Winter until now.

Edit: The Blue line is the coolant temperature at the sensor location (near the thermostat) and the Red line is the coolant temperature after 30 seconds of idle to circulate the warmed coolant to the sensor.

Pics of install to follow.

[Daox]

Looks like a great improvement. The two lines are simply from moving the heater around?

How did you measure the temperature?

[pletby]

Thanks for pointing that out Daox. The temperature was measured using the stock coolant sensor read through my Ultra Gauge. The lower blue line was the temperature before startup, and the red was the temperature after 30 seconds of idle to circulate the warmed coolant to the sensor.

[pletby]

Here's a few pics of the install. I could not use the included strap to mount the heater. I elected to use zip ties on the heater hoses close to the heater itself. I'm not sure I like this yet, but it seems strong enough.





The first photo shows a top down view with the top being the front of the car. The coolant overflow tank is the big white thing at the top. Here I had just attached the coolant lines and had not yet mounted the heater.





The second photo shows the hose routing to get the smoothest line up through the rest of the hoses. Tank heater is on the right side of the picture. Follow the clean new lines. I cut a short piece of hose lengthwise and zip tied it over the section of hose that has a chance of rubbing on the engine mount. It shouldn't rub...





The last photo shows the final positioning behind the radiator. Not ideal, but it works. I hadn't yet clipped the ends off the zip ties. I ended up removing that old spring clamp as it eventually developed a leak due to poor clamping power. I replaced it with another screw type hose clamp.

Then I zip tied the electrical cord from the heater in a few places to keep it tidy and plugged it into my onboard wiring that allows me to use one plug on the outside of the car.

I have since began insulating these long lines to keep the temp up in the run to and from the engine.

[pletby]

Cleaned up the graph a little bit. Not sure how to replace an attachment once I've uploaded it so here it is again.

I see you've been fixing up my posts by making the pictures show up the way they should. I haven't figured out how to do that... So thank you!

[pletby]

Make sure to check your hose connections several times after the install. I just finished installing a new clamp today after reusing an old piece of junk. I should never have used the old one. Finally fixed a small leak I've had for a little while now.