Cooking on your engine?
 

Do you heat food on your engine during your commute to eat for breakfast? I have read about this and tried it this morning. My bowl was not bad, but its contents were minimally hot, having come from the fridge. Tasted good enough. Have you done this? What did you cook or heat? And here's the weird curve ball: ever try to estimate energy savings versus like prep using your stove, toaster, or your nuke? Hahaha!

The meals won't be car-B-Q'd but simply steamed. Bon appétit. [url=https://amzn.to/2QntQ0s[/url]

ZZtop did this on a Hot Rod magazine road trip with their CadZZilla customized Cadillac. They cooked some burritos on the engine manifold of the 500 + cubic inch engine.
That can't be healthy !

Yum ! Tastes like gasoline !

...but bio-diesels give the best 'french fries' diner aroma.

Just don't let it break open and leak. :eek:

Okay okay... I asked for it. But think about it again for a second. If your engine is leaking enough of anything--gasoline, coolant, exhaust--into the engine bay to affect the flavor of food in a closed container resting snugly on the head/injectors then you will have far bigger problems than the taste of your burrito.

In high school a few of us tried cooking hot dogs in a Ford Ranger. My buddy ran the truck hard in a low gear racing up and down hills trying to get the franks to cook. We ended up using a microwave at Safeway (grocery store) because the dogs never got warm.

Cooking on an engine is a waste of time. Microwaves use little power and they are much more efficient at heating.

I have been having some success heating food on the engine mornings while I drive to work. I wouldn't try to "cook" really, and I wouldn't recommend driving around instead of using a more efficient oven. But I get a warm breakfast when I reach my destination. Kinda fun, actually.

EDIT: Oh, and I tried a crude estimate of energy "savings" in such a heating-up of leftovers scenario. The savings were miniscule. If I remember the rough and approximate numbers correctly it is something like this: if a stove burns on average 15,000 BTU/hour that might be equal to about .12 gallons gasoline per hour in your car. Make it 10,000 BTU/hr and .08 GPH. If 3 minutes to warm-up food on the stove then .004 gallons? My quick math-from-memory probably won't persuade... so correct or debate my estimates as needed/desired--or if there is even interest :)

Conclusion: not a significant energy saving strategy.

An article in "Road and Track" circa 1990 did a good write up about this.
Welders have been heating their lunches in boxes welded around the exhaust pipes of their rigs for decades.
My wife and I regularly cook on our engines.
On top of everything, it is "free" energy.

What it comes down to is this:
Older, more wasteful V-8s cook best. (The old Cobra cooked the best)
Exhaust is the hottest, then heads, intake is nearly wothless heat wise.
Newer I-4s basically reheat and that's it.
Her old Volvo 240 had a heat shield around the exhaust manifold that with a little tinkering held 2 baked potatoes perfectly.
Veggies in foil work well.
Reheated biscuits will make people jealous, the butter smell carries for a good 20-30 feet.
Pork loin juice will make you loose your mind looking for an oil leak (yeah, wasted an hour on that )

Basically if you can bake it, wrap it in foil and wedge it behind the exhaust. Make a heat shield scoop and dinner will stay put better.

Your double cam cover might hold a bowl of oats or grits......... just have to find a bowl that fits....... one of those silicone ones maybe?

Feel free to aromatically drive around the block and confuse pedestrians!

I run heavy equipment and it is a common practice, especially with canned soups and ravioli.
I heated ravioli on the exhaust manifold on one of these a couple of days a week to break up the sandwich boredom.
http://www.kitmondo.com/%5Cimages%5C...5574355797.jpg

^ Skyking, you should really add a fairing to those headlights, they're killing your aero ;)

Have you tapped the heater core for your coffee yet ? 190deg is a perfect temp. Some copper line wrapped around a camping percolator........

Hey, that would not be bad for a coffee warmer :thumbup:

Google Muffpot,it's a cooking pot for bikers and snowmobilers that clamps on your exhaust pipe.it has a cooking pot with a gasketed lid.

I'd really like to try this too. I don't know, would it be safe with a diesel?

I'd hazard a guess that more food gets cooked by guys like me out in the woods, on diesel excavator/dozer/backhoe/stationary engines than any other method.

When I operated the forklift all day I would leave cans of chunky soup under the motor of the machine. Wasn't bad in summer but in winter it didn't get hot. Decided subway was less effort.

I just made an imitation "muffpot" by taking a small metal box I was going to recycle. I made two holes in the bottom for a stainless steel screw clamp and then clamped it to a hose beside the exhaust manifold. Much better looking than my previous version, but probably not as effective, since it does not make direct contact with the exhaust manifold. Still, I can move it if I think of a better location.

Wow... A water heater would be a great addition to my car... That way, I could take hot showers while on the road. This is brilliant!

Hahaha! I don't know about a shower but a hot water dispenser on the dash would make some great hot drinks on the road. ;)

~78% of the energy from the fuel is lost as heat. It takes 8.34 BTU to heat one gallon 1 degree. Start @ 40 f, end at 130 f, ~750 BTU per gallon for domestic hot water.
750 x 50 = 37,500 BTU
Hmm, could you heat your house water on the way home from work, if you had good enough heat exchangers?

:eek::D

...

until you get 3 day food poisoning from a seafood sub.

:o

I wonder if you could use that in combination with your 5th Wheel? :thumbup: