Early Fuel Evaporation Grid - why so quiet on it?

[BLSTIC]

Why have I not seen people modifying their EFE grids and/or installing them in other cars?

For those that don't know it was an electric heated grid that all air passed through, and it was active for the first two minutes of a cold start to massively improve vaporisation on a cold engine. It was fitted to some mid 80's vehicles

Come on guys, it's just begging to be a computer controlled hot air intake... Even better is because you can insulate it you could probably switch back to cold air in seconds...

[Jez77]

Id reckon they would take more power to run than they save in fuel.
Not needed with moden fuel injectors either.
Would help with a carby I'd think

[oldtamiyaphile]

The main problem is that if you're taking electricity from the alternator, it's likely going to cost fuel economy. Resistive heating devices aren't know for efficiency.

Fitting them in the 80's was a band aid to fix cold start drivability.

I plan on looking into such a device when I cover my Proton in solar panels and will essentially have a surplus of 'free' electricity.

[BLSTIC]

Yes but how much power do they actually draw? Is it much?

On another note, if you had a side-draft carby like an SU you could run a permanent exhaust or coolant heated grid plate without vapour lock problems.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

I can only remind 'grid-heaters" being used as a cold starting aid in Diesels. For spark-ignited there were other resources such as thermostatically-adjusted intakes, very common in Brazilian dedicated-ethanol cars, and heated intake manifolds which relied on the heat rejection from the cooling fluid passing through ducts surrounding the intake pipes. Anyway, I'd rather consider to adapt a heater core into the air box and run the coolant through it, in a way similar to the heat exchanger inside the fuel tanks of jet aircraft to prevent fuel freezing and cool down the engine oil.

[oldtamiyaphile]

Originally Posted by BLSTIC

Yes but how much power do they actually draw? Is it much?

No doubt smaller ones exist, but:

Dodge Cummins Intake Heater Grid ?'s - Diesel Forum - TheDieselStop.com



Pre-heating on start up is one thing, but continuous running is quite another. A heat gun takes 2400w, and while it heats up the air nicely, might not be so effective at the CFM required by an ICE.

The main issue is we have plenty of waste heat in an ICE, so it's always going to be better to use waste heat.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by BLSTIC

Why have I not seen people modifying their EFE grids and/or installing them in other cars?

For those that don't know it was an electric heated grid that all air passed through, and it was active for the first two minutes of a cold start to massively improve vaporisation on a cold engine. It was fitted to some mid 80's vehicles

Come on guys, it's just begging to be a computer controlled hot air intake... Even better is because you can insulate it you could probably switch back to cold air in seconds...

I already built that, didn't use a computer or electrical power and it works.

[BLSTIC]

oil_pan_4 do go on... A heated grid under the carby? Any more details?

[oil pan 4]

I didn't use a grid. It wastes electrical power and the mesh it's self is a potential foreign object hazard.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ake-33039.html

[RedDevil]

FWIW, I started this thread years ago : http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...i-27765-3.html
but I never came around to actually making the electric WAI.
But I did some tinkering.

On a very cold morning I walked around my car with running engine, as the windscreen was fogged up and frozen on the inside. I was running an e15 gas/ethanol mixture and could clearly smell the ethanol from the exhaust. It dawned how bad the combustion is when still cold.

The theory of heating up the air before it gets into a cold engine is that it would make for a faster and more complete combustion.
I did some testing with hot water bottles and measuring the effect on intake temp and warmup time.

What I found that heating the intake temperature (raising it from around freezing by about 20 degrees) actually increases warmup time slightly; the engine takes longer to get up to temperature.
That seems to confirm the theory; as the combustion goes faster (actually less slow) than when stone cold, a smaller amount of fuel can produce the same power.
The remaining fuel will eventually burn and heat the engine, but not produce as much power because it is late for the power stroke. Less of that means less heat.

I'm still looking for a suitable heater setup.
I'd prefer to have it on top of (e.g. beyond) the air filter, so the trajectory to the actual intakes is as short as practically possible. No need heating up the air filter itself.