engine/trans heater idea
 

I am thinking about trying to mount an electric interior car heater under the hood (if I can find a good spot) to hopefully keep the whole drivetrain warmer. I have a full grill block and insulated belly pan already to help keep the heat in although the wheel wells and exhaust are open. The block heater helps, but it's just not enough when it gets really cold. Has anyone tried this before? Do you think it will work or is it a waste of time.

I think it won't make much of a difference. If your block heater isn't enough, you can glue a heating pad to the oil pan and/or transmission (or even to the block, like MetroMPG did).

Why is your garage door open most of the day? It it's attached to the house, you're loosing some heat from the house too..

You could use the glue on pad heaters for the oil pan & trans pan. If you're creative enough you may be able to put them onto your uprights to warm the wheel bearings also.

Don

You could be right, and after looking under the hood, I'm not quite sure where I'd put it anyway. But, I know that a friend of mine from years past found a heat lamp mounted under his VW Beetle helped quite a bit with cold starting. I thought the heater might do the same thing, if it could raise the under hood temp. enough. Oil pan heaters do help, but they have to be on a smooth surface below the oil level. I could put one on the engine pan, but there is no flat spot on the transmission. Also, I think the ECU looks at coolant temp., not oil temp. when determining fuel mixture.

I only wish I had a garage to put the car in, and yes, everything is very stiff in the cold. All our driving is short trips right now so it usually doesn't even get warm enough for the thermostat to open. By next month, my mileage will probably be much worse than yours.:(

A heat lamp directed at the oil pan or engine block would be better than a heater since its radiation would go straight to where it's needed, while the heater first heats air, which later gives only some of its heat to the engine. The heat lamp is immune to drafts, and warms only what it's directed at. The heater, on the other hand, will waste energy warming everything in the engine bay: not only engine, but also radiator, wires, fluid reservoirs, ducts, hood and side walls, etc. Sure, the engine bay will be warm, but you'd have to keep that heater on all night for the engine block to soak up some heat.

Flat or curved, but no compound curves. A coolant/block heater won't heat your oil, so even if the coolant is warm, your oil has the density of thick molasses. With an oil pan heater, once the oil warms up it transfers some heat upwards to the rest of the engine. It may not have a noticeable effect on coolant temperature at start up, but the coolant will warm up faster once it starts circulating. Thinner, warmer oil is what you want most if your trips are short.

I think it's rather risky-- if there's any arcing (like in the thermostat) it could possibly start a fire. At the very least, make sure that heater is at least 18" off the ground.

It'd probably be better to clamp a brooding light with a 250W bulb (make sure it's got a ceramic socket) to the (open) hood and point it at the engine. (This might not work well if you have 'neighbors' of any kind, as typically we like our hoods to be closed when we're not around, lest they try to help themselves to your battery, or just the easily grabbed sensors like the MAF or whatever.)

You might also be able to find dipstick oil heaters. They help a smidgeon (maybe get two, so you can use one for the transmission). That would allow you to have a closed hood, and still get the oils warmed up.

Three words: Coolant tank heater.

They come in models up to 1500 watts. I use one on my Prius and it takes 40 minutes to heat the coolant from cold to operating temp. Not just warm... actual operating temperature. Cuts my fuel consumption in half on short trips.

A space heater would only work well (but slowly) if you have a well insulated and airtight engine compartment.

I think your talking about a canister style recirculating block heater, right? I think that would probably be the best, but I haven't figured out how I would install one since there is no block drain and the thermostat is in the lower rad hose. I just realized last night that the OE block heater looks like it screws in. If I can find out what thread it is, maybe I could use that port. What wattage heater are you using?

Thanks for all the responses. It's sure nice to be able to bounce ideas off others, to find the flaws before I start, especially when they're kind of odd like this one.

So, I've abandoned my original idea as a poor one. I explored the coolant tank heater idea, but have moved away from that as well. I don't have a block drain in this engine and the thermostat is in the lower rad hose. Using the 2 heater hoses will give poor circulation IMO. I did some more reading on the oil pan pad heaters and decided this MAY be the best route to try first. The more I read about preheating the oil and the coolant, the better I like the idea. My problem is that there is no flat surface on the pan large enough to place the heater. Has anyone successfully used something to level out the voids so I can make this work? Would JB weld work or is there something better? I'm wondering if I could live with a single contour if I could eliminate the compound contours? What do you think? Here is a picture of the pan. http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-pu...center-pan.jpg

Puddle, I don't see compound contours there. If what I'm looking at is your oil pan, then it's just wavy, but in one direction. It looks like you can find enough area there with a simple curve.

Take a piece of cardboard, cut it to the dimensions of a heating pad (1.5"x6" or 3" diameter round) and push it against the underside of the oil pan. If it's a simple curve, then you should be able to get max contact area without folding or stretching. Remember, you don't need to cover the whole pan;)

http://www.webastoshowroom.com/images/truck_trifold.pdf
These work.... They use them on the Dalton..

A tank heater should fix your problem, you just have to work out the connection, MOST engines don't have block drains... The heater hoses should actually work fine as usually they are on opposite sides of the thermostat so they do push water through the block.

There are special fittings that replace a freeze plug on the block, fairly easy to install.
Or if you search almost all blocks or heads have threaded plugs for manufacturing/cleaning purposes.

Good Luck

Dave

I was a little shocked to find out that the cheapest block heater for my car was from the dealership and it screws right in to the block.
You can also get dipstick oil heaters, only 90 watts but that should be enough to thin the oil and get everything warming up quicker, they replace your dip stick so there is no way to really screw up installing one or removing it if you don't like it or want to move it to another vehicle.

Dipstick heaters tend to burn the oil around them, while pad heaters spread that heat over a much greater area (plus transfering the heat through the metal pan further diffuses the it).
Dipstick Oil Heater

I use a 400w block heater, a 150w adhesive pad type heater on the oil pan and another 150w adhesive pad heater on the transmission pan. Mine were flat enough so they fit perfect, I just measured the pans and choose the appropriate size. My Coolant, Engine Oil and Transmission Fluid are all around 100 degrees F when I start it up in the morning, it goes out of open loop in about 20 yards. I typically see around a 4mpg loss on my morning commute if I don't plug it in.

That's great. +10% mpg and a warm car seem like a no brainer. I assume you park in a garage and have it plugged in all night. If you idled a little do you think it would go out of open loop before driving at all?

No, I park outside and I have a timer that comes on about an hour before I leave. No idling for me, I just wait a moment for oil circulation then take off. It's running only very slightly rich in Open Loop anyhow, so there is no real benefit to letting it warm up any further.

Thanks for the responses. I actually have a 150 Watt Kats pad on order from the US so I want to figure out a way to make it work. I guess I should have looked at the pan closer before I ordered it (me bad), but with the belly pan on, it's hard to see. I don't want to remove it until I get the pad. The picture is one I took before installing the belly pan and I remembered it after I had placed the order. The Kats pad is 4x5 so I need that large of an area, but I think the JB Weld might work. The left side of the pan is not as wavy. The Kats pad was 1/3 the price of the Wolverine one and higher wattage so I thought is was worth a try. Tygen1, your results are encouraging, I hope this helps me too.

Keep in mind, I did not see a tank average increase of 4mpg, just the morning commute averages improved by that much with the heaters and this is in sub freezing temps, the benefit decreases as the temps rise, however I use the heaters year round :)
Don't sweat the voids too much, I left a decent sized void on my trans pan and it did not hurt anything. The conductors in the pad could overheat, so it might be nice to put in some epoxy, but most epoxys are insulators so they won't transmit the heat to the pan.

I got my pan heater installed yesterday. It seems to get pretty hot, so hopefully it helps. It actually fit pretty good without needing any filler. There are some compound curves in the pan, but there was a spot that was just wavy and it followed the waves just fine. Very economical compared to any other heater I looked at. It was only $31.50 including shipping to Canada from Warehouse Auto Parts. I'll be testing it soon. http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-pu...-installed.jpg

If you have a webasto or eberspärsher you could use the exhaust piping to warm up the rear differential and wheel bearings. or the transmission. Today it was -15 celsius and one ElCat heats all the time its batteries with ebershpärsher. After half an hour there were 12" water pot hole under the car. Exaust heat temperature was something like +40-50 celsius degrees ;). Now it was pointing to ground.

Elcat Electric Vehicles

Vekke, i have heard from others also that webasto heaters are very impressive. They are way too costly for me, but I'm sure it would be a good investment for some.