Low power fuel tank heater for better winter mileage?

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

You're trying to heat the wrong component in the combustion process.
The combustion process should run about a stoichiometric air-fuel ratio of 14.7 - 1 (mass related) so by heating the fuel you are just heating 7% of the mass involved, which will have very little effect.
If you heat the air instead you heat the other 93% involved - and it is way less risky.

I experimented a bit with heating intake air. It does have an effect: it makes the engine idle lower earlier and (anti intuitively) the engine heats up less fast, probably because the combustion process itself is running more efficiently. I may well have another try at the eWAI coming winter.

He is right about that.
Much better off heating the air.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Heating the fuel tank is only eventually worth in a Diesel engine, but never to the point of turning the fuel into vapor. Just as a cold-start aid. When it comes to volatile fuels, I'm aware that some flexfuel cars in Brazil have heated injectors.