New Idea - Hot Box Intake

[ecofreak]

Try one of those metal solenoids for garden sprinklers, and maybe have an extra air filter on the manifold.

[Olympiadis]

Thermostatic Air Cleaner (THERMAC)

[Weather Spotter]

for door lock actuators look here: Universal Power Door Lock Actuator (2 Wires): eBay Motors (item 320579651247 end time Aug-29-10 08:33:14 PDT)
$1.25 each + $4 in shipping.

[Zerohour]

Very Nice Olympiads. I Have seen these before. Just never realized what they were. Out old 86 ranger had one. Never knew it was controlled by wax. Pretty neat idea. I still might go with the door actuator. It seems like cutting apart an air box intake from a junk yard might not be worth it. I'm already going to need a custom inlet and tubing, modifying an oval shape inlet would probably make it more complicated.

Quick quest for you all, a scan gauge gives air intake temperature correct? I've been thinking about trying to rig up a circle for this as well. Maybe utilize a water temp sensor in the heat conducting pipe. Or using something else like an air temp sensor hooked up to a voltmeter. I've got a few ideas running around, and honestly I think the watertemp sensor in the intake pipe would give me a clue as to what temp is being pulled off the exhaust.

[Olympiadis]

Just use a K-type thermocouple and reader.
Some DVOMs can read thermocouple leads.

I use thermocouple thermometers from Extech and Tenma.

Both the air temp sensors and water temp sensors I use are resistors that measure in Ohms, not volts. The scangauge will get the air temp from either the MAF or an air temp sensor. Some vehicles do not measure the air temp.

You could also use the $9 in/out digital home thermometers and run the outside sensor end into your air-box.

[adeadhead.skip]

zerohour: Olympiadis posted a good diagram the thermac.

I'm quite sure you can find one in a junk yard. It is built into the air filter housing intake. Look for a 1988 - 1996 GM vehicle. Other makes/years have it but this is what I am familiar with. I also know the yards are full of these cars. Just unscrew the wing nut, remove the cover and pop the housing off. Grab the preheater hose at the same time. It is the flex hose extending down from the air intake. It slides right off the exhaust manifold cowling. At home, hacksaw the intake (snorkel) off the filter housing and you have the thermal mechanism you need.

I suggest the wax actuator due to it's simplicity but you will not have the control available if electrical or vacuum operated. Mine works fine and is 20 years old with 171.00 miles of use including plenty of PA winters. I feel a device like this does not warrant user intervention.

[pgmomni]

Originally Posted by brucey

Zerohour: I've simply removed my intake tract that is sucking air from the grill so now it sucks from the back of the engine bay. This saves a lot of engine clutter and does help it get up to temperature faster. There is no real need for the intake tract other than as a silencer on heavy throttle, but hell I like the noise. The extra availability of that side and the engine bay are a bonus on top of just the increased warm up times.

Cold air vs warm air and gasoline combustion.
Cold air is denser, more O2, more HP
BUT too cold air/intake on a cold engine and gas fails to vaporize well. Much bigger issue in the days of carb'ed engines. As another poster stated the cold air pre-warming was used for emmissions and I add cold start drivablity. Ditto for the coolant lines thru carb's and throttle bodies do keep them from icing as well as aid in maintaining a constant temp in them.

The best case is to pull in cold, dense air and then heat it up in the intake manifold. Many FE 4 banger Toyota engines do this by locating the exhaust manifold in the front and intake in back by firewall. By design exhaust manifold heat travels back across the head and further to the entire TB/intake manifold. While the air intake starts in the left fender pulling cooler air.
The Camry's intake manifold gets quite hot and being made of cast aluminum it believe it heats the air intake charge.

On my Camry removing the entire stock airbox/intake opens up space under hood. Car "growls" when you punch it like carb'ed engines from my youth.

I have a 4" chromed pipe the leads over to where stock intake entered engine compartment thru the left front fender. Has a 4" cone filter on it.

Its getting colder here too. 52 this AM with a high of 75 today.

Time to reinstalled the upper grille block.
I also in winter use a modified thermostat.
Take OEM stat, starts to open at 180, fully opens at 195.
By adding a ring of 12 gauge cooper wire under the spring in the base it raises the stat to start to open later and fully open at higher temp.
Takes some trial and error testing in a pot of boiling water to get right.
Too high a full open temp and the cooling fans will run too often negating grille block and need to load alternator more.


Overall the goal is to increase the entire under the hood temp to make it permanent "summer" time under the hood. Using Grille blocking, under body plates to limit cold airflow in/around engine while air intake remains free and open to pull cold dense air from left fender.

Pete

[pgmomni]

Also, in the cold we need to run the defroster, which takes an additional 10-11% off my Subaru's FE. So if its really cold, and I'm defrosting the windows, I loose 15% FE due to cold: 25MPG-> 21.25 MPG (this is accurate I get ~20-22 in winter) And then if I need to run the defroster it pulls an additional 10% off FE: 21.25 MPG -> 19.125 MPG. And this is about spot on with my worst tank last winter. Right after graduating school, and not working, I only drove short trips around town in the cold. The worst tank I had was ~18.7MPG.

In my Camry if you turn the control all the way to the right which is the defroster only setting the AC comes on. Kills mpg.

My Mazda was worse, AC went on on half of the availble heater control settings.

What i HATE is the AC goes on BUT the AC light does not come on so you dont even know its running unless, like in the under powered Camry you can feel it come on!

Granted the defroster works a whole lot better with the AC removing the moisture, but alot of the times you can get by with just the fan blowing warm air at the windshield as its 14 out and there aint a whole hell of alot of moisture left in the air anyway.

Pete

[Zerohour]

@ Pgmomni

Although your Camery has the exhaust header in the front the intake in the rear, my Subaru has a Boxster engine where the exhaust header is located on the bottom of the motor and the intake manifold is located on the top. The exhaust at best warms the transfluid and oil, although due the the location near the ground and being exposed to cold air traveling under the car It may not do all that well of a job.

I haven't considered more grill blocking for the cold weather. Maybe I'll considering blocking off some more of the grill as well, but I don't want to go too nuts with the grill block. I have the entire lower grill inlet blocked. I'm almost certain the engine bay remains a wee bit warmer than previously. It takes forever to the engine to cool down now. lol which is good because I'v noticed the bay stays warm for HOURS after the car is off.

[Weather Spotter]

Se if you can make the AC not come on with the defrost setting. I did this to my Matrix last weekend, I had to remove some plastic and snip one wire. I can still have AC & defrost but now I have to push the AC button to get it on. Defrost setting just controls air flow now