Ways to shorten warming up times of an diesel engine

[2009Toyotoad]

Not a diesel guy. There are some really good ideas in this thread and some questionably dangerous ones.

Here's what I do know. My family spent a few years on Fairbanks, AK. So here's what works.
Fuel tank heaters, OEM designed coolant heaters and OEM designed hood insulators, battery blankets and heaters, Grill blocks, and of course the right motor oil. I highly recommend a remote starter too.

The little wasted fuel from a long idle, will be recouped 25 miles down the road with a fully up to operating temp power train.

[TimV]

Already running low viscosity full synthetic motor oil, full upper grill block until 22 degrees Celsius (above that, i cook the engine :P)
Already having laying at home, waiting until i have time to install: 100W heater pad of 65degrees celcius for the gearbox oil pan. Dont know if i need to put isolation at the bottem, because both sides of the pad gets hot, and i want all the heat to go up.

If installed, it would look something like this, so probably a good idea to cover the heater with isolation?

[oil pan 4]

Surface contact heating is not very efficient, but better than nothing.

Also if you have a 95 or 85 amp alternator, note that you are not going to get any were near that amperage at idle or normal driving speed. At normal engine speeds the alternator is only going to make any where from 15 to 30 amps at most.
The only way to get more power out of the alternator during low speed operation is, 1 put on a larger alternator, 2 over drive the one you have even more then it already is, 3 get an aftermarket one with its internals redesigned to pump out more amps at lower speed.

[TimV]

I have a 82/150 amps alternator. So 82 amps around idle or around 1000rpm. Dont know exactly...

[RedDevil]

What about an engine air inlet heater?

That should help idling and running at low throttle when the engine is still cold.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by 2009Toyotoad

Not a diesel guy. There are some really good ideas in this thread and some questionably dangerous ones.

Here's what I do know. My family spent a few years on Fairbanks, AK. So here's what works.
Fuel tank heaters, OEM designed coolant heaters and OEM designed hood insulators, battery blankets and heaters, Grill blocks, and of course the right motor oil. I highly recommend a remote starter too.

The little wasted fuel from a long idle, will be recouped 25 miles down the road with a fully up to operating temp power train.

Diesels will generally not maintain temperature at idle. Additionally, they will not warm up from an extended idle starting from cold. My VW TDI (ALH) uses 25% of the fuel of a gasoline engine at idle (about 0.1gal/hour).

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by RedDevil

What about an engine air inlet heater?

That should help idling and running at low throttle when the engine is still cold.

These are mine.
I put the intake heaters on for 20 seconds, then run both the glow plugs and the intake heaters together for 10 seconds, release both the switches and crank the engine, it fires right up.
This is my backup for when I cant plug in a block heater.
After about 30 seconds of power they look like this:
DIY: Teaching an old J-code new tricks - Diesel Place : Chevrolet and GMC Diesel Truck Forums

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by TimV

100W heater pad of 65degrees celcius for the gearbox oil pan. Dont know if i need to put isolation at the bottem, because both sides of the pad gets hot, and i want all the heat to go up.

If installed, it would look something like this, so probably a good idea to cover the heater with isolation?

Iirc the instructions explicitly state that it should not be covered (or I would have covered the pad under my oil pan when I insulated it
).

The energy which does not heat the oil pan or gearbox directly will warm the air, which will rise up along the block and stay in the engine bay (because it's insulated, remember?), so not all is wasted.

Originally Posted by RedDevil

What about an engine air inlet heater?

That should help idling and running at low throttle when the engine is still cold.

Some PSA diesels have an intake air warmer (not directly in the ducting, but at the bottom of the air filter box) for when the DPF is being burned out. I don't know whether it is also used during cold starts, but if you already have one, then hacking a manual switch should not be a problem.

[somerandomguy]

Would armaflex on diesel fuel rail lines help at all?

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by somerandomguy

Would armaflex on diesel fuel rail lines help at all?

If the fuel is pre-heated at the tank (some vehicles have a fuel heater as part of a cold-weather preparation), maybe retaining such heat would make it easier to switch from the liquid phase and release vapours right after being injected. But I wouldn't hold my breath for a simple insulation around the fuel rail lines to be much beneficial without any other cold-starting aid.