Coolant Heater - Lower Rad Hose?

Hello! So, I put a block heater in the wife's car over the summer. The conventional kind that replaces a freezeplug. Wasn't a fun job, and I still don't have a warm and fuzzy about the install, although it isn't leaking so I guess I'm good. Also, it doesn't warm up the car as well as I thought it would - perhaps I need two?

Anyway... my LT1 non-tow '94 daily driver needs something - that beast sounds like it's gonna come apart when I start it in 20 degree weather. Hate to think what it'll sound like when it's zero out!

My issue is that I'm lazy and getting around to installing another block heater just isn't happening. have any of you guys tried the type of heater that splaices into the lower rad hose? Here's the link to one that I *think* fits my car. I would put it in the vertical part of the lower rad hose:

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Also, should I heat up my oil, too? There are some pan heaters out there, here's one:

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Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I'm wondering the same thing. I have a super short commute so a block heater makes a lot of sense for me.

sherlock9c1 wrote:

I'm wondering the same thing. I have a super short commute so a block heater makes a lot of sense for me.

Yes, that's why I put one on the wife's car. Plus it helps her heater start blowing warm air faster.

In my case I just want the car to have an easier time starting. I dunno if it's piston slap or what, but I cringe every time I turn the key when it's below about 20 degrees...

What oil are you running. Have you put an oil pressure gauge on the car to check what's actually happening?

sherlock9c1 wrote:

What oil are you running. Have you put an oil pressure gauge on the car to check what's actually happening?

I run Valvoline 5w-30 with an AC PF-52. Maybe I should run something thinner?

No, I haven't tried an actual gauge, just the "idiot gauge" on the dash. I should probably do that...

Kevin,

just going from theory here:
1. The casting plug heater you installed is probably the best place to heat the overall engine. Think about the thermal capacity. You need to heat the block itself and the coolant. Those are the two biggest heat reservoirs.
2. The oil pan heater is realistically going to heat only the oil in the pan and maybe warm a bit of the rotating assembly. If it's a cast aluminum pan, the heat may wick up into the block, but on a stamped steel pan like the stock LT1 pan, you won't get much heat conduction. Hot oil sounds like a good thing, but then it gets pumped right through a freezing cold block on its way to the bearing surfaces. I doubt it'll actually stay hot (and thin) enough to make a difference.
3. On the radiator hose heater - how does the heat actually make its way into the engine? How do you ensure you actually get heat transfer into the engine and not just a hot radiator hose?

Good points, Joel... plus the block heater is the way it was done from the factory.

The rad hose heater is supposed to cause a convection, which is why it should be installed vertically in the lower hose. I doubt it'll warm the entire engine as well as a block heater will.

As for the oil heater, I'm thinking it would be best to use one in addition to either coolant heater. The benefits of it may not be worth the trouble...

The thing to remember here is the sheer amount of heat required to get the motor "up to temp." Not that we want the block heater to get it up to 195F but what we might consider "warm." The fact is the stock setup takes maybe 5-10 minutes to fully warm up, and if the engine is putting out an average of 20hp continuous during that time period, we're looking at 20hp of thermal energy going into the cooling system, which is 20hp * 746W/hp= 15,000 watts. Putting a 500W block heater in is literally 1/30 of the energy going in. Now granted, the car won't be moving either, but even on a cold windy day, I've watched my wagon's engine temp drop like a rock even after sitting off for 5-10 minutes.

My point in saying this is that it's likely your block heater is doing a decent job. If anything, you might want to put another one on the other side of the block as well to get twice the heat input.

Which side of the block did you put yours on?

sherlock9c1 wrote:

Which side of the block did you put yours on?

The green car currently has no heater at all. The MAB car has one on the driver's side. I do think that two block heaters, one on each side, would be the "hot" setup.

Yeah, I doubt we'll see operating temperature, but it'd be nice to get it up to 60 or 70 degrees...

Maybe I'll just stick to the block heaters. I haven't looked into installing one on the pass side. My guess is it would be not so very much easy...

whoa,. hold on a minute here,.
i can tell you from years of playing around with machinery trucks and cars,. that the oil pan heater is your best choice,. the heat does rise and keep the frost off the cylinders,. and thin oil is easy to pump,.therefore the starter spins the motor easier,.and yes it does warm the motor up quicker at startup,.
lt1 pistons are "cam" ground pistons,. they are egg shaped when cold ,. don't worry about the 'slap' they sound that way at 100kms old or 425,000kms old,.
convection heaters are ok,. but burn out quicker for some reason,.
i,ve started stuff in minus fokity fok weather,. and have done stuff like put batteries in to hot water, so they'll take a charge,. heat the oil up to boiling on a portable kerosene / colman type stove, then pouring it in the motor, heating up the antifreeze the same way and pouring it back in,. and i,m talking diesel motors here,. not gas which are easier to light off,.
a decent oil pan heater is your best bet,.
jmho
jm2c
nweoi
yrmv
pdcc

Nick

phantom 309 wrote:

whoa,. hold on a minute here,.
i can tell you from years of playing around with machinery trucks and cars,. that the oil pan heater is your best choice,. the heat does rise and keep the frost off the cylinders,. and thin oil is easy to pump,.therefore the starter spins the motor easier,.and yes it does warm the motor up quicker at startup,.

I was hoping to hear from a Northerner! I did go ahead and order a pan heater because they are reasonable and easy to install. I planned to use it in conjuction with another heater... but I betcha this is the first one my lazy arse installs.

phantom 309 wrote:

lt1 pistons are "cam" ground pistons,. they are egg shaped when cold ,. don't worry about the 'slap' they sound that way at 100kms old or 425,000kms old,.

Yeah. My old DGGM '94 sounded like crap at startup for the 200,000 miles I owned it. Must've not been too big a deal.

phantom 309 wrote:

i,ve started stuff in minus fokity fok weather,.

Is there a translation for that temperature? Is that at the bottom of the Celcius scale?

wagon collector wrote:

phantom 309 wrote:

i,ve started stuff in minus fokity fok weather,.

Is there a translation for that temperature? Is that at the bottom of the Celcius scale?

That's when all the red stuff goes and hides in the little bulb at the bottom.

Nick I'm glad you piped up too. Syracuse, for all its snow, never gets that cold, believe it or not.

Quote :

I,ve started stuff in minus fokity fok weather

The point in which the KIKI bird starts its song...KI..KI..KI..KI hrist its cold.

Under about -25C (9F) you face two problems:

1. Unless you are running a synthetic like a 0W 30, your oil has the viscosity of molasses. Getting that glop up to where its supposed to be is quite a job. Even 5W 30 flows like STP so Nick is very right, warm up the oil as your first line of defense.

2. The vapor point of gasoline. To prove the point, just take a bucket of gas and cool it to this point and you can sit and throw lit matches into the bucket all day long and you won't get a bang. Gas needs to be a vapour to mix with the air to light up so at -25, you are depending only on heat of compression to vapoize the gas. That means you are pouring raw gas into the cylinder.

This is why your fuel pump only comes on for about 3 seconds when you first turn the key and only starts again when you have oil pressure. When we first started using electric fuel pumps and fuel injection, GM especially, had real problems of their engines flooding and if you kept at it, it would proceed to put enough gas into the engine to dilute the oil. Back then if it didn't fire in the first couple of trys, you called a tow truck or pushed the car into a heated garage, then changed the oil.

For the record, I have had lots of success with good block heaters (left on over night) to about minus 35, using 10W 30 oil. Below that, an oil heater is required. Below minus 40 (the same in both C and F) you have no business going out anyways. Spent way too much time in the north spending 2 or 3 hours getting equipment fired up and another hour getting them to move giving you only about 3 hours of daylight to get any work done.

Even after getting them running at temps below -40 you still run into problems. Have had the rad freeze up in a truck with the engine running and traveling at 60 MPH in northern Manitoba (anti-freeze tested to -50) and have walked a D8 Caterpillar right off its tracks after snapping a link pin due to the cold. Don't even talk to me about getting aircraft operational at these temps [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The only true way of surviving the depths of winter here is to move to Florida till its over.

Bill

I haven't used a block heater once since I started driving FI cars. This would include TBI 350, TBI 4.3 V6, and the LT1s. They start every time. The old Quadrajet 307 Olds, or the 2bbl 267 were another story. This is in O O O O Ott tt tt tt awa. Cold. And damp. And snow. And, I hate winter.

have had freeze up problems in northern sask,. at -blah bla deg below,. you haveto run a winter front,. i,ve dumped 5 gals of gas into 100gals of diesel to keep it chugging along with thick fuel,.i,burnt rags soaked with fuel oil and methyl underneath the fuel tanks to get the honey inside them to flow,. we had to get a crusher (think gravel here) motor fired in -40 with the wind at 25mph or so,.it would hardly run on the ether,. after nearly two full cans it manged to make enough heat to keep going,. but it took nearly an hour at full throttle with no load before we saw temps about 120deg,. even after we took off the fan belts,.
its actually easier to crush gravel when its cold,. rock busts easier,. but so does everything else,. i,ve brought cranes and excavators out of the bush,. taking 10 hrs to get a machine started and walked out a mile or so,.(flat track cranes are ignorant in the cold) crazy stuff breaks when its crazy cold,. like a door handle on the door of the dozer breaking right off in my hand with the door closed and me outside,. (you can imagine my comments on that with the wind howling at 30mph or so,machine running at full throttle,.) i was doing float work in those days (low bed for you southern lads)
i hauled logs,. pulp out of the bush,.jack pine and spruce frozen so hard it was like steel and a pickeroo would just bounce off and get you in the leg,..loads as heavy as 210,000lbs
i,ve driven across ice roads,. (yes they really do make cracking sounds) only slippery during the day when it was sunny,.
when it's real cold.,. snow and ice grips like asphalt,.
My old tbi van likes to flood when its fokity fok cold,. but if you floor the pedal it cuts off the injectors and it'll usually go,.
I,ve used heat guns (for decal removal and flooring etc) in the intakes of cars to get them going
In winnipeg one time it was -48, with wind chills dropping it to -60 or so,. i had a 75 lincoln towncar with the 460,. i stuck the battery in the bathtub for an hour,. boiled the oil on the stove ,. and left the girfriends hair dryer in the aircleaner,. when i got it running,. i was one of about 10 cars that were out and about,. and i stopped to let a cop warm up in the car as his cruiser had quit,. was eery really with no-one around,. but fun to run lights etc,..
winter.. been there.. done that so many times,..heck i,even driven from ottawa to grand valley in a snow storm (after putting in a 6 spd) that had roads shut down, and in a 95 9c1 with 255-50-17 bfg's definitely not the best snow tires,...

Nick

Dayum, Nick. You got me beat. A bad winter here consist of the phrase "I had to put on this jacket...."

So... not surprising, but my lazy arse only put the heater pan heater on so far. It's 150 watts (as opposed to 600 for either the block heater or the rad heater). This seems common - most oil pan heaters are lower wattage.

Anyway, the installation only took 20 minutes - clean the oil pan, stick the heater, silicone around the edges to help with adhesion (this didn't seem necessary - but this step was in the instructions), route the cord up to an easy access point.

I have to say this starts almost as well as the wife's car with a block heater - with the added benefit that this car seems to run better faster. The warm oil definitely helps.

I'm thinking that the combination of a block heater and oil pan heater will be the "hot" ticket. I'll be trying that next. A second oil-pan heater is en route now. We've only had one cold evening (14 degrees F) this year, but both cars seemed to benefit from the pre-heaters.

Can you post links to the heaters?

sherlock9c1 wrote:

Can you post links to the heaters?

Yes... I should have done that earlier...

This is the oil pan heater I used. It seems like a nice unit. I'll keep you guys posted. I'll be using this unit this year any time the temp drops to about 32 deg F or below:

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I also ordered another block heater. This one is different than the one I put in the wife's car. Seems well made, but I haven't installed it:

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Finally, this is the rad hose heater I got. I'm considering not even installing it, but I may just to see if it actually works:

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[quote="Wagon Collector"]

sherlock9c1 wrote:

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One of these in the oil pan works the best,.(element is straight tho)

If you want a vehicle that'll start at fokkity fok below,. don't forget your battery warmer,. cold batteries won't take a boost or a charge very well,.
lots of "out west'erners use the block heater,. the oil pan heater and the battery blanket,.

Hope you can afford the hydro for the 3000 watts you'll be using,.

Nick