twas_brillig
Jedi Knight
Offline
Our BJ7 has an immersion type block heater in it, from the original owner; our Bugeye came with one of the ones that replaces a headbolt. I doubt if anyone drives vehicles like this in the winter anymore (back in the day, our BE was our sole vehicle for one winter), but I also thought that there might be some folks interested in a paper I ran across recently, written in 1972 at the University of Saskatchewan https://library.csbe-scgab.ca/docs/journal/14/14_1_15_ocr.pdf And this is the only automotive type site I sign on to.
Briefly: the authors instrumented up a straight six and a V8. Two hours gives you most of the heating effect; five hours pretty much gets you to the maximum temperature. And the combustion chambers got to the highest temperatures. And the oil in the sump didn't much warm up at all.
It was brass monkey weather here last week (-37C/-35F one morning) and our 2009 BMW X3 didn't want to crank (no block heater) but fired immediately.
I'm assuming that the important aspect of a block heater back in the days of carbs would have been that warm cylinder head, helping the fuel droplets to atomize/vapourise/ignite. But if the water jacket is warming and the oil in the sump is still cold, why does the engine crank better with a block heater? The cylinder walls/piston rings will be warmish; the crank & bearings will be colder than heck; the valve train will be warmish, etc. etc.
Knowledge would be appreciated. Doug
Briefly: the authors instrumented up a straight six and a V8. Two hours gives you most of the heating effect; five hours pretty much gets you to the maximum temperature. And the combustion chambers got to the highest temperatures. And the oil in the sump didn't much warm up at all.
It was brass monkey weather here last week (-37C/-35F one morning) and our 2009 BMW X3 didn't want to crank (no block heater) but fired immediately.
I'm assuming that the important aspect of a block heater back in the days of carbs would have been that warm cylinder head, helping the fuel droplets to atomize/vapourise/ignite. But if the water jacket is warming and the oil in the sump is still cold, why does the engine crank better with a block heater? The cylinder walls/piston rings will be warmish; the crank & bearings will be colder than heck; the valve train will be warmish, etc. etc.
Knowledge would be appreciated. Doug