Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

I always thought warming the car up in the morning at idle is a necessary thing to do, until 2 of my mates told me that they read its better for the car to breath air as they warm up so just to drive it normally without pushing it too much for the first 5 mins.

Apparently its not too good for the car to be warmed up at idle, is this true?

What are your opinions on this? (Im so confused)

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/218648-warming-car-up-at-idle/
Share on other sites

the thing is, its not only the engine that needs warming up... ur gear box and diff also needs to be warmed up....

Its better to turn on the engine.. give it about 15 seconds for the oil to start pumping in and around... then take it easy on the road.. i.e shift before 3000rpm, or even better 2700 rpm until operating temp as been reached.

Your engine will warm up faster if ur driving it as well.

Hope this helps,

Brendan

There was an article in The Age's Good Weekend, about 12 months ago, by Karl Kruszelnicki. Some of what it says:

- Engines run best at their design temp. Idling is not the best or quickest way to warm up an engine. GENTLE driving is.

- When idling, the fuel is not completely burnt. Unburnt fuel condenses on the cylinder walls, washing the oil off the cylinder walls and also thinning the oil.

- Idling drops spark plug temps, leading to dirty plugs, causing poor fuel economy.

- Idling prevents the catalytic converter reaching its design temp (400 -800C).

- Even in Canada, at -20C, it is recommended no more than 15-30 sec before driving from cold start. So even less is desirable in warm Oz.

Canada's Office of Energy Efficiency calculated that 5 minutes less idling each day would save $646 MILLION in fuel costs and and 1.6 million Tonnes greenhouse gases per year, in Canada alone.

hahah thanks for the help, also i shoulda done a search but i couldn't be bothered last night so late. :blush:

yer the thing is i warm up the car every morning for about 10 mins, so i thought maybe i should change my way of warming up now if its bad for the engine. and no wonder my petrol always dissapears every next day lol

Oh yeah another question, then if i wanted to cool down the turbo and engine after a long cruise/speeding, do i keep the car engine at idle for that? is that okay too? or do i just turn the engine off after few mins of turbo cool down for the engine to cool down best?

Edited by R33Turbo

i used to let it warm up but i read it might glaze the engine so i just take it easy untill the car is up to running temp. saves on fuel too..ha.

as for cool down, unless your drive way is at the end of a quarter mile, driving your car conservatively a couple blocks befor your home is more than enough to let it cool down i recon...then the ttimer will take care of the rest. mines set to only 30secs anyways, it used to be at 50secs but i found it pointless after a while.

i used to let it warm up but i read it might glaze the engine so i just take it easy untill the car is up to running temp. saves on fuel too..ha.

as for cool down, unless your drive way is at the end of a quarter mile, driving your car conservatively a couple blocks befor your home is more than enough to let it cool down i recon...then the ttimer will take care of the rest. mines set to only 30secs anyways, it used to be at 50secs but i found it pointless after a while.

Besides my GTR and some 31's I have a 700h/p daily driver ute and it has forged pistons which are noisy when cold because of the swell required in the piston material to bring it to the required piston to bore clearance.

The way I understand it the result of revving or driving the car before the pistons have swollen to the required tolerance and putting load on the engine is that the piston moves in an oval movement, although only slightly at low revs, until the swelling is complete then it travels in a more direct path up and down the bore necessitating much less wear,obviously the higher the revs when cold the more times the piston is exposed to pre swollen wear as load accentuates the oval movement.

Of course I'm talking about forgies here which is the most extreme tolerance piston to bore clearance,so a normal piston would not have as much problem and therefore warm up would not be as important as I believe it is for my engine,but I believe cold start wear is less about oil temp as many people think and far more about piston swell and tolerances,so in normal car circumstances I agree with the other posters to take it easy till engine temps are reached.Cheers Grey Pearl.

u do know it only takes 30sec for a turbo to spool down right?'

'mafia' et al.

3 min is a bit excessive for a trip to the shops. i just cool for 10sec maybe 20sec

must be a 'cool' factor in leaving a vehicle running while u strut past all the customers :(

Edited by r33cruiser

I give it the time it takes to smoke a cigarette. Cool down, I just don't thrash it for the last few blocks to my house then give it the time it takes to grab my wallet, phone etc. If I've just hammered it into my driveway I'll give it a minute or so.

Most people do not need turbo timers on their cars... Simple as that... The only reason somee do is because they heat the turbo up so much that it will seize if not given the time to cool down...

Who drives like an idiot on the road, pushing their car so hard all the way to their drive way to need one???

Most people do not need turbo timers on their cars... Simple as that... The only reason somee do is because they heat the turbo up so much that it will seize if not given the time to cool down...

Who drives like an idiot on the road, pushing their car so hard all the way to their drive way to need one???

Point being is whilst you may be able to get a turbo timer you cannot get a brake rotor timer, a calliper timer, a gearbox timer, a transfer case timer, a diff timer.....

With regard to warming the engine the procedure should be this:

1. Get in car.

2. Start car.

3. Drive off gently.

Anything else is a waste of petrol, will wear your engine out quicker & most importantly will annoy the crap out of your neighbours or the bloke lined up to take your parking bay.

Point being is whilst you may be able to get a turbo timer you cannot get a brake rotor timer, a calliper timer, a gearbox timer, a transfer case timer, a diff timer.....

With regard to warming the engine the procedure should be this:

1. Get in car.

2. Start car.

3. Drive off gently.

Anything else is a waste of petrol, will wear your engine out quicker & most importantly will annoy the crap out of your neighbours or the bloke lined up to take your parking bay.

BAM!! hit the nail on the head.

save the cool down time and warm up time for the track

...will annoy the crap out of your neighbours or the bloke lined up to take your parking bay

Id glass my neighbor if they idled their stock 34 every morning for 10mins.

- Start, idle 20s from cold, drive gently for 5mins - done.

- Don't load the car up 5 mins before stopping - done.

Id glass my neighbor if they idled their stock 34 every morning for 10mins.

- Start, idle 20s from cold, drive gently for 5mins - done.

- Don't load the car up 5 mins before stopping - done.

lol so it wears the engine out at idle than whilst driving in cold is it?

What does it mean by "it wears engine out quicker" is it bad at idle?

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • It would be well worth deciding where you want to go and what you care about. Reliability of everything in a 34 drops MASSIVELY above the 300kw mark. Keeping everything going great at beyond that value will cost ten times the $. Clutches become shit, gearboxes (and engines/bottom ends) become consumable, traction becomes crap. The good news is looking legalish/actually being legal is slighly under the 300kw mark. I would make the assumption you want to ditch the stock plenum too and want to go a front facing unit of some description due to the cross flow. Do the bends on a return flow hurt? Not really. A couple of bends do make a difference but not nearly as much in a forced induction situation. Add 1psi of boost to overcome it. Nobody has ever gone and done a track session monitoring IAT then done a different session on a different intercooler and monitored IAT to see the difference here. All of the benefits here are likely in the "My engine is a forged consumable that I drive once a year because it needs a rebuild every year which takes 9 months of the year to complete" territory. It would be well worth deciding where you want to go and what you care about with this car.
    • By "reverse flow", do you mean "return flow"? Being the IC having a return pipe back behind the bumper reo, or similar? If so... I am currently making ~250 rwkW on a Neo at ~17-18 psi. With a return flow. There's nothing to indicate that it is costing me a lot of power at this level, and I would be surprised if I could not push it harder. True, I have not measured pressure drop across it or IAT changes, but the car does not seem upset about it in any way. I won't be bothering to look into it unless it starts giving trouble or doesn't respond to boost increases when I next put it on the dyno. FWIW, it was tuned with the boost controller off, so achieving ~15-16 psi on the wastegate spring alone, and it is noticeably quicker with the boost controller on and yielding a couple of extra pounds. Hence why I think it is doing OK. So, no, I would not arbitrarily say that return flows are restrictive. Yes, they are certainly restrictive if you're aiming for higher power levels. But I also think that the happy place for a street car is <300 rwkW anyway, so I'm not going to be aiming for power levels that would require me to change the inlet pipework. My car looks very stock, even though everything is different. The turbo and inlet pipes all look stock and run in the stock locations, The airbox looks stock (apart from the inlet being opened up). The turbo looks stock, because it's in the stock location, is the stock housings and can't really be seen anyway. It makes enough power to be good to drive, but won't raise eyebrows if I ever f**k up enough for the cops to lift the bonnet.
    • There is a guy who said he can weld me piping without having to cut chassis, maybe I do that ? Or do I just go reverse flow but isn’t reverse flow very limited once again? 
    • I haven’t yet cut the chassis, maybe I switch to a reverse flow. I’ve got the Intercooler mounted as I already had it but not cut yet. Might have to speak to an engineer 
    • Yes that’s another issue, I always have a front mount, plus will be turbo plus intake will big hasstle. I’ve been told if it looks stock they’re fine with it by a couple others who have done it ahahaha.    I know @Kinkstaah said the stock gtt airbox is limiting but I might just have to do that to avoid a defect so it atleast looks legit. Or an enclosed pod so it’s hidden away and feed air from the snorkel and below Intercooler holes like kinstaah mentioned. Hmm what to do 
×
×
  • Create New...