Engine Pre-Heaters

[phunky_monkey]

Hey all,

Looking around at engine oil pre-heaters for the Radical to cut down on the amount of hours on the engine for warming up, and help with general wear on cold start-up.

Anyone used them before? Looking at something like the Hot Head system: http://www.hotproductsengineering.com/?p=content&rp=hothead

Thoughts, opinions, advice etc all welcomed!

Cheers,

Dane

[blackrex]

I would not bother with it Dane, every one that I have dealt with has been up to operating temp within 2~3 minutes of idling time, even less if it is moving with a bit of load on. The amount of time and energy spent setting one of these units up (with the attendant risks of leakage) is not worth the possible savings in rebuilds. That system also appears to only do the coolant, and not the oil, where the oil is the more important fluid to get to temp quickly.

[phunky_monkey]

Thanks for the advice Stephen. I'll ask the Radical guys how long it usually takes them to get sufficient oil temp and see what they say.

I must have linked the wrong one - I'm looking at oil pre-heaters rather than coolant as that's not too big of a concern. If it does indeed only take a few minutes then I won't worry about it.

[blackrex]

None of the Radical guys (or any of the others) used them at Adelaide or Wakefield (where the temps got below zero overnight), all that it took in the mornings was start the car and let it run for a coupe of minutes. You are usually doing a walk around of the car at the time, checking for leaks or any other issues with the car.

[phunky_monkey]

Yeah, I haven't seen them use them when I've been there, so you make a very valid point.

I thought it may be a good investement toward less frequent rebuilds but may be a false economy.

[blackrex]

Your stuck with your 30 hr rebuilds no matter what happens (unless you buzz the engine and get a yellow dash light) so whilst running the pre heater might save you somewhere around 30min of total run time over that period of time, if you are that concerned then you are going to have to manually move the car from the pits to dummy grid, shut down on the grid, etc. From what I have seen, the rebuild times might be on the short side for the engines in the Radicals, The engine in the Speads has done more than that with no lose of performance or cylinder pressures.

[phunky_monkey]

For that sort of time it's obviously not worth it. I was thinking that it may be more like 15 mins run time for each hour on track which would then be worthwhile.

30 hours is only for racing engines and as a precaution I think. I've heard of guys with 90 hours and no dramas so it's very conservative, but understandable with a warranty in place.

[Neil]

Well unless theres a difference in warm-up time between wet and dry sumps then it takes a lot longer than a few minutes. At Wakefield and Eastern Creek my Radical can take 10 to 15 minutes to get close to operating temp. I find I get water temp up way before oil temp. These Radical have massive oil coolers,,,without going out and measuring it I'm quessing it's about 300mm square.

I actually like the idea of running some sort of oil warmer,,,in fact I'm dry sumping my R33 and will look into such a devise. I don't know how much oil an SR3 dry sump system holds but my Prosport's wetty is 5.5 full,,,so lets say the SR3 has 8 litres,,,thats a lot of cold oil pumping through a cold DRY engine.

This may sound really stupid but what about making a tempory shroud around the tank and using a hair dryer,,,just a thought.

Cheers

Neil.

[Marlin]

Why not just an electric heater element either within the oil tank or external around the tank, ie, a blanket.

[zebra]

Would a Nitrous bottle warmer work, or would it not get hot enough?

[Neil]

Why not just an electric heater element either within the oil tank or external around the tank, ie, a blanket.

Yea Ben,,,the nascar guy's run muliple small heating elements that screw into the dry sump tank (much like our standard heater sensor in our cats) but it take ages to heat up their 16 plus litres of oil,,,same with our V8 stupid cars. I've been told they spend like more than hour heating all liquids up to temp before hitting the start button.

You are right on track with the blanket one though,,,that would be my prefered option.

Andrew I no not of this nitrous bottle warmer thingy you speak of,,,got a link mate?.

Cheers

Neil.

[zebra]

Neil -

http://www.nitrousdirect.com/bottleheaters.html

[Marlin]

Would you prefer something 12 or 240 volt? Not much chop if it flattens your battery, or kind of silly if you have to run the car to stop the battery going flat.

[zebra]

Would you prefer something 12 or 240 volt? Not much chop if it flattens your battery, or kind of silly if you have to run the car to stop the battery going flat.

I would never have thought of that hahaha.

[Marlin]

....... But of course the option is there to run it off the tow car or jump battery.

[N1GTR]

Small petrol generator?

Haha, you're going to look like a mini F1 team with all the gear

[No Crust Racing]

I may not know Radicals but I do have an oil cooler setup on my S13 and I know it used to take 10-15mins to get oil temp until I fitted a thermostat that bypassed the cooler core until the temp reaches a certain point, cut oil warm up temps down drastically.

I've always thought about the concept of a an oil warmer/pre-heater but in reality it seemed to be a bit of a false economy as mentioned above. Just my opinion though and I'm not exactly highly experienced

[phunky_monkey]

Thanks for all the input guys.

Neil: I was thinking it was more around those times you've indicated, which may make it a worthwhile purchase. We'll see what sort of price the kit can be pieced together for and decide then whether it would make sense. Radical don;t really need to use them as they sit now because their track sessions are so compressed withing the day (20mins on, 20 mins off) so temps aren't an issue except for initial start up, but for regular track days and racing it would seem to make more sense.

Definitely looking at options with 240v as a requirement.

Dan: I wouldn't bother with a road based car as you can drive it around lightly to get temps up, and they never seemed to take all that long in the 180 with its oil cooler w/ thermostat. Radical tolerances are quite tight from what I'm aware, and the theres a lot of oil so it's more of a concern.

[Marlin]

Dane, the tight arse in me thinks that a simple solution would be something like utilising the element out of an urn, like this;

http://www.boilexhotwater.com.au/birko_hotwaterurn.htm

It would be light and using a little enginuity you could mount it either under or depending on element style, within the oil tank. A neat little 240V plug affixed to the tank and just plug her on in when you arrive.

[Beer Baron]

it's fairly simple for a dry sump. you get an oil pre-heater inside the oil tank, or the ones that wrap around the tank (some look like the nitrous bottle warmers some are more like a band or multiple bands around the bottom of the tank). all types work a bit differently and some better than others. the really small elements like a kettle type thing are not so good, I think the wrap around bands seem to work a bit quicker.

many of the brand name dry sump oil tanks come with heaters in them or on them as an option. hell you can buy a petersen dry sump tank with the heater on it for less than $200 from the US. keep the heater and toss or sell the tank. easy.

here's a pic of the band type ones.