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Dear all,

Lacking the ability to use a block heater due to living in a condo, I am looking for the poor-man's method to keep the car a bit warmer in the winter. Others have mentioned blocking the front grill intake with cardboard. My question is, can someone please give me a bit of a walkthrough, as I don't want to mess the process up?

Any feedback would be appreciated, and pictures would be even better. :o

Cheers!

How about this:

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/522/HCH2_FrontGrilleBlock.jpg

This is my wife's car... and mine is setup pretty much in the same way. Using foam pipe insulators (bought at Home depot for roughly 1 buck each) works very well and does not seem to change the overall look of the vehicle that much.

I used this approach in prior winters with good results.

Cheers;

MSantos

That's a nice, simple and long lasting way to do it. Cardboard tends to turn into mush eventually.

OK, I will find som of those insulator tubes. It looks like there is no need to even go under the hood for this mod - am I right? ANd then you just cut the ties in the spring and store the tubes until next fall! Thanks, msantos!

Yep. No need to go under the hood.

Once you cut and notch the tubes to fit they'll just go on easily, and you'll keep them for many years. I like this solution a lot since I can take out a tube or two to gradually match the actual temps... and like Bucko said, car washing in the winter is trouble free. ;)

MSantos

It apears that the lower grill is not completely blocked. Are you leaving about 20% open? H

Harold, the grill appearance is deceptive. The openings appear to go full width, but a closer look with pitlamp or flashlight shows a fair amount of the "openings" is actually blocked. It would be interesting to compare against a regular Civic: maybe they are blocked the same, or less?

Yesterday I tried a "West Coast" version of MSanto's suggestion. I put a single full length (maybe 4'?) of 3/4" dia foam pipe insulation, centered, in on our lowest grill section, with a zip tie at each end.

It's actually covering some of the pre-blocked grill, but the stuff is really cheap, I didn't want to bother cutting it shorter, it looked more symmetrical, is likely a bit more aerodynamic, etc., etc.

I don't have a ScanGuage, but a few days previous I made a point of monitoring coolant temp via Honda's display, noting where the bars peaked. It's fairly crude display, but I determined the bars consistantly peaked at the left edge of the "wave" icon on the display. I would think the coolant thermostat is responsible keeping this temp so constant, once the engine is warmed.

I put the single row grill block in last thing Friday night. My wife is the primary weekday driver, and I didn't want to do something iffy when she's using the car, potentially leaving her with a problem. Anyway, Saturday am with the grill block installed we had a protracted drive over to North Van, on freeway and local streets. I saw no change in the peak temps. And when getting to our destination. I made a point of letting the car idle in park for a bit, with all the ventilation and radio off. The cooling fan did not cycle, so I think we're good.

This is likely as much as I'll block, for now, considering our coastal climate, my lack of ScanGuage, etc. I think the car is a bit more comfy, the interior warming up a bit faster, and I believe this will help with the mileage, particularly short trip, around town. I'll post any further observations and/or revisions to amount blocked.

good timing, i am about to go out and do mine today. i may just beat the snow.

My car is light grey so using white coroplast and transparent tape is OK for me.

I blocked everything (lower and upper) except the 6th toward the turbo (my cars are turbo diesel) and the place under the hood. I constated :

the same temperature when the engine is hot.
the engine is hot quicker, but the temperature begins to increase a bit latter, may be because there is less air moving under the hood.
after a couple of hours engine off, it is hot only after a few kilometers when I restart it :)


Denis.

I've blocked mine using foam tubes and it seems to help, although the coldest we've got so far is about -5C. When it hits -20C I suspect it will help out quite a bit.

Getting the block heater put in tomorrow.. hopefully the dealer won`t gripe about the rad blocking :)

B

Hi bdog;

Welcome to CleanMPG !!! Can I ask what car do you drive?

Cheers;

MSantos

Bdog, we had a block heater put in last weekend. I took out the grill blocking prior to taking the car in, just to save on discussions.

FYI, and this is with HCHII at a Honda dealership:

1. They did not follow honda's instruction for wiring: just zip tied it all to one existing cable, and again zip tied the plug at the bumper grill.

2. They apparently chucked the engine block plug they removed to put in the BH. Honda instructions say to return it to the customer.

Bdog, we had a block heater put in last weekend. I took out the grill blocking prior to taking the car in, just to save on discussions.

FYI, and this is with HCHII at a Honda dealership:

1. They did not follow honda's instruction for wiring: just zip tied it all to one existing cable, and again zip tied the plug at the bumper grill.

2. They apparently chucked the engine block plug they removed to put in the BH. Honda instructions say to return it to the customer.

I doubt they followed instructions on mine either.. I'll give it an inspection today and see what they ended up doing. They didn't complain about the foam block, which was nice, but they did shove some aside to put the plug where they did. It ended up at the lower right part of the grille.

B

bdog, did you find the pdf instruction for the block heater kit? It will give you an idea of what they should have done. There are a fair number of steps that could be cut out, fwiw.

Have you considered a timer? Makes it much easier to use, if you're on a regular commute.

Mendel,

I didn't see any sheet.. I just took it in and they did the job.

Instead of a timer, I bought a remote controlled switch, so when you roll out of bed, you can turn the block heater on, and by the time you get to the car, its good to go. Also works well if you head out in the evening or on weekends.

I'm trying to make a little spreadsheet with outside temp, block heater duration and coolant temp. My GF is driving to work, so I'm not sure how diligent she'll be collecting the data. :rolleyes:

B

I got a timer and a remote switch, to play around with. Both are Intermatic brand. The remote turned out to be a real dud. It has a claimed range of 50', but I've found it's practical limit is somewhere between 10 and 15 feet. Plus, large chunks of metal (cars), reduce it's range or stop it dead. I just do not trust the remote to get the job done. I'm sure if I aimed it at the garage, I would then have to walk down there to confirm it had worked. In short, not very useful. The Intermatic switch is working fine, though. It's this one:

http://www.intermatic.com/Default.asp?action=prod&pid=9235&did=5&cid=44&sid=116

And the remote timer (semi-hooped) is this one:

http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?D=936441&Ntt=936441&catalogId=10051&langId=-15&storeId=10051&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchall&recN=0&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber

Just an extra note: the above remote switch has now been pressed into duty to turn our Christmas tree on and off ;)

(Had difficulty finding this one on the Intermatic site, the link is Home Despot. The review is mine.)

Anyway, I've had no problems with that digital timer, apart from a bit of a learning curve. It's Mode needs to be set to "Auto" for the programs you've entered to work.

As to times, I set it for 2 hours. With our current temps around 5 centrigrade, a little lower at night, slightly higher in day, 2 hours seems about right, maybe even slightly long. But it's a decent compromise that will work fine, I think even if the temps dip, a bit.

One thing, use a cord that plugs straight in, not on the side, and put a thin coat of something like dyelectric compound on the prongs of the block heater cord. And a little on the inside of the cap, to help seal when not in use. Just a really thin coat. And then, wrap your extension chord around something solid directly in front of the car (ours is around a barbeque wheel). You want to ensure that if you drive away without unplugging, it's going to pull out clean, not rip your bumper grill and/or drag your timer and chord out the driveway ;)

Anyway, we've notice a big improvement in warm-up time, and the car sounds much happier for that first block or two where it used to be cold and cranky ;)

BTW, here's a source fo that sheet:

http://www.bernardiparts.com/Images/Install/2006_CivicHyb_EngineBlockHeater_All30320.pdf