Hi

I'm going to upgrade the exhaust on Davids bug and will loose the heater boxes.

Has anyone successfully ran a 12 volt heater core?

Has anyone ran an oil cooler in the cabin for heating purposes?

I saw these on Ebay, I thought about mounting it under the rear seat, but it might get too hot.

Steve

Steve

Power = Volts x Amps

Do the maths

Buy yourself some big thermal underwear

Hi Barry

They are 250 Watts so it would be like running 2x 100 & 1x 55 watt lights, all the time.

Davids car has a front mounted external oil cooler, the other idea I had was getting a stock doghouse cooler, splicing it into the oil liners going to the front of the car and mounting it under the rear seat and running oil though it and blow the warm air down the heater channels, just like I did with my WBX bug only I was using water then.

Steve

steve,
you would be better off with the oil coolers as the other one would be more effective as a electric supercharger and they dont work that well ether

Steve toughen the kid up! Mate your in Sydney not Hobart!LOL! MItchell

Steve
Go and cuddle a couple of light bulbs and see how long before you start to sweat
Yes - some energy is given off in light

Better still - sit in front of a 1kw bar radiator
That will bearly heat you up - and this is a quarter os that

And remember running the 250Watts in in addition to the headlights, wipers, indicators and break lights that you will need in the middle of winter

And you havent even turned on the doof doof yet

Your second idea is much better

Steve, don't waste your money on electric ones,
I looked into it to save altering my cooling system and all reports say they're good as hand warmers thats all

Being Aircooled the Same Lamborgini tractor we got here has a proper electric cab heater.
It has to have its own 70amp alternator just to get enough heat for a tractor cab
and it still barely matches a stock water heater in the other tractor.

A car one would need to be bigger again

2nd oil cooler under the rear seat is probably the best bet

there used to be a mob in the UK called snug bug who did an electric one but it used huge amounts of power

another setup also had a water jacket around the exhaust and fan/core unit under the dash
was much quicker to heat and better to control than stock heaterboxes

Steve,

Wayne Penrose has some hi-flo heat exchangers on his website, if you can get a big id exhaust with provision for heater boxes:-

you could use a petrol heater, these were available as a option on many vw's, i think they are available new as they are used on camper vans and mobile homes, have seen quite a lot on thesamba for sale

Hi

Thanks for all the replies

Petrol heaters are in the "vintage cool" area now, so they may be a bit on the expensive side.

The system I'm getting is an A1, it has J tubes already, and I don't think it would line up with the heater boxes that Wayne is selling, the seat heaters are an idea worth looking at.

I compared the light bulbs as an energy drain, the doof doof system and the rear seat are going, just going to have 2 6 inches in the front and 2 6x9s in the back.

I like my heat as well, so I will need to toughen up as well.

It looks like the oil cooler in the back area is most likely the best solution.

I would T into the line going to the front cooler and have a tap in this line as well so that it can be shut off in summer.

I've been reading up on the use of heat from an oil cooler, on a Corvair forum, this is part of post I read

"Because oil retains heat better than water, it stands to reason, it does not GIVE UP it's heat as easily either. Thus using the oil cooler as a heater core will only contribute moderately to interior heat all because of the oil's tendency to retain the heat more than water"

I'm no scientist but I think the guy is missing the point that the aim is to heat the air passing over the cooler, not take heat out of the oil.

The heater system that I had in my old WBX bug blew the heated air through the stock heater channels, it was never an ankle burner like the stock air cooled VW heater, it was luke warm but after about 20 minutes of driving was it nice and warm inside.

Steve

Go for high flow heater boxes and get a different exhaust system. There are plenty of suitable exhausts. I am following that route on the engine I'm building - sourced the heater boxes from CSP

Hi

Most good performing systems have very poor ground clearance, the A 1 is good in this area, I live on the side of a cliff and I have the driveway from hell, I have sacrificial metal on the current system that regularly needs changing.

Have you bought the heater boxes from CSP yet? They are very pricey. My headers are about the same price as a pair of heater boxes.

Steve

Hi

I can still smell your clutch now whenever the wind blows a certain way

If you think the bug is low, you should see Davids Skyline, we get them both out OK but loose a few mm of steel each time.

Davids bug just catches the Kamei coming in and scrapes the exhaust collector going out

Steve

so many stories of that driveway from hell!

Gday all.
Years ago I used an oil cooler with a bay kombi heater fan and a housing made out of 2 alumiunium baking dishes as a heater mounted in engine bay and drew fresh air through copex tubing inlet mounted behind louvers above lid run same size copex to original body tubes this worked really well as it only put air in as needed never figured out a by pass for cooler in summer went watercooled before that
Ernie

Steve

Why not go with the custom exhaust and keep the heater boxes

For all the mucking around it will work out cheaper i reckon

I was looking to do the same with my T34 Ghia. Heat exchangers on my 2.4 are a little rusty and fumey, so was looking at the optiions, Some of the 911 porsche guys tried the oil cooler idea, but I read on a 911 forum that it wasnt all great. Not enough engine heat when you need it. Ie when the outside temps are low.

Heat exchangers work great if everything is in good nick and the engine bay is sealed correctly.

tell him to drive with a hot water bottle

i like joels idea of a custom pipe around the j pipe fill it with water attach to a small rad make sure the rad is higher than exhaust so no need for a pump then blow thru the rad with a small fan simple cheap and light. three of my favourite things

Hi

I was talking to Mike Waldron at the RAW opening last night, he was saying that in his Peach bug he used a caravan blower/heater to good effect, but he did say you need a well sealed car to make it effective.

I like the idea of blowing through the original heater channels so that heat can be put on the screen for demisting.

I've already got a 12 volt bilge pump and small radiator, they came with an intercooler I bought from LMS, so I'm 1/2 way there.

So the water filled heat exchanger would just fit around one of the J tubes I guess.

Steve

Keep the ideas coming guys I am also looking at ideas for heating my baja. I have twin cannons and no heater. A bit tired of using a tissue as a demister all the time and smelling exhaust fumes at times as they heater tubes and not sealed off at all.

I have also been considering a water coil/heat exchanger around J pipes. Wondering whether you would need the exchanger on both Jpipes to keep the exhaust temps even on both sides? Also wondered whether you would need some sort of steam blow off valve in case the water overheated? Maybe a coil of copper plumbing pipe could be used as a heat exchager?

Don't heat exchangers also act as a heat shield to prevent head temps from rising too much?

Hi

there is always a small amount of cooling air wasted through the heater box even when the heaters are turned off, there have been studies done to still have this air wasted to keep the cooling system operating correctly.

The copper pipe idea would work but it could look messy.

What I had in mind was a large section of exhaust pipe blocked at each end with a smaller section making a concave to fit tightly around the J pipe.

The temperature of the exhaust would fluctuate depending on load and engine size so the point about boiling is a very important point, being a sealed system with a radiator cap actually raises the boiling point.

Steve

didnt consider the boiling point it might be a prob but if its made well and use a good radiator/ heat exchanger it should be ok use a rust inhibitor that raises the boiling point not a ethelene based product.