oil / water pre heaters

[hawkwind]

G'day all  Im after any information about the different types of oil / water pre heaters anyone has used ,brands or home made , the pro,s and cons of using them and your experences ,I am wanting to keep the oil /water temp at or above 75* C beore runs
cheers
gary

[edweldon]

Hi Gary!
There's a lot to answer here.  What's practical depends a lot on what kind of motor and cooling system you're dealing with.
It takes a whole bunch of energy to heat up water from cold.  It's a lot less with oil.  If you've got thermostats in the cooling system you're ahead of the game because you don't have to heat all the water in the tank or radiator.  A lot of guys just heat the oil.
But you have to be realistic about it all. If you have a radical enough motor that you really need to be all that fussy about oil/water temp then you already have enough things to keep you busy without having to manage a generator, hookup wires, temperature gauges, etc. while you're getting ready for a run. 
Another point to make here is that if you can run modern synthetic oils that don't thicken their viscosity as much when they cool then you don't have to be near as fussy about oil temperature.  But if you're running older engine technology and/or loads of fuel that dilute the oil after each run then you probably want to stay with your old favorite 50 weight dinosaur oil.
I remember 20 years ago when the Markley brothers were running their fuel roadster with the Desoto hemi they had two hoses with quick connects between the race car and the push truck sharing the same coolant while they waited in line to push off.  Sounds clever but it's just one more thing to worry about at the start of a run when reducing the stress and distractions on driver and crew are most important.
Ed Weldon

[Stan Back]

We're sure not in favor of having someone remember to click on the electric water pump!

[Sumner]

We're sure not in favor of having someone remember to click on the electric water pump!

We learned that lesson last year on the first run.  It only took 4 days and a bunch of dollars to get where we could run again and Hooley has had a lot of work over the winter as a result of that.

You spend 12 months between meets and then wait, wait, wait to run and then you are with no car in front of you, just the starter, and everything goes into high speed and it is easy to forget something. Make sure this isn't something that is forgotten. 

To build heat Hooley has run to the 3/4 to 1 mile before and turned on the pump, but boy if you forget you are in trouble.  I'm in favor of putting a second switch in the shift mechanism so that on the 2-3 or one of the other shifts it hits the switch and turns the pump on if the driver is busy or forgot.

c ya,

Sum

[landracing]

There is a thread that this has been discussed before and has some good information

http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.php/topic,3396.0.html

Jon

[Glen]

Terry Nish has a portable heater used by the sprint car racers and is plugged into the system with QD connections. It mounts on the side of the trailer. Look on the www.nishmotorsports.com site and I think there are pictures. A check list helps as well when you are a couple of cars back from running.

[maguromic]

I use the same style water heater as Terry Nish, there are some others that make them also. http://www.speedpartsinternational.com  http://www.hotheadheater.com  I personally like the one made by speed parts international, we had great success with it when we were road racing.  For the oil heater I have some probes on the bottom of my dry sump tank and I built a control box with a Watlow 93 controller.  I just program the temperature I want and walk away and it keeps everything in check.  I run a very light oil so I have to circulate the oil in the tank so it wont cook the oil. 

Now that I have gone with a dry sump transmission and rear end I bought a control box from my NASCAR buddies at HAAS CNC Racing.  All three tank power  lines come to th box via a CAN interface along with the generator power.  Just program the temperatures and it will take care of it.  The third picture is of the Watlow unit I built which is a little crude compared to the second  one form HAAS CNC Racing

[Howard]

I ran the old style electric heater in the dry sump tank. Fire up the generator and heat the oil up before running. With alky the motor doesn't build much heat in the water anyway so I did nt worry about that. We always ran it in the pits before heading to the staging line.
Worked for us.
Howard

[hawkwind]

Im running blown alky (turbo) and im hoping to kill several birds with the one stone (pre heating)
1.bring the engine closer to operating temp for better starting .
2. most wear on the bore /rings with alky is on cold startups (liquid methanol washing oil off the bores ) so I figure a hot engine should avoid most of that problem along with a closer ring/bore  tollerance
3. If I can keep the oil above 75*C or better still 100*C this will evaporate the methanol/water that dilutes the oil from blowby ,thereby not having to change the oil every run and having a higher oil pressure because the oil is less diluted /thin
Im also installing a vacuum pump asI have oil blowing out of the breather (indicating excess positive crank case pressure ) also a lower pressure allows the water /methanol to boil at a lower temp
Im using a 20W60 dino oil at present due to excessive oil dilution and pressure loss ,im wanting to go to a thinner oil so will  the above measures decrease dilution ? or am I off track with my reasoning?
anyone tried one of those heater pads ?
cheers
gary

[ddahlgren]

Years ago ran a 2 liter Cosworth in a lakester with a good bit of sucess. We used a 180 thermostat and ran a bypass made out of 3/8 steel line. It had about 10 feet of line coiled up in the dry sump tank to act as an oil heater when the oil was cooler than the water and an oil cooler when the oil was hotter than the water.. It worked real slick then and ran it on a couple of other cars since with good results.3 or 4 mintutes at a fast idle and engine and oil both warm enough to race, we ran synthetic oil, a real no brainer and nothing to remember or forget LOL..
Dave

[Peter Jack]

Dave:

Was the engine a four cylinder or a v-8?

Does that mean that even in the morning you fired it up dead cold and then let it warm up using the thermostat?

I'm assuming that you built up the oil pressure in some manner before you fired the engine. Is that correct?

Thanks,
Pete