Posted by scottr on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 12:10PM :
In Reply to: Engine Heating Question posted by S.Bear on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 at 8:37AM :
Living in Alaska for 20 years I have seen many ways to heat engines, by far, the best thing you can do for your engine is to heat the oil if nothing else. The most common way to do this is with a silicone oil pan heater, these are very flat plyable little sheets of silicone rubber with a heating element wound inside and a cord attached. They attach very easy, just clean the bottom sump part of your oil pan, pick up a tube of high temp. silicone, spread a liberal amount onto the pad, stick it onto the pan, push it in real good, smear the excess around the edges and let it cure for a day or so. a 100w or a 150w is recomended, I just arrived at work today and plugged in my truck, it will stay plugged in for the next 10 hours until I go home. You will not overheat your oil, many studies have been done on these.
I have 221,000 miles on my daily driver and have not done any work to the engine, warm oil is the key. Even if your engine won't start, the warm oil is being picked up and pushed through the system, so you have less wear on the cold starts.
All the auto parts stores up here have bins full of these, I buy mine at Napa.
My 52FF has a 318 now, and is set up with the oil pan heater, a frost plug heater in each side of the block. The wifes cars is set up the same plus an oil pan heater on the auto trans. pan.
just one more idea.