Has anyone with a block heater tested"most wear at startup"

[Gary Allan]

quote:

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Originally posted by JHZR2:
so if you use a heater and pre-oiler with high TBN oil, then you should be set, right?

JMH

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For all the avoidable stuff .. you should be. You'll still probably see 88% of that infamous 90% of wear that occurs at "start up".

 

[TR3-2001SE]

If we believe that most wear occurs at startup because the engine bearings,cylinders,cams,valves etc are cold, we should see less wear in a UOA with a heater installed vs no heater. Has anyone done a test of this theory? I would think a 10,000 mile UOA done in the same work car at a milage over 50,000 should show less wear with the block heater. I am somewhat a skeptic of this theory and this would prove the theory to me.

 

[friendly_jacek]

It's a scientific fact that there is a detectable increase of rings/cylinder wear doring warm-up cycle in ICE. It can be easily detected by rings or liners with radioactive tracers. This is an old, time honored concept and these studies are usually performed during engine development.
Since the warm-up time is short anyhow, the UOA would not be sensitive and accurate enough to detect that wear.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I saw a study that showed that the extend of warm-up wear was proportional to sulfur in gas. IMHO, this wear is from condensation of acid combustion products and not from lubrication factors if you are trying to elude to that.

 

[JHZR2]

so if you use a heater and pre-oiler with high TBN oil, then you should be set, right?

JMH

 

[Curious Kid]

Could the remaining wear that you think would still occur be due to temperature related part fitment, excessively high oil pressures (likely to activate the high pressure bypass circuit) relative to normal operating levels, and temperature activation(s) of some additives?

 

[olympic]

My dad rebuilt many V8 engines in his repair shop and he always said that the cylinders on the same side of the engine as the block heater had less wear. The cylinder walls were in better shape and the ring ridge at the top was smaller.

 

[Gary Allan]

quote:

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Could the remaining wear that you think would still occur be due to temperature related part fitment,

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That's my belief

You can manipulate the starting line ..but you can't simulate the continuous combustion process on the pistons/rings. You're still going to experience your "90% of wear occurs at startup". You've still got to experience that transition. Outside of something like olympic's ultra severe environment, I don't know how much I'd attribute to lubrication (in a sensible way anyway). I'm sure it can offset a wear profile by a click or two.

Wear surely isn't linear during the startup/warm up process. What you're doing is compressing your 20 year mortgage (interest=wear) into a shorter term. In my wife's case, I'd eliminate 1-5 minutes of that 15-20 minute transition on her 35-40 minute commute with a block warmer depending on the season. She's still going to have about half of her engine's life in accellerated wear.

 

[Curious Kid]

Interesting. I wonder though that even if an engine did experience an increasing percentage of it's operating life in some state of warm-up, say from more starts and stops in a day not enabling full cool down (nor warm-up), might one still see a long ownership ahead? - postal service vehicles come to mind. I know there's much more to answering this question, but just on that condition alone, might one still see similar effectiveness gallon/gallon?

The more I try to figure the question into something narrow, the more I think it's impossible to speculate - just might be.

Either way,

...bummer.

 

[Gary Allan]

I wonder how many miles postal vehicles have on them when the engine is overhauled? Driving 2 blocks at a time and then walking two blocks can't accumulate too many miles in an 8 hour day. That's for an urban setting. Surely your average contemporary development type community with curbside delivery gets fully warmed. I'm sure that it takes a few years to get to that point in either of them.

 

[JackFish]

Unless you're in the Great White North with freezing temps, like I am, I don't think a block heater is a good idea. It's purpose is to warm the oil so it will flow under extreme conditions. We leave our cars "plugged in" all night here in the winter, and when you go out in the morning at -20 and put your hand on the block it is HOT. I don't think you would want that kind of heat under typical circumstances.

 

[JackFish]

quote:

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Originally posted by olympic:
My dad rebuilt many V8 engines in his repair shop and he always said that the cylinders on the same side of the engine as the block heater had less wear. The cylinder walls were in better shape and the ring ridge at the top was smaller.

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Isn't the ridge cause by piston travel, how could it be smaller? Isn't it a function of rod length and piston travel?
The side of the block with the heater will have expanded more because it's closer to the heat source.

 

[olympic]

The ridge at the top is caused by ring wear on the cylinder walls. The rings do not travel on the last 1/4"(or so) of the top of the cylinder so there is no wear there. Over many thousands of miles you get a distinctive ridge where the compression ring reaches top-dead center.

Traditional block heaters heat the coolant, not the oil, atleast not directly. Warming the coolant helps loosen up the reciprocating parts so the car starts easier. So on a V-type engine with one block heater, one bank of cylinders gets nice and warm while the other bank basically gets "left out in the cold"

Naturally the cold side would see more wear during startup on a -30C winter morning.

One solution is to install 2 block heaters, but that can overload some outlets or even boil the coolant.

 

[punisher]

quote:

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Originally posted by olympic:
My dad rebuilt many V8 engines in his repair shop and he always said that the cylinders on the same side of the engine as the block heater had less wear. The cylinder walls were in better shape and the ring ridge at the top was smaller.

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You can also notice that the cylinders that get the lowest temp coolant (usually right behind the water pump) tend to wear the most. I noticed that in the shop with all of the 5.0 Ford engines we had to shortblock for noise concerns. #1 and #5 (#1 and #2 for most right thinking folks) always had the most wear, same for #1 on 4 bangers as well.

 

[jmacmaster]

Its true that a block heater heats the coolant. However, this results in the whole engine block becoming warm. As JackFish said, if you put your hand on the block, its hot. Some of the heat from the block is transferred to the oil in the oil pan; thus somewhat warming the oil and providing for an easier start than if the oil were real cold and therefore thick. In addition, heat from the block radiates off the block and somewhat warms the battery before dissipating to the outside of the engine compartment, and this of course also helps make a cold weather startup quicker and easier. If you also run synthetic oil, which stays thin even in -20F or colder weather, and have a battery that's in good condition and with more cold cranking amps than the stock battery, you'll get starts even at
-40F, so long as your coolant is mixed for a temp that low.

 

[jmacmaster]

Synthetic oil's been tested and shown to stay thin at -30 F or more below.

 

[lamont cranston]

From living in North Dakota in the 70's I can tell you that that era's 10w-30 dino oil in a chevy v8 without a block heater on a -35 F January morning gets you 0.00 oil pressure at startup and for a good while. With a block heater the pressure came up pretty quick.

Without empirical evidence, I would still argue that engine wear was higher without the block heater.

If you use syn oil and the lowest temp was +10 F I'm not sure it would matter much as far as startup wear.

One of the big advantages of a block heater is that the engine comes up to operating temp a whole lot quicker and the amount of gas used under 'choke' operation is a lot less. Excess gas tends to wash oil from the cylinder walls (bad) and adds **** into the oil that you don't want.

I really really wish I didn't have experience with this.

 

[friendly_jacek]

quote:

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Originally posted by lamont cranston:
Excess gas tends to wash oil from the cylinder walls (bad) and adds **** into the oil that you don't want.

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Exatly, gas and combustion products (H2O+SO2=acid) condensate on cold cylinder liners. Gas washes oil away and water and acids corode the iron.
This is the exact nature of the cold engine wear.
No nead for speculation.
BTW, doubt if synthetic oil prevents the cylinder/ring wear. Might help with valve wear though.

 

[Gary Allan]

Most of your fuel issues have been dispenced with the adoption of fuel injection. You don't have the central carb dumping tons of crudely metered fuel puddling in the intake from lack of atomization. TBI probably still had some issues ..but still vastly improved over carbs. The multipoint injectioin should eliminate the majority of the effects.

I think, currently, your block heaters will mostly save fuel, ease starting, and provide added interior comfort.

Admittedly, I don't have that severe a climate. I will hit about 0F for a day or two a year.