so I was talking to a guy in class (for diesel tech) and everything he says I take with a huge grain of salt, anyway thats not the point. he mentioned that the heater core on new cars is electrical (similar to a toaster) first is there any truth to this? if there is how hard would it be to put that in place of the stock heater core? if an electrical one was put in, wouldn't that allow me to get rid of the heater hoses that go back to the firewall, all I would need is a hose going to the intake right? or would I not even need that and all I would need is the hoses between the water pump and the radiator. I've been thinking about this and I figured this would be a good place to get some thoughts on it.

 

never seen it, all the cars I've ever worked on(except air cooled VW and Porshe) is coolant fed








Ps, older VW bugs use fuel vapors from the tank as fuel for a gas heater

 

I think most cars still use radiator fluid for the heater, but I have thought of the same idea myself.

 

This is a fairly common practice....

... for electric vehicles. There really isn't any practicle reason NOT to use engine coolant, as its free heat. Even deisel cars have coolant operated heaters, and they take a LONG time to heat up. A coworker has a deisel Jetta that takes a half hour or so to get any decent heat out of. Thats what heated seats are for.

 

Sounds like a good idea, and I guess you could just do away with all the other heater hoses altogether. I wonder how much faster it would be able to throw heat out though?

 

you just happen to be getting a different source of energy

burning gasoline in our engines produces tremendous amounts of energy. However, I would say AT LEAST 60% of it is wasted through heat. Heck, we have an entire "system" with its own fluid and pump just to dissipate all of this heat. I would reuse as much of this lost energy anyway I can, the least of which to heat my interior.

I notice a SOTP difference when my cooling fan is on, and i bet plugging a toaster into your elecrical system couldn't help too much. Getting creative with the hose routing can help u clean things up a bit, and a helluva lot cheaper I would imagine(don't know price of elec. heater box).

If I could use my engine heat to help me do something other than destroy my underhood components, I would take advantage of it.

anyway my .02