ok idk if what i have heard is true but i head of some VW's comeing with a built in electric heating system what shuts off once the car warms up and then reverts to back to the regular way of heating is this true if so does anyone think there might be a way to fit a system like that in a firebird it would be nice to have heat right away lol

thanx for the help

 

I wouldn't mind having heated seats sometimes, but that's it. ESPECIALLY if I had leather seats, for the winter. But I'd also want cooled leather seats, for the Summer months. In fact, I'd take cooled (leather) seats over heated (leather) seats, if I could only have one option.

 

It probably wouldn't be very hard at all to mount an electric heater in the heater box or in place of the heater core, but I don't think there is room to mount anything downwind of the heater core without significant modification to the HVAC system, and you surely wouldn't want to mount it upwind of the heater core.

I don't know how many amps it would draw, maybe 15 or 20, so an aftermarket alternator would be in order. For your convenience, your aternator should produce enough amps at idle to power all your electrical devices at the same time.

 

I agree with Stephen that having heated seats would be easier than installing an auxiliary electric heater. I have them in my cobalt and they warm me up nicely until the car is up to operating temp.

 

Itd have to be VERY small to fit downstream of the heater core

Heated seats are very nice and quite effective. I had them in a Cadillac STS

 

Simple. pre-fabbed, electric seat heater inserts.....
Electric heated seat mats inserts

Or....
Various types of 12v heater

 

I would imagine that alot of this stuff is coming from hybrids - having all the batteries they have the means of doing such things without the "engine" actually running. There's several concepts from this that would be nice to have, but probably impossible without having a hybrid engine - like A/C that still blows cold without the "engine" running, and heat as you mentioned.

I watched a couple sit in a hybrid this summer, temp was 97 outside with 90% humidity, and they sat in the car for well over 20 minutes, windows rolled up, and there was nothing running except the cooling fan noise - no gas usage - yet the car was very cool where the rest of us would be sweating bullets.

 

AC does not require an engine, only some form of motor rotating. Full blown electric cars often retain AC

 

Yes, I know - but I wouldn't figure than a normal car battery would provide enough juice to run an A/C system for long, but the hybrids with all the batteries have no issue with it.

 

FWIW, those little 12v heaters aren't worth a damn. You've gotta pretty much hold the thing on your lap pointed at your face to notice. A much better option is to get a 120v heater around 1000 watts inside your car and plug it in when you plug the block heater in.

P.S. if the weather is warm enough to not need a block heater, you don't need a heater inside - man up and put some gloves on :P

 

Thank you, someone from Edmonton chimes in about heating I had to wonder why someone would rather have cooled leather seats than heated (texas...)

The original poster said "heated", but not WHAT was heated? And he hasn't posted back..?
A cheap 12V heated seat warmed that goes into your cigarette lighter works pretty good, but they take FOREVER to warm up... A heated garage is the real ticket

You can always set up a block heater (or two), oil pan heater, glycol heater (sleeve over lower rad hose), and 120V heater, put them all onto one power bar, and plug that in. Either put it on a timer, or watch your electric bill soar, and leave it on all the time (ie, if you plug it in at work...)

 

Solar power would be good for the seats while at work, provided you were parked outside/ But you'd need UV lights in your home garage, which could be powered by a battery that was charged during the day, to power the UV lights at night, so that the seats were warm in the morning. . Put a timer on the lights to only come on at like 3am, or whenever you needed them to come on, to turn on the lights to heat the seats.

 

fwiw:
a guy i met with a VW-engined tube-framed street legal buggy used a solar panel to charge his battery. he said he got the idea when the battery would constantly die and instead of being stuck, he could roll the thing under a street light and 20 min later it would start

of course if the battery was FLAT dead, it would take more than that, but if the battery was at say, 10v or so, a 15v solar cell could charge it pretty well

 

sorry it took me so long to post back to much work lol i work at pepboys you would think i would have all the time in the world with is bad as bizz has been lol. i think after reading you guys posts that doing heated seats would be better idea for me i took a good look at a spare HVAC system i have and it is pretty small to mod anything in to it. Does anyone know if any of the newer trans am seats are heated thoes are the seats i am planing on swaping in to my 90.