how can i get my heater in my car to warm up faster? its freezing outside and leaving my car runing in the garage for 5 minutes isnt warming junk up enough. after about 5 miles of driving it gets warm but up untill then i'm friggin freazing. thanks

 

Put a piece of cardboard in front of your radiator, that covers abot ¾ of it.

If you have a mechanical fan, make sure it has a good fan clutch. Get a new one if you have any doubt. Don't get a cheap one, get a thermostatic one; it will have a little coiled-up thermostat on the front of it.

 

See below

 

160 degree thermostat would be a start.

 

It's funny you mentioned this, I just finished up a few hours ago. I dropped a 195 degree thermostat and my troubles were over. Mine never registed past the first line on my temp gauge, but at the time I had a 160 degree in there. For some reason, and I'm not really sure why, but most F-bodies I've come across just naturally take longer to warm up. But the higher temp thermo will warm things up better.

 

this might be dumb but i dont throughly know much about cars yet. why cant i just take the thermostat out? the gauge doesnt work anyway.

 

Technically you can. but not advisable.

On a computer controlled car it can play havoc on the computer.

Sometimes no stat will be fine, in letting a car run cool, other times it may cause over heating.

 

Thundering,

Ya know, lookin' back, I've had some cars that preferred a higher therm and some that wanted a lower so I guess its just experimentation.

 

its an 83 berlinetta... the majority of the car is not computerized. i changed the carb to an edelbrock and then i had to change the distrubutor becaues they didnt work together. theres hardly anything computerized left that i can think of. soon the emissions crap will be yanked out so there goes a little more...

 

Then summer time, I'd go 160* and minimum of 180* in winter, that's what I do.

 

...nevermind

 

Yeah, experimentation. That's a good word for it. I'm like Mark, and it's funny he mentioned this, but it's exactly what i do.. I run a 160 in the summer, cuz mine runs hotter than I'd like it to, and I change back to 195 for the fall/winter. It's not a difficult thing to do so I don't mind. As for not running a termostat at all....hmmmm,.....I'm with Mark again,....I wouldn't advise it. Especially wintertime. You'll freeze to death.

 

im afraid youll just have to wait... Theres about 550 some odd pounds of cast iron and steel that has to warm up first before the t-stat will open and start flowing coolant. Takes alot of energy to warm everything up. Aint like my moms honda with a little aluminum straight 4 taht warms up in a jiffy. Gotta wait for heat in my car. And witht he low temp t-stat the heat is luke warm at best.

 

Heat?!?! WTF is that??? Heater core??? Huh???

Haha...snowing here and ive been a week without a heater. Heater core went out last weekend and I have yet to fix it. Dash is halfway out but still no luck.

Computer?!?!? You mean that thing under the dash...I mean in my backseat

Im running a 180 degree thermo, cool fan switch (still works even without the computer) and it takes my car at least 7-8 minutes to warm up even alittle. Even when the holley has the choke fully closed and its idling WAY high. It is driveable right after starting tho.