12v ceramic heater and dump the OE heater stuff?

I've been thinking about yanking the heater system on my s10 and replacing it with a 12v ceramic heater...

as it stands the exhaust packaging is going to be pretty tight if I keep the heater box, and dumping it obviously kills a bit of weight... the s10 is primary a toy and a planned $2012 challenge car... but I want to make it as usable as possible... so looking for some input on this idea

I live in FL and the biggest use for the heater is defrost... in the coolest month or so i'd use it to knock the cold off a smidge (it does get down into the 30's or so)

obviously the heat put off of the ceramic heater isn't going to be close to what my 2.3L turbo water heater is going to do... but would it be enough for the small cab of an s10?

anyone have experience with these boogers?

thanks mark

I've used them in a 16" box trailer when doing demos in the winter down into the 20s. Doesn't get all toasty but does knock the edge off.

if they can heat an uninsulated 16' box trailer.. it will work perfectly fine in the cab of your truck

The small ones you get at auto parts stores are like a 10 amp draw(that plug into the cig lighter). That isn't that much draw, thus not that much heat.

I yanked my heatercore from my van, the e-heater on high sitting by my feet kept them from freezing, but not warm. As far as defrosting the windshield, it works, but not great. It takes a while to work and only has the power to defrost half the windshield.

Personally I would not recommend it for any type of dd, but it can occasionally make it bearable (barely).

Unless there are higher power units available, but would have to be hard wired in (cig lighter fuse usually 10-15 a)

I have one like this that I consider to be the worst automotive purchase I have ever made

Completely useless

I don't see this as ever being a DD of any sort... then again with my luck who knows... I think i'll prob try to work my exhaust around it and go from there...

ditchdigger wrote: I have one like this that I consider to be the worst automotive purchase I have ever made Completely useless

I used one of these on the back deck of my 66 Pontiac as a rear window defroster. It worked OK but the amount of heat it put off was pretty pathetic. I think it was more about the dry moving air than the heat.

I bought one from a truck stop when i used to have a 95 s10 with a bypass heater from the po and it kept blowing the fuse.

Dont do it. They are junk! A guy with a Civic track rat also said he wouldnt remove his defroster if given a second chance

Just to be clear, right now you only have a heater box, you don't have a heat and AC box underhood?

The heater only option is much slimmer.

I lost the heater core in my 94 mustang. Replacement is 8+ hours plus an AC recharge. After using one of the ceramic heaters last year I will either pay some one to fix the heater core. ore make the time to fix it. Yes those units really are that bad.

For really cold days I would take a leister heat gun (used to thermal weld PVC) and set it in the car and plug it in a half hour before I would leave. This would defrost things and get the temp up to 60 or so in the car. The ceramic unit could not even maintain the temps.

As someone who drove rusty air-cooled VWs in New England winter for a decade or so, I don't understand the question.

What about just finding a smaller heat exchanger and blower housing at the junk yard? Or fab up something to go on the inside or hiding somewhere else...

The extra cooling of heater can be useful...

How about using a Mojave Heater?

http://www.flex-a-lite.com/auto/html/mojave-heater.html

Gets rid of the big HVAC box but still uses engine coolant for heat.

Zombie thread - canoe removed

Well, what do all-electric cars use? How much power do those take - that'll answer what's necessary for an actual heater. (Or, do electric cars "cheat" by running air which was heated by cooling the motor into the cab?

kb58 wrote: Well, what do all-electric cars use? How much power do those take - that'll answer what's necessary for an actual heater. (Or, do electric cars "cheat" by running air which was heated by cooling the motor into the cab?

Some EVs use heat pump to recycle battery coolant's heat.

AIUI, heaters are something that pretty much sucks in an EV. That (combined with the cold weather's effect on battery chemistry) is one of the reasons why it took so long for them to start selling them outside of California.

bludroptop wrote: As someone who drove rusty air-cooled VWs in New England winter for a decade or so, I don't understand the question.

Just get some old VW heat exchangers and dryer hose and bolt them over your header....done?

Crack the window if you feel woozy...just like a VW.

I moved the engine/seats/dash back in my '85 RX-7, also removed the heater box. Because the dash has been moved back, there is a gap between the dash and the bottom edge of the windshield. The firewall is not insulated, so warm air off the inside of the firewall rises to the windshield. I live here in rainy western WA, no additional defroster needed.

Grant

Heater cores are basic as basic gets. Find one with lines coming off it you can work with, lay it somewhere in the cabin, run flexible hose through a tiny hole in the firewall over to it, put 7" computer case fans on either side of it, and you will have heat. There is no real need to have the entire stock air housing and blower motor if all you want is heat. The heater core itself is not huge and isn't picky about orientation or where you put it or basically anything else as long as stuff cant smash into the fins or flex the pipes constantly.

Side note, you would be surprised how warm you can make the cabin just by putting a hole in the firewall right where heat will blow off the exhaust. I found this out by accident.

Anyway, 12v systems suck for running heaters because you need a ton of amps to make enough heat. All the little 110v space heaters you can buy for your house are rated at ~1500w of heat and it's probably overstated. Watts is Volts x Amps so if you take a 12v heater and try to get for example 1200w of heat out of it you need to pull 100a (more than many alternators put out at full tilt) and that's assuming 100% efficiency which is a fairy tale. So 12v heaters will always be pretty bad unless they're pulling a lot of amps through some major cabling and requiring you to upgrade your charging system.