Faster Warm Up For A Dry Sump'd Engine... Oil Tank Heaters?

[GTRNUR]

One of my cars that has a dry sump oil system takes for ever to get the oil temps up to the engine operating temperature. The oil system holds about 12+litres of oil as the tank is mounted at the opposite end of the car than the engine, and it uses a -16AN size supply line and a -12 return.

Ive read that nascar use heaters mounted inside their tanks to bring the oil temps up faster when they are pitting the car, but based on what ive researched the heater elements are setup to operate off mains power (110V in the US).

I was thinking about nitrous bottle heaters... and having had no experience with these types of heaters before I figured I'd ask, how hot do these things get, and would it be viable to use a bottle heater to bring the oil temps up faster?

Edited August 22, 2010 by GTRNUR

[Moodles2]

Do you still have the factory oil cooler/warmer fitted, or did you remove it with a RB20 mount?

[GTRNUR]

Sorry.. its not a nissan. It never had a water to air oil cooler originally.

[paulr33]

try what diesel motors do with their glow plugs trick? run the lines around the exhaust manifold

once it is at temp though, you would want to bypass this

[T04GTR]

yeah no..

a 12volt one like this: lube heater

or: filter heater

[r33_racer]

We use one of the american heaters for the speedcar dry sump tank. We just have a converter for it. Plug in your regs 240v and it will step down to 110v for the heater pad. Works well!

[XRATED]

The lube heaters are the go... but without 'more' plumbing and potential leaks the nitrous bottle heater idea is great.

Once I get back to Tassie, I'll be installing block heaters for lube oil and coolant- for pre start. They are fairly common in colder climate european countries, mercedes has been doing them for years.

The nitrous bottle heaters are just resistantnce heaters in a silicon matt, that are wrapped around the bottle. 12V anything upto 30A. The good one's will be controlled by a pressure switch and realy.

I would be very simple to controll the on/off with a temp switch or ecu output.

Install would be quicker too.

... I like it!

Ha ha

Justin

[r33_racer]

Sorry Ill be more specific, its a Moroso heater pad to wrap around your dry sump tank. Same as what Justin is referring too.

[GTRNUR]

Sorry Ill be more specific, its a Moroso heater pad to wrap around your dry sump tank. Same as what Justin is referring too.

Sounds similar to a nos bottle heater then.

Ive heard you have to be careful with some of these heaters too, as they can get that hot they tend to burn things they are touching. (though the guy that told me that also sniffs paint, so i'll take that advice carefully). I like the sound of a blanket heater compared to an internal element heater too.

Found the Moroso heater... cheap too.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-720w-OI...eQ5fCarQ5fParts

I think Ive just worked out why heaters are all 110v. You can only get 300w 12v heaters, so i'd need 4 of them to make a worthwhile heater system. Thats 4 x about 25a current, which would cripple the electrical system pretty well if the heaters were run for the first few minutes of the car running. So that rules out car powered based heating.

Edited August 23, 2010 by GTRNUR

[GTR1993]

I can get 240v heaters made to fit up like the moroso element style ones, I can even specify how many watts per inch so it wont burn anything. I get these heaters made all the time to heat water and oil all the time at work. I am actually getting a price on one for a friends drys ump on his 355 holden motor.

[Adriano]

TBH if you have to run it on 240v, just pull a kettle apart and use the immersion heater, 2400w, reliable and about $10

[GTR1993]

I think u would burn the shit out of the oil at that wattage on such a small element, not to mention if you make it you can get the correct fitting to screw into a standard peterson tank etc.

[Rolls]

I think u would burn the shit out of the oil at that wattage on such a small element, not to mention if you make it you can get the correct fitting to screw into a standard peterson tank etc.

Water boils at 100c and they take what 2 minutes to heat water to this with 1L capacity?

If you are pumping 12L of oil and circulating it you wouldn't burn it.

[r33_racer]

But you only need it to be on when your in the pits and waiting to go out. Once you start racing for the day, you dont need it again after that. Usually the engine oil will hold its temp for ages. Especially when you have so much of it. Unless your oil cooling system is super good and it keeps your oil cool even during a race then id say you would need it inbetween also.

Yeh you need an external power supply for any of the decent heating pads as I was suggesting in my first post. You just leave the silicon pad attached to your tank with the plug ziptied up somewhere and then you just plug it in when you want to use it. It weighs bugger all too.

Edited August 23, 2010 by r33_racer

[GTRNUR]

Sounds like mains powered heaters are the go, and I can then wrap the tank in a heat insulation beanie to hold in the heat. I might be able to wire 2 of them in series as my tank is pretty tall, and then wire them direct to 240 instead of using a step down transformer too.

Thanks for the info everyone.

[T04GTR]

12 volt ones no good?

[GTRNUR]

Probably not. The best 12V nos bottle heaters are only 250-300w.

Assuming 100% efficency @ 250-300 watt that is 20-25 amps of current. The 110v heaters are 720watt each, so i'd need 2 -3 heaters to achieve the same level of heating, which equals 60-75 amps of current draw when the heaters are on.

Add that to having to run the rest of the car's ignition, efi etc and it would be overloading the electrical system pretty badly. I think a well insulated tank will do the trick for my application once its up to temp.

[GTRNUR]

After much thought and a much needed break from working on the "other car".... I have had a idea. Its a little out there, but so are some of my other idea's.

Typically the exhaust manifold of a car reaches over 100 degrees inside of 10 second of running, and a front pipe would be well over 400 degrees after about a minute of driving. Some cars use exhaust heat to warm manifolds and provide heat for the car's interior. I figure that while the temps involved are way too high for oil to heat directly, an indirect approach if properly controlled could work.

So here's the idea...

Steam to Oil Heat Exchanger.

Obtain a water-oil heat exchanger from an RB26. Mount it on an external filter style plate, so that there is a means of getting oil in and out of the heat exchanger easily with AN fittings. This unit would then be plumbed into the return line to the tank, before any engine thermostat and coolers.

Exhaust heat coil.

Next, I would get some 3/8" copper tube and wrap it around the front pipe a few time before the CAT (directly after the turbo's). The pipes would then extend up a little and be terminated with braised/silver soldered on AN fittings. The front pipe could then be header insulation wrapped to help keep the heat in.

Coolant resivour.

A small coolant resivour tank would be needed, and would be mounted about the same height as the engine (say near the ABS booster). The tank would hold about 200ml of water, so a greddy style radiator header/air extraction tank would be about perfect, as it has a radiator cap which would help release pressure. It also provides a means of the system replentishing its water supply when it cools down, same principal as a radiator/engines cooling system does due to thermal contraction when cooling.

Electric control of the heat transfer.

An electricly operated solenoid would be connected to the bottom most outlet on the tank as a means of controlling coolant flow. The solenoid would be controlled by a thermal switch to turn it off at 80 degrees oil temp. The solenoid outlet would then be connected to one side of the heater coil around the front pipe. The "out" side of the heater coil would connect to the coolant in side of the heat exchanger, and finally the coolant out side of the heat exchanger returns to the header tank.

Convection steam pumping.

The theory is that when the solenoid is on, gravity feed and convection pumping will provide the flow. The water falls to the heater coil where it will boil virtually instantly. Then as steam builts it will shoot up to the heat exchanger where it will heat the oil, and condense as it returns to the header tank. This is basically the same approach as is used to cool the bearing housings on water cooled turbo's.

I figure that when it is operating the steam temperatures will be pretty extreme, approaching 250 degrees, but this won't burn the oil. Once the solenoid turns off, the heater coil will boil dry eventually and convection pumping will stop. The system will still have some pressure in it maintained by the header tank spring loaded cap, but no pumping will occur anymore.

Since the heater coil and oil heat exchanger are sufficently isolated no more heat will transfer to the oil. The copper will handle the exhaust temps fine as it softens with heat, and will not melt at the peak temps of about 700 degrees that the front pipe occasionally sees.

Does this sound practical and reasonable? Thoughts... opinions.. suggestions? Fire away.

Edited September 1, 2011 by GTRNUR

[Beer Baron]

good idea but a little complex. having a 240V or even a 110V element or wrap type heater is much easier and certainly proven to work. same as R33 racer the ones i've used had a screw in element in the tank (and used the wrap/blanket type too) and were powered off a step down transformer. the advantage is very little gear in the car (so not much added weight), just the element and it's plug. all the rest of the stuff can live in your garage or be taken with you to any race meets etc. in your climate I imagine you'd only ever need to use it in the morning and the car would be good for the rest of the day even with on/off driving.

the advantage to your system I guess is it's powered by EGT so it's free.

[T04GTR]

how about using a water/oil heat echanger for the oil cooler. we have one in our race car and it works a treat. heats the oil up and keeps it at a fairly constant temp.