Very hard to start when cold

richter69 wrote:


leave the block heater plugged in on my 7.3, start it and do a donut............

I probably waste more electricity with my block heater, then I do with my home heater.

Curt wrote:

richter69 wrote:


leave the block heater plugged in on my 7.3, start it and do a donut............

I probably waste more electricity with my block heater, then I do with my home heater.

LOL X2

mine is on a timer, comes on about 3 hrs before I drive 2.3 miles to work.

Some dry gas good idea too. If you can get some heat into the intake manifold will help too. One of the issues is carb icing. You either have to have some heat in the manifold, use some type of heated spacer like they did back in the 60's or a heated air inlet.

Port EFI can be a lot more friendly for cold starting/running on these type of engines, but TBI I can tell you from experience will start easy, but have all the problems of Carb icing.

On a final note think about if you really need to start that engine during the cold months. All that poorly atomized fuel and water will get into your oil and form acids that can cause damage. You really need to get the oil up to temp to boil off all that stuff and that can be hard to do idling it around the yard.

Steve

psfracer wrote:

richter69 wrote:I never start mine cold, with your A460 block take a freeze plug out of each side, Jerry Bickel Racecars sells some screw in block heaters that are 3/4 npt. Go to the hardware store and get a couple of adapters to fit the freeze plug holes and screw the heaters into them. I also use a heater pad on the oilpan.

Do you remember what size the freeze plug holes are? So something that is like this:

THe adapter (but unsure of size): http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/51118/10002/-1

And the heater itself, one for each side: http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS-Performance-Products/555/51117/10002/-1

Or, since I have an electric water pump, would and inline with the bottom radiator hose work? Like this: http://www.jerrybickel.com/cooling-systems/radiator-hose-heater-jbrc5007-1-1-2.html

This might be better, no adapters necassary : http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/ZRO0/3100036/N0649.oap?ck=Search_N0649_-1_750&pt=N0649&ppt=C0076

This is not a threaded model......expansion type for 1 1/2" holes

Just went to the track today. It was 32 degrees last night, plugged it in for about 45 minutes, car started right up and it was about 46 degrees when I attempted to start it for the first time.

Worked like a charm. No more cold start problems at the track.

What did you use? A block heater? Were you at Vegas yesterday?

No, I was at Famoso. (McFarland / Bakersfield, CA).

I got an inline heater from Jerry Bickel race cars. Just put it inline on the bottom radiator hose. Plug it in, circulate the water for a few seconds every 10 minutes or so, started right up after 45 minutes plugged in. (45 minutes water temp reached 125).

Worked like a charm.