I was recently on another thread here at and a few of us got to talking about warm up time and how it can effect the life of your engine. Which got me thinking about Heater Cores.

I know on a desil engine a heater core can make a big difference in warm up time. It can even make a big difference in weather or not your truck will start on somedays. So that would lead me to think that a core would do the same for gasoline engines, with a smaller effect. But that's not always true. A good friend of mine and I bought cores from Mr. Heater, a common core maker, for no real reason other than we like tinkering with our vehicles and were really bored one day. When he put his on he noticed no difference in warm up time. At first I thought that it's because he has a newer (FORD) truck with the Triton V8. From what I think I know those have Aluminum blocks, which would mean a quicker warm up time to begin with. If that's not the reason why, dose someone else know why it dose not help? I'd also like to know if you think putting the heater on my 302 bomber is gonna have the same effect as the Triton or if it should work better.

I'm not an idiot I know the difference between a desil and gas engine so I'm not confused about why it works well for the one. But this has really been bugging me.

 

I believe diesel motors hold more coolant than gas, so it would be a volume issue (ie more water to warm up.) Capasity difference aside, unless you have air moving over the heater core, it is not extracting heat from the motor. If you want faster warm up, try adding more anti-freeze. Anti-freeze doesn't transfer heat as well as water, so more anti freeze less heat transfer.