I'm considering installing a heat exchanger into my coolant loop so that I can have instant hot showers while out camping. I've had a quick look at my engine bay and wanted to see if I have the right idea as far as a good location to tap.



Would the hose highlighted above be a good spot to splice into?

Does it always receive steady and freshly heated coolant flow regardless of thermostat position or heater control valve position?

What kind of flow rate should I be looking to hit if I install a pair of diverter / selector valves to push coolant through a heat exchanger? (Don't worry, I'd only divert through the heat exchanger when using the shower, so the additional backpressure / resistance would only be felt by the water pump during those times when I'm showering or heating water for camping--that said, I think I should probably do some thinking about sizing the heat exchanger correctly for the typical amount of fluid flow...).

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

bump for confirmation before I cut hoses? would love an expert to give me the yay / nay. thanks!

 

I cannot advise on the tapping location but have a question...why not consider an electric water heater that could run off of a third (or second) battery with a solar panel charger for trickle charging

 

Do you have ANY idea how much electrical power it takes to heat water on-demand at a shower's flow rate?

I'd be inclined to bypass the cabin heater loop to run the external heat exchanger provided cabin heat isn't needed at the same time.

I have no idea what kind of flow rate the engine's water pump might deliver through your heat exchanger's loop or what RPM the engine would need to be turning at. This would be an interesting experiment, that's for sure!

 

You would probably be better off with something like this:


You aren't going to get the coolant hot enough to the fresh water enough to do any good.

 

 

https://trailkitchens.com/collection...ortable-shower

This is probably what I would get if I decided I needed a portable shower.

 

I was going to agree on the location but only based on intuition. However, I did watch one of those "wheeler dealer" episodes where they installed one of these heater cores for a surfers van - seems like a simple solution but needed a separate water tank.

 

I agree that that seems like a good locations to tap for the heat exchanger. Having the gas engine makes it much quicker to get full heat from cold too, how big of a fresh water tank will you be using?

 

 

(My thinking anyway)

The V10 Ex burns .7 to 1 GPH at idle.

Gas has ~110,000 BTUs of energy per gallon.

At least 65% of that thermal energy becomes waste heat.

I hope to capture about half of that, so say ~30%, so conservatively ~30k BTUs. (I think that's also about the typical output of an automotive heater core.)

I think that's in-line with typical instant propane heaters. And if I travel internationally, I'd like to go completely without propane and only use gas as a fuel source for everything.

(Also, I'm kind of cheating because I know lots of others have done it before.)

 

I have a 50 gallon tank rigged up with a Aquatec 5501-IVN2-V77DUL variable speed pump that does 4.0 GPM @ 65 PSI. But I'll also probs pick up a sump pump with an inline filter for river showers.

 

And yeah, the long term plan is to tap this into a 10-20 gallon insulated tank under the belly opposite the muffler to make hydronic heat for winter nights. Gotta rig up remote start though to automatically start and stop based on a thermostat. That's a whole other thread a while from now though, probs.

 

 

ah, *****, ok. gonna hafta do some testing then.