Upgrading the heating system to bioethanol or Diesel fuel

Using the diesel heater in real applications

First Evaluation

Well the weather did get cool and we had some heavy frost up here in the mountains.
Temps were hovering just below freezing.
I ran the car preheat with the remote, and then once in the car and in motion I activate the diesel heater and all stays nice and toasty and free of the initial smell of diesel starting up.

My Observations
I've set the DH timer to 15 minutes and have found from previous test and concur with DonD's experience that it takes 5 - 7 minutes of warming up to feel a strong heat from the vent. The last 7-8 minutes the heat comes on strong.
Now if I'm on a longer trip I can always coast for a bit with the cabin heat and/or reset another 15 minutes run.
I try not to start up the DH from cold in a parked situation to avoid the smell of diesel at fire up, so I try to fire up once in motion.
The firing up process sound like a jet engine winding up and simmers down once warm to the sound of a jet taxing down the runway.
But it's not obnoxiously loud
Finally my Miev can be heard
LOL

Conclusion so far
This is a MAJOR improvement for our EV experience in relation as to where we live & our local environment

I just bought a 2011 Citroën C-Zero and it gets really cold here in the north, so I'll be transplanting a Webasto petrol heater from my DIY EV to the C-Zero in order to make it usable for long trips in the winter as well. I'll see if I can put the heater in place of the 12V lead acid battery and possibly use a 20Ah Lithium battery instead, which I already have lying around. I also have some 40Ah cells if 20Ah ends up being too small. In any case I won't mind getting rid of that nasty lead in the process. Andb urning 0.5l/h of gasoline is still a lot better than 5l/100km that my previous Diesel car spent. Especially since I'll only need to fire up the burner when it's really cold.

I concur with Sandage.

The diesel heater is a game changer for cold weather operations. It evens out the range swing from summer to winter and even saves battery cycles.it should be standard equipment to have dual electric /diesel heaters for ev's sold in the north. Given the standard of comfort that the ice car has set it's silly that this has been left out of ev's.

Don.....

It doesn't really make a difference if it's diesel or gasoline. The heaters will consume both at about 0.5l/h. Upside of gasoline is that it doesn't make a mess. If you spill it it'll vaporize itself in time. Diesel on the other can gunk up everything. Around these parts diesel is cheaper though. It has a lower tax on it.

I suppose here we could also use the even less taxed oil meant for heating houses and running farming equipment. It just has a coloring agent which will get you if you try to run your car with it. The things they go through to make sure we pay our taxes...

For reference, our gasoline is about 1,6€/l ($7.9/gal) and diesel 1,4€/l ($6.9/gal). Heating oil I think is around 1€/l ($4.9/gal).

I just had a revelation! If I select fuel lines which can stand ethanol I can feed my gasoline burner 85% ethanol, which you can get at select gas stations here. It still has 15% gasoline, but that's a lot less than the 90% of the usual. This bioethanol is made locally from waste, so it's not purpose grown feedstock. It'll reduce the heat output somewhat, but I think it's a reasonable price to pay.

jsantala said:

It doesn't really make a difference if it's diesel or gasoline. The heaters will consume both at about 0.5l/h. Upside of gasoline is that it doesn't make a mess. If you spill it it'll vaporize itself in time.

Click to expand...

The downside is that it's a much, much more volatile fuel - When it 'vaporizes' it's just an explosive gas cloud looking for a spark and when it finds one, it's never pretty. Diesel doesn't suffer this problem

If I was going to burn anything in a $500 made in China 'furnace' it sure wouldn't be gasoline - I wouldn't even consider it. Diesel or Kerosene would be my choices

Don

jsantala said:

I just had a revelation! If I select fuel lines which can stand ethanol I can feed my gasoline burner 85% ethanol, which you can get at select gas stations here.

Click to expand...

Thank you for showing us the prices of gas/diesel/heating oil in Finland. It demonstrates how lucky we are here in the USA.
When it comes to using alternative fuels in the parking heater, I have added my experience earlier in this thread so, you may want to check this out. Further to Ethanol, it is flammable just as gasoline (see Don above) and the heating performance will drop. The heater has preset ratio of fuel pumping rate and air-blowing rate that matches the fuel. Ethanol requires much less air flow (or higher fuel flow) so, if you feed it in diesel heater, the extra air will cool it off. That is why the performance will drop significantly.
If we have anyone here who can take the control chip from the parking heater and reprogram it for EV heating, that would be WONDERFULL. We need to control fuel/air rate but also heater fluid temperature. On the other hand, we don't need to preset heating time - just turn it on/off manually.
Stan

Yes, well, we have lots of cars with fuel heaters, both diesel and gasoline powered, driving about all winter, and they're not blowing up all over the place, even with a big tank of flammable liquid and additionally an ICE engine right next to the burner adding more excitement to the mix. So, I'm not really worried about anything blowing up as such. Admittedly Chinese knock-offs are a minority

I also admit that diesel is safer and if I were to buy a brand new burner I'd probably get a diesel, unless I'd like to burn ethanol. Obviously a diesel burner will not work with it, but I have a German Webasto gasoline heater already. I'll try and see if it'll run on 85% bioethanol and if not, I'll go back to the usual stuff. I'd just really like to give as little of my money to Big Oil as I can.

Regarding the fuel prices, it's not luck as such. Your government has decided not to tax petroleum products as heavily as governments here have. If they did, you'd quickly catch up with the rest of the world in mpg average. Also it's makes a huge difference that US convinced OPEC to trade oil in USD back in the day.

My first test with a Webasto Thermo Top E, a 4 kW gasoline liquid heater, and RE85 (85% bioethanol) has revealed no problems. The heater works fine and there was more than enough heat. The air coming out of the vents was so hot that I didn't want to keep my hand on it for very long. This was in my earlier DIY conversion, a 1997 Citroën Xsara. Next up, the C-Zero!

jsantala said:

My first test with a Webasto Thermo Top E, a 4 kW gasoline liquid heater, and RE85 (85% bioethanol) has revealed no problems. The heater works fine and there was more than enough heat. The air coming out of the vents was so hot that I didn't want to keep my hand on it for very long. This was in my earlier DIY conversion, a 1997 Citroën Xsara. Next up, the C-Zero!

Click to expand...

Congratulations,
Good for you. There is nothing wrong with gasoline or ethanol in the heater. The point I was trying to make is that we are installing everything ourselves, including the fuel tank. This is where the safety might be compromised. ICE cars are already built with fire safety in mind and their fuel tank is sturdy and well protected in the case of an accident. Therefore, installing parking heater in them is a different story.

A while back when considering where to install the heater I was thinking of replacing the 12 v battery with a smaller one and relocating it to mount the heater in the spot where the battery is now.

I did a video with some load testing of the 12 v system and then forgot about it. While cleaning up my phone I found it and posted it.

http://youtu.be/D_Fn-SsbtZc


Kind of interesting. In the end I kept my original battery in place and mounted the heater elsewhere.


I think if you don't turn on the lights or any big 12 v loads when not in the ready mode you could get away with a pretty small 12 v battery in the car.

Enjoy

Don.....

DonDakin said:

I think if you don't turn on the lights or any big 12 v loads when not in the ready mode you could get away with a pretty small 12 v battery in the car.

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting this! When my OEM flooded cell battery fails, I'll probably replace it will a lower capacity, lighter AGM battery as I have done with my Honda Insight without any problem.

Great video and good information Thanks for sharing.
So in ready mode the draw was about 5 amps, so to run the DH in ready mode we would have to add the draw to operate the DH circulating pump, fuel pump and the cabin air circulating fan.
I wonder how heavy a load this would be.

Hey Sandange,

Actually there is a part 2 to this video. If you go to my channel you will see it there. I turn the lights on with the car in ready mode.

When in ready mode all the loads are on the main traction pack thru the dc-dc converter. In ready mode the 12 V battery was charging at about 5 amps.

I didn't do this test while plugged in but I bet when plugged in and with the key turned on I guess the DC-DC is engaged charging the 12 V battery. That would mean that you could charge outside and run the DH and stay warm and get almost all the charge the charger can give you. My guess is those loads would be about 10 amps or less but if the dc-dc is energized then it would not drain the 12 V battery.

If I'm wrong then you would need to turn the key on , turn the DH on for say 10 minutes with fan on full, heat up the interior then after it shut down return the key to the off position to charge the 12 V system.

BTW on the weekend I had the diesel heater running for awhile and I found that when it stops I can turn the electric heater to the first notch to engage the slower electric pump and continue to bleed heat out of the system for about 15 minutes before the electric heater starts drawing current to keep the temp of the water up. I checked it with CANION to monitor heater use. I was pretty pleased to be able to pulse the DH on for 10 minutes then get 15 more minutes of heat/defrost that was diminishing slowly until I would need another 10 minute blast from the DH. At that rate I could run an hour of heat and defrost for about less then 160 ML of diesel.

Pretty good.


Don.....

Good news DonD
I set my timer for 15 minute runs on the DH and with the coasting another 15 minute we keep warm. Works well in these not too cold temps for when I need to extend our winter driving range.
Don't know how much coasting we'll get once we're in the - 20 C to -30 C temps.

I guess we have created a new category of vehicle

EVS with hybrid heaters
or you could call them
EVS with 30% hybrid winter range extenders.

Now this together with the availability of the new fast charging network has greatly expanded our winter driving comfort level & travel range

Hi, i'm gonna mount a JP Parking heater (Diesel 5kw water) that i got from aliexpress. I have designed a bracket and got someone to make it so i will be able to mount it in a easy way without removing anything. To start with im gonna use a alu bottle as diesel tank, but i will look for some plastic tank that is for use with diesel, maybe 4-5 liter. I was also thinking that there must have been a good ide to get a larger watertank to store more heat in, there is room for a bigger watertank or maybe attach a second water tank in there some place.
I will be using the heater fan, but i will also see if there is possible to controll the airflow to the battery, in that way it should be possible to heat the battery before starting the car.

pwb
I see this is your first posting
Welcome to the Forum .
What kind of winter temperatures do you experience?, please share your location.

If you read this tread from the top
you 'll see the different approaches some of us have taken.

A couple of us installed the Chinese heater others the Wabasto.

Lots of pictures and videos shared
Please share some pics of your installation.

sandange said:

pwb
I see this is your first posting
Welcome to the Forum .
What kind of winter temperatures do you experience?, please share your location.

If you read this tread from the top
you 'll see the different approaches some of us have taken.

A couple of us installed the Chinese heater others the Wabasto.

Lots of pictures and videos shared
Please share some pics of your installation.

Click to expand...

Thanx
Norway, often -25 celsius down to -30 some days.
I will provide pictures after i got the new brackets and i have mounted it. But it will be in the same place as the heater that Mitsubishi dealers use.

pwb, I just installed one of these into my C-Zero:
http://autoterm.pro/en/engine-preheaters/binar-5c-compact-engine-preheater/

I started a separate topic for my project:
http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2350

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