Electric demist

I looked for this using the search but no matches so here goes at sharing the wealth.

I was chatting to a guy today who is building a kit car, no not a '40, and he got onto the subject of heaters. Now the heater fitted to mine rarely gets used as a heater due to heat coming from the centre tunnel. The inside of the car becomes very warm. It may get used in rare cases to demist the inside of the windscreen, but it takes a while to warm up. His 'matter of factly' suggestion opened up a realm of possibilities for my winter mods project and I felt I had to share this if someone was in the build stage or just interested.

The suggestion is to source two 12 volt hairdriers, the sort that may be used on a caravan or boat, and duct the hot air into the screen outlets. Not only do you get instant hot air when the screen is misted up, but the SVA tests comply. To boot, you can ditch the heater and associated piping, saving weight, leaving fewer coolant connections and give more access space in the front bulkhead area. There is also less clutter in the centre tunnel. Two units are used incase one fails, and they can be used to blow cold air as well....genius!

I'm off to see what I can find. Just thought you may be interested. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

I used a similar device (pair actually) in a 911 with headers and no ducting. These were premade units with variable fan speed but fixed heating. Sucked tons of amps, as you can imagine. I seperated the circuits into fan only and no heat so that I saved a ton of weight. I'll take pictures and post on a link for you to see and I'll see if I can dig up the vendor contact data.

Chuck Ward

Or perhaps something like this?

demister

That looks like a good idea as I have basically decided not to run the normal heater core. Has anyone actually used these? What about the amp drain? I'd be interested in hearing.

Works very well, drain is 13 amps, but it works very quickly, so you don't need to have it on for long.

Cheers for the input. Checked the link out and for 22 quid, its probably better than modifying a couple of hairdryers. The guy I originally spoke to was building a Westie but as Jasper said, the amp drain is not really that important due to the fact that it doesn't have to be on for that long. My '40 gets well hot, very quickly without the use of a heater! Off to the shops then...

Just a thought guys, but how about ducting some warm air from the radiator?

You would only need a small fan & a couple of metres of ducting.

Hey guys, move to good old sunny California and you won't need them to be very functional. Jokes aside, I would be concerned about adding more moist air to the interior by ducting from the radiator(when it is raining). I like the electric idea!

I have found an electric heater element that is stuck to the front screen. This is similar to the one that I had on my Granada Scorpio back in the UK many years ago.

I am not sure that they would be road legal etc. and I am planning only to use it on the race cars as it will save the weight.

On the road cars we use a standard A/C - heater unit similar to those used by many in the UK. They were made for heavy equipment applications and are inexpensive enough to use ONLY as a heater.

Best wishes,

Robert