Hybrid News

I have been playing with my new SGII the last couple of days trying to perfect my warmup period in these 10- and 20-degree days and on the trip home from work tonight had one of those Aha! (or duh) moments for something that I haven′t seen mentioned here.

The first 3 miles or so home (2 of which were on the freeway @ ~55mph) the FWT barely inched up to about 150-155 degrees, but without really flooring it I couldn’t get CHT above about 200-205. When I got off the freeway and started hitting the stoplights the engine revs obviously averaged lower than on the highway and the temps started dropping from there - thus couldn’t get it to go EV because I couldn’t hit that magic 153 FWT and 224 CHT combination to &quottrip the trigger&quot.

Then the AHA moment hit - turn off the heater !! As soon as I did that the FWT jumped to 165 and CHT went to 235 in about 30 seconds, and I slid right into EV as expected. Obviously the heater is getting it’s heat from the engine coolant, so it’s taking away that precious heat needed in the engine to get to the first EV levels and putting it into the cabin.

Moral of the story - if you can stand the cold, keep your heater turned off until you hit the 153 FWT/224 CHT triggers to get you into the first EV. After that the minimum temps needed to hit EV goes down so you can turn the heater back on.