I just put some line heaters on my van and, while testing them, noticed that they heat up very fast - too hot to touch in what seems to be 30-60 seconds although i did not actually time them.
It seems like these would be a good way to help start up in very cold weather, especially if you are somewhere without a place to plug in a block heater (like a camping out in a truck stop overnight).
Is it correct to think this or would it just be overkill since the glow plugs are there to heat the fuel? Seems like these things are so new that not many people even had them last winter to try this. But i would like to hear from anyone who has.
One of the reasons that makes me think this would be a good idea is that i have a portable diesel generator which would not start at all when i put diesel in it that had been sitting outside on a cold day in containers. The generator had been in a warm garage with little fuel in it, so i wheeled it outside, put the cold diesel in, and it absolutely would not start. Then i put in inside for a few days until the whole thing was at ambient temp, then it started right up.
thanks,
Paul

glow plugs heat the combustion chamber, not the fuel
I would bet you would see a dramatic improvement in cold-start performance with line heaters

Lots of folks have said that cold starts improve if you use the heaters a couple minutes before you start the engine...

quote:

It seems like these would be a good way to help start up in very cold weather, especially if you are somewhere without a place to plug in a block heater (like a camping out in a truck stop overnight).
Is it correct to think this or would it just be overkill since the glow plugs are there to heat the fuel? Seems like these things are so new that not many people even had them last winter to try this. But i would like to hear from anyone who has.

I wish I could say yes...but I have not seen any testing done that would support this. I can speculate that it might...but I think it would be irresponsible to do so. We simply did not have a chance to test this last winter.

I have been contacted by several folks who live in cold climates and use biodiesel wondering the same thing.

I will lincude this is in the list of testing to ready for next fall when temps here begin to drop. We will test a several different vehicles for cold starting with and without our line heaters running on both Biodiesel and petrodiesel.

Sorry I cannot be more helpful right now. Accurrate answers require real testing. And real testing requires not only the time and funding..but in the case of cold weather testing...some cold weather is needed.