Speedster heat mod's Whats the best

if you are running heater boxes - i think the general consensus was bypass the stock steel frame and run a parallel tube under the sills.

 

i have heated seats and a gas heater (no heater boxes).

 

i rarely use the gas heater.  i honestly would recommend the heated seats.  so toasty warm (and you won't smell like gas/oil)

What about electric heaters?

There's some dispute about the effectiveness of this solution. You may be surprised to learn that I have an opinion.

I have a Beetle pan which flows a lot of air through my stock heater channels.  Unfortunately, the air is more lukewarm than hot (big hollow heater boxes).

+1 for seat heaters.

I'm thinking about running a heater hose inside the steel box tubing. I may have to open it up at one end on the structure or both. Its not a big deal I have a plasma cutter and I can weld. I considered the heat running down the tunnel, but I would have to close off the heater openings on the outer frame rails. Then install the slides on the tunnel, it would look much different than the original design. But who am I kidding this is a replica it's as fake as boob's 

Mr.Galat:

Enlighten me please.

How about a cleavarly placed 12v heater under dash,saw one on feebay bout 90.00.

I asked Carey to route the heat directly to the rear bulkheads next to the seats thereby eliminating the loss to the front.  This means no defrost, but I thought that it would be the most effective.  I won't pick up my car until next Wednesday, but I received this email from Carey today "your heat will now melt the hair off your arms... well, OK, maybe not that hot, but in 5 miles or so it was damn nice."

I was just out the the home improvement store, and have some ideas. Looking at the CMC manual I think I can snake a small flexible hose inside the boxed frame. I shop vac, or sump pump hose may be just the ticket. I can seal it of on the O.D. with pipe insulation near the engine and build a duct work flange of sorts out of sheet metal near the slide vent. The hose being less than 2.5 inches will keep the air speed up and should work much better than the steel frame to move the air through. The 911 Porsche uses a similar system (that was the basis of my thinking)

I need to do some research on the temp range of the sweeper hose, I think it will be a higher temp rating of the two

I have a CMC with the heat running through the frame side tubes.

 

I have wondered about insulating them.

That was another idea I had. You have carpet on two sides and two sides are not covered. I was thinking a sound deadener like dynamat. Maybe cover it with two layers on the sides and bottom then bead liner over that??

 If you useing electricly heated oil with a fan maybe  i have 2 homemade heat elemnt with a bus  blower supplin them   Its ok on a cool morn But below freezing no help   down the middle would be your best bet. with good heat exchangers

The hose I found will handle up to 150 degrees F so I think that may work. I have new exchangers as well

Anything you can do to insulate them will help. They lose a significant amount of heat because they aren't insulated. (The constricted airflow through the frame doesn't help either.) The R-value of steel is essentially 0 and the R-value of the surface air films inside and outside the frame won't be much more than that because of the moving air. Basically, it's about as bad a heat duct design as you can get. For comparison, even 1/4" thick cardboard has an R-value of 1.

 

 

Adding a secondary duct inside the frame could help as you would gain the insulating benefit of some dead air between duct and frame in addition to whatever the duct itself provides.

 

 

Dynamat is too thin for good thermal insulation. Dynaliner maybe, but I'm not sure how well it would hold up under the car. Spray-on thermal barrier might do ok.