Yeah, almost as cool as making a variable speed controller for a bead roller!
It's amazing what gets done with a few days that are too cold to head out to the shop. At least I can do this stuff inside in my office (that now looks just like my shop!
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Well done !
Somehow, I need a catchy name for this thing.
Heatilator 5000 just doesn't make it..... Nor does el Fuego Pequeño.
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Looks like a Thermoencabulator to me.
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Frunken-Heizung?
@Sacto Mitch posted:.It's usually at about a point like this that I discover I need a sixth wire.
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Ok, I laughed out loud at that! 
(I'm glad it wasn't at breakfast or I would have snorted orange juice all over the keyboard AGAIN!)
Oh, my God, Mitch. I just read the Wiki on the Turboencabulator and almost lost my tea.
Thermoencabulator might just be it. I would also have to write a suitably arcane description to include in the User Manual just before the schematic.
Haven't seen a description that good since the days of the "Cyclops" Italian racing car in the old Car and Driver.
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Gordon, Gordon, Gordon... Everybody knows the Cyclops was in Road & Track.
Hey, Lane! 
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THERMOHEATMODULATOR!
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Gordon, you certainly have some romantic notions of what a Users Manual is today.
I haven’t seen a schematic diagram in one since 1968. You’re opening yourself to all kinds of legal exposure by implying the user should be monkeying with that stuff. What if they wrap themselves around a pole while trying to solder some connections while driving?
A users manual is now a place for your legal team to get in every conceivable warning against self-immolation. Have you ever considered that someone could burn themselves up if dousing themselves in gasoline and smoking while using your product? Better get that warning in the manual!
Those warnings usually take up the first 20 pages or so. After that, just print the return address of your ‘service’ department. You don’t need to staff an actual service department. Just pay some guy in Bangladesh to stuff envelopes with the form letter about how the product was ‘unrepairable’ and charge the customer whatever you want for a replacement plus about 75 bucks for shipping.
You should be able to clear half again as much from the ‘service’ operation as from new orders.
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Why don't you call it the "Burn-o-matic 9000"?
"Toasty-toes"?
"Goldilocks 9000" because the temperature can be adjusted just right?
ThermoPylae
Ancient
Innovative
A Great Struggle
Also: "Heat Gate," which is the thing's actual function.
"Thermo-Valve 2000" (as opposed to the "Thermo-Valve 4000" used on BN4 heaters) for potential UK buyers.
I'm intrigued by "ThermoHeatModulator", Carlos, but would need a bigger box to fit a label that big.
Micro-Nuke 2000 (with an alternate power label that says "Do NOT press this button)
Acme Micro-Scorcher 2000 (with an alternate "Micro-Scoachah" for "your cousin from Bahsten" users).
"The Heat Whisperer"
"Icy-Hot" (Oh, wait. Doesn't that really big basketball player use that one?)
"Comfort Zone" (This could also be confused with a toilet seat at Bed, Bath and Beyond)
"Schrödinger Quantum Thermo Controller" (This one has no power switch and only works when you look at it - Or maybe when you're not looking at it. I don't know which. There might be a cat involved.)
"Celcius Transfigurator" (Dial in the temp you want in Celcius and it comes back in Fahrenheit or vice-versa).
"ThermoPile 2000" (Thanks, Ed, but I'm not entertaining the Spartan war, even though all of those descriptions are true. Besides, "ThermoPylae" might be interpreted as a butt heater or something. Not that a butt heater is bad, mind you, and might suggest another new product for the future, like the "Nano Gas Heater" for back pocket use. As soon as we figure out where to hang the gas tank.)
Cerberus (Three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades)
Flammenwerfer 2021 or FmW 2021 (German flamethrower)
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I guess this is why Mercedes just uses letters and numbers.
Getting a committee to agree on a name would probably take most of a model year, and then you'd end up with something like 'Focus', anyway.
I do like Thermopylae 3000, if only for the alliteration.
But, there's the iambic thing, too.
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Vulcunator BTU
HOT AF 
Given that my historical-literary allusions have proven to be as pearls before swine (mostly), in the interest of audience comprehension I hereby submit:
@edsnova posted:Given that my historical-literary allusions have proven to be as pearls before swine...
I resemble that remark.
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Now you're learning how to work the room, Ed.
Mid-brow TV culture is kind of the sweet spot. Greek mythology, not so much.
And Heat Miser 3000 has a nice, commercial ring to it. I think if Gordon positioned this decal right, he could get the control knob centered on the nose.
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Bunch a hockey pucks.
This is mostly for @DannyP but it might be amusing for others, too, to demonstrate the steps we'll sometimes go through to get heat (and have something custom).
Danny posted a few shots of the exhaust pipe and heat shields for his Webasto gas heater in his Spyder (so well concealed that I had to look for them) and I finally got under the front of my car for routine Spring stuff and got a few shots of my heater exhaust pipe, too, so here goes:
Mine is made from rigid 1-3/4" (!) exhaust pipe from Paul Parker's Muffler shop in Millbury (Paul's older than me and does a lot of custom hot rods). It looks big enough to be on a "Big Rig" but the Sainted German Engineers ( bow your heads, please ) offered a bunch of cautions in their BN2 service manual about running too small or too long exhaust pipes on their Sainted Heaters ( Tip your hat and mumble, please ). They recommend 1 meter maximum for most applications and limits on number of bends and radii to minimize the dreaded back pressure. So I figured, WhallaHeck? and got a pipe the same size as the heater exhaust outlet. Here is a photo straight on from the front. Remember, the heater is sitting in the battery/spare tire bay in the nose and you're looking at the underside of that space, with the sway bar and front beam in the background. Paul couldn't make a 90º bend in that small a radius so I just cut and welded it for the bend. Please note the almost professional-looking welds, too. 
The SGEs are probably casting un-approving looks at the tight bend but screw 'em, and I'm not changing it. It's like having 12" stacks on a Semi tractor.
The red, waffle-y looking stuff at the muffler clamp is high temp silicone material as a heat insulator to the surrounding fiberglass. Works great - It's a trivet material from Bed and Bath and good for 600F. So it has a Big, Honkin' muffler clamp at the heater, and another one off to the passenger side (left in the photo) clamping the pipe to the bumper mount.
Honestly, this thing is so rugged that you could hang Barnum and Bailey's trapeze artists off of it with no issues. It exits just ahead of the passenger wheel while also applying just enough heat to the right front tire to keep it from icing up in the Winter - Safety First! - but still far enough inboard so it isn't visible from the side unless you get waaay down there to find it, or a couple of car lengths out in front, and then a pipe sticking out there would make no sense to anyone, anyway (" Betty Lou! Don't you go lookin' down there! Ain't nothing proper down there for you to look at!")
So there is a quick shop tour of Pearl's heater exhaust. No flexible pipe, very few heat shields, just good, down-home, rugged cornstruction for years of trouble-free use. "Pro-Shaper" Wray Schelin would be proud of me (if he ever stops laughing).
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That looks nice and all, but would have been a whole lot simpler and easier to go straight down and do a back cut on the pipe to let the gases enter the slipstream under the car.
That’s what I started out with, and it worked OK, but that puts the heater exhaust closer to the heater fresh air intake (like, 16” apart) and you could smell exhaust at a stop light. 
That’s why I moved it to the passenger side. No more exhaust smell, now that they’re 4’ apart. 
Aha. Yeah, I guess I don't have the problem of intake air from outside.
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I don't know, Gordon.
To me, it looks like putting a Buick V8 in the back seat would have been easier.
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Yeah, warmer, too!
@Sacto Mitch posted:.
I don't know, Gordon.
To me, it looks like putting a Buick V8 in the back seat would have been easier.
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I don't know Mitch, that would be an awful weight penalty, even if @ALB drilled a bunch of holes in it.
Yeah, but drilling that many holes would keep Al busy for WEEKS!
Just as an(other) aside, while under there looking at the exhaust pipe I glanced at the area under the steering box and thought,
“HOLY CARP”! It’s leaking!
Put a couple of fingers up there but they came back oil free. WTF? Turns out I had grabbed a can of black spray paint a couple of years ago to touch up the pan and it must have been glossy instead of my usual Satin finish.
Whew! No leaks!
It’s nice to catch a break, once in a while........