Engine Block Heaters

Engine Block Heaters are used to heat the engine block and engine fluids of gas and diesel vehicles as an aid to starting in cold weather.  The heater is operated using standard household AC power and the heat generated is distributed throughout the engine by the convective flow of the warmed coolant.  The heaters are approved to North American and European electrical standards and designs are available for most engine makes and models.  Two basic types of heaters exist.  The conventional heater is directly installed into the coolant jacket of the engine and the conduction heater is installed against the engine block or into a dry port of the engine.

In addition to helping start the vehicle, Engine Block Heaters provide other benefits.  The warmed engine produces significantly fewer emissions during and after starting.  Heat output from the vehicle cabin heater will be quicker.  And engine and starter system components will have extended life due to the reduction in wear associated with starting cold engines.

Phillips & Temro works directly with OEM engine and vehicle manufacturers to design Engine Block Heaters for their specific applications.  In addition, heaters are sold in the aftermarket directly to consumers.  See the Application Guide and Product Catalog for aftermarket part numbers, ordering information, and application information organized by engine make & model.

Use of an Engine Block Heater can be enhanced with the addition of a Phillips & Temro thermostat.  The thermostat cycles the heater on and off based on the temperature of the coolant in the engine.  This allows the heater to operate only for the amount of time necessary to maintain a given coolant temperature – more in cold weather and less in cool weather.  This in turn reduces the electric power used, saving energy and money.  See the Thermostatically Controlled Engine Immersion Heaters Data Sheet for more information.

Thermostatically Controlled Engine Immersion (Block) Heater

Read more »

Artistic Car Classic Especcially Fun

The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art is a non-profit organization Art Car Parade classic car show you can find classic cars that are works of art in themselves. But every once in awhile you happen upon a collection Car Art Show and Other Wheeled is happening.

Read more »

The Classic Car Show at Imperial Palace

Some of the cars are one of a kind customs with intricate bodywork and details that are all original. Many of the cars are rebuilt - some were just well kept, and some, were never driven at all. There's one VW Beetle from the 60's that the owner parked in a barn, left the window sticker still on it, and now it sits in the showroom with original miles on it.

Read more »

Modified Car Shows and Galleries

Audi

Audi and the Audi TT have long been a firm favorite for car tuners from Europe and especially Germany. Of late the Audi R8 supercar has also began to garner attention, with some of the best tuners displaying their version of the Audi R8 at various custom car shows, including Germany's own Essen Motor Show. Audi cars are also popular at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, Nevada and at the Tokyo Auto Salon in Japan.

Below is our gallery of some of the best modified Audi cars from the different car shows...

Audi A3 Custom paint on a modified Audi A3 at the 2008 Essen Auto Show

 

Read more »

Maximizing Engine Power

Custom-car.us is all about engine tuning and car performance; so if you want to know about car tuning, how to increase engine power and how to modify your car, then you've come to the right place. However, before we can start talking about engine tuning and increasing engine power and torque, we first need to have a basic understanding of how an internal combustion engine produces power. Therefore, over the next few pages of this section, we'll discuss the various basic concepts and principles of the internal combustion engines and the common terms used to discuss engine modifications, such as volumetric efficiency, engine displacement and air density as all of these influence engine power and performance. We also have a glossary of car modification terms that you can check for the meaning of some of the terms we use on this site. Once we have a clear understanding of how a four stroke engine produces power, we can move on and start make our P.L.A.N.s to increase engine performance.

Although there are two types of internal combustion engines, namely the two stroke engine and the four stroke engine, we're only interested in car performance and since the two-stroke engine is not used on cars, we won't be discussing that engine here. Instead we'll focus out attentions soely on the four-stroke engine because custom-car.us is all about car tuning and because cars use the four-stroke engine and not the two-stoke engine. If you're looking for information about the two-stroke engine, you could try How Stuff Works or Wikipedia.

The Wankel rotary engine.

There are also numerous derivatives of the four stroke engine – diesel engines, petrol engines, four cylinder engines, straight sixes, boxer engines, rotary or wankel engines, turbocharged engines, supercharged engines, etc. With the marked exception of the rotary engine, all four stroke engines have a common basic design – they all consist of individual cylinders with pistons that are connected to a flywheel by a crankshaft, and they all make use of what is known as the Otto Cycle. This makes it fairly easy to discuss basic engine power concepts as we don't need to concern ourselves with V's and straights, boxers and horizontally opposed engines. Instead our discussion can and will be all about the four stroke internal combustion engine. In addition, the deisle engine has had a resurgence in recent years and has become more of a performance engine, especially the turbo-diesel engine. A lot of what we discuss here can be applied to modern diesel engines but there are some aspects of engine modification that are specific to diesel engines; for this reason we'll discuss diesel engines and diesel engine modifications on their own.

So let us begin by looking at the four strokes of the four stroke internal combustion engine otherwise known as the Otto cycle. You can skip this section if you're already familiar with the Otto cycle and head on over to basic engine power or engine building, but this section does tie into most of what we discuss on Custom-car.us. If you're intereseted in modifying diesel engines, hop on over to our page on diesel engines to find out how to apply our discussions to diesel engines.

Read more »

engine ford gt90 for sold

engine ford gt90 for sold

Read more »