Eco Alan

@gills

Very interesting re: block heater. May I ask for the contact details and pricing, if you don’t mind? I looked at the links provided and can see it was probably a hassle just getting a price!

I'll look it up and post the details. I seem to remember it was around £120 and I certainly investigated various foreign websites - I was looking at one, trying to work what it said (languages are not my strong point!) and my son came over, glanced at the page and said, why does it say "basket" there? It turned out it was the shopping cart - I recognised it from the page layout, he read it as he's learning Swedish!
 
I had a Finish block lived next door to me some 30 years ago. He married and English lady and they liven in Finland for some time then moved to the uk when her mother became ill
After a few months he took his English driving test and then wanted a car. I looked at a few with him and ended up with an Audi 80
He was most surprised that it only came with one set of alloy wheels asking where are the steel wheels for winter with the studs. Lol having to explain English winters to him was interesting
The other thing he asked was where do you plug it in answer was you don’t
Well a conversation with his father and a block heater was send from Finland and fitted to the Audi 80
It made a big difference to him as he worked in fruit and veg owl sale and got up at 3am. His car was always ice free and was blowing warm air as soon as it started
Apparently all cars in Finland had these block heaters fitted and a set of winter wheels
Happy memories

Paul


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I'll look it up and post the details. I seem to remember it was around £120 and I certainly investigated various foreign websites - I was looking at one, trying to work what it said (languages are not my strong point!) and my son came over, glanced at the page and said, why does it say "basket" there? It turned out it was the shopping cart - I recognised it from the page layout, he read it as he's learning Swedish!
Heaters like this are rather common in Sweden and easy to buy here but most sellers might not be used to (or prepared) to ship to UK.
There are two major brands; DEFA and Calix, where the latter actually is situated in my town, Eskilstuna.

Links to manufacturers web page, useful to identify which parts you might need.
https://www.calix.se/en/products/search-products-cars

https://www.defa.com/electrical-preheating/engine-heaters/find-engine-heater/

Example of Swedish prices for a heater for an Audi A2 1.4 TDI:
1590564775860.png


And you would need the cabling:
1590564929053.png

Currency-wise today 1 GBP = 11,85 SEK (kr)

If someone need help with swedish (you seem sorted there gills ?) in ordering, or even getting it shipped to uk, let me know and I will try to help out as a fellow club member.
 
How's it work? Do you run it on a timer? Go out and turn it on in the morning? I assume there's a motor in the unit?

It's just a small 500W heating element fitted inline in the existing coolant circuit and relies on convection to circulate the coolant. Some of the heaters for larger engines have pumps as well, but this seems to work fine without. I've fitted a timer on the plug in the garage and run it for 90 mins prior to my usual departure time, if the minimum temp is going to be in single figures. I've only stopped using it in the past week and I've already noticed the car is taking a bit longer to warm up, so I might go back to a quick 30 min boost before leaving. I keep on thinking I ought to get a wifi smart plug and then I could turn it on from inside, as long as I left the car plugged in.

I'd be interested to find out how hot the coolant is once the heater has been on for 90 mins. It's not up to 60C, so doesn't register on the temp guage, but if I take the bonnet off I can feel the warmth coming off the engine. The engine does start like a warm start too - the glow plug light goes out almost immediately and the engine starts easily.
 
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It's just a small 500W heating element fitted inline in the existing coolant circuit and relies on convection to circulate the coolant. Some of the heaters for larger engines have pumps as well, but this seems to work fine without. I've fitted a timer on the plug in the garage and run it for 90 mins prior to my usual departure time, if the minimum temp is going to be in single figures. I've only stopped using it in the past week and I've already noticed the car is taking a bit longer to walm up, so I might go back to a quick 30 min boost before leaving. I keep on thinking I ought to get a wifi smart plug and then I could turn it on from inside, as long as I left the car plugged in.

I'd be interested to find out how hot the coolant is once the heater has been on for 90 mins. It's not up to 60C, so doesn't register on the temp guage, but if I take the bonnet off I can feel the warmth coming off the engine. The engine does start like a warm start too - the glow plug light goes out almost immediately and the engine starts easily.

I wondered about a pump as couldn't see anything that was obviously one in your pictures. Thanks for bringing this up: I think it's a really good idea.

Mine has a Webasto, which does actually work (so far), but I guess there's no reason not to back this up with an electric pre-heater. Got to be more efficient.
 
Heaters like this are rather common in Sweden and easy to buy here but most sellers might not be used to (or prepared) to ship to UK.
There are two major brands; DEFA and Calix, where the latter actually is situated in my town, Eskilstuna.

Links to manufacturers web page, useful to identify which parts you might need.
https://www.calix.se/en/products/search-products-cars

https://www.defa.com/electrical-preheating/engine-heaters/find-engine-heater/

Example of Swedish prices for a heater for an Audi A2 1.4 TDI:
View attachment 64955

And you would need the cabling:
View attachment 64956
Currency-wise today 1 GBP = 11,85 SEK (kr)

If someone need help with swedish (you seem sorted there gills ?) in ordering, or even getting it shipped to uk, let me know and I will try to help out as a fellow club member.

Thank you - I will PM.
 
Very interesting re: block heater. May I ask for the contact details and pricing, if you don’t mind? I looked at the links provided and can see it was probably a hassle just getting a price!

It looks like I actually got it from Germany in the end, rather than Finland, via ebay. The links are here, but it looks like prices have gone up a little due to the weak pound:

Heater plus A2 fitting kit

Cable kit
 
I wondered about a pump as couldn't see anything that was obviously one in your pictures. Thanks for bringing this up: I think it's a really good idea.

Mine has a Webasto, which does actually work (so far), but I guess there's no reason not to back this up with an electric pre-heater. Got to be more efficient.
A couple of years ago, @Pinkythelabrat did some research on the Webasto including, I seem to recall, the option of modifying it to work as a pre-heater. He might be along to let you know what he discovered.

Also, Butler Technik is a company which seems to sell a lot of Webasto controllers and timers that might be useful if you wanted to explore that route.
 
A couple of years ago, @Pinkythelabrat did some research on the Webasto including, I seem to recall, the option of modifying it to work as a pre-heater. He might be along to let you know what he discovered.

Also, Butler Technik is a company which seems to sell a lot of Webasto controllers and timers that might be useful if you wanted to explore that route.

Interesting you should mention that - I was just wondering it that was possible. I expect the Webasto would need a pump, as I think the output is around 3kW and it must usually rely on the engine running to circulate the coolant.
 
A couple of years ago, @Pinkythelabrat did some research on the Webasto including, I seem to recall, the option of modifying it to work as a pre-heater. He might be along to let you know what he discovered.

Also, Butler Technik is a company which seems to sell a lot of Webasto controllers and timers that might be useful if you wanted to explore that route.

Thank you Jeff! I had heard of the pre-heat possibilities so would be interesting to see if anything came of it.
 
I bought the same parts as a guy in the Swedish Lupo3l/A2 forum that made a guide how to Mount it
It is an Defa kit, but unfortunatly I have not put it in the car yet...but hopefully before Winter :rolleyes:
I have never had a car without preheat before so I Will have to do it since I hate scraping ice and allso got a preheate conector att the work parking space :)
 
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At the prices we are talking about for purpose-made kits I would have thought this is the way to go. I see you can buy a Bluetooth switch to install too that can be controlled via a phone to set the timer (including a regular schedule for weekdays vs. weekends), which would increase the utility.
 
With the car generally running well, we ended up unexpectedly using it for a longer trip. We had booked a few days away in the North Yorkshire Moors, at short notice and then discovered a distinct lack of rapid chargers, which was going to make the idea of taking the Leaf a bit of a challenge. Rather than work out detailed charging plans, we decided to take the A2 instead. It coped with everything we threw at it including motorways, back roads, fast A roads and 1 in 3 hills and still managed to return 66mpg over 450 miles. My better half even remarked on how comfortable the seats were!

A2 Hols.jpg


It turned out to be one of the last weeks of free movement before the lockdown began and we feel we were very lucky to get away when we did.

Once back, I started thinking about ways to improve the aerodynamics of the car. Over about 30mph, aerodynamic drag is the biggest resistance factor to a car’s progress, so reducing aero drag should improve economy. It’s no accident that Audi introduced lots of small aero tweeks to the 3L A2, to add to the engine, gearbox and weight reduction changes they made. Very helpfully, there was a University of Warwick/MIRA study into improving car aerodynamics that used an A2 as a base vehicle. This shows where the biggest gains can be made to reduce aero drag:

a2-mira-aero-mods-testing.jpg


The biggest gains are from a smooth undertray and blocking the front intakes. A full undertray is difficult with the exhaust and suspension to accommodate, so I decided to start with a grill block. The lower grill feeds air to both the intercooler and radiators, but is in addition to the upper intake, under the service flap. By sealing off some of the lower grill, I hoped to improve airflow without significantly impacting the cooling needed in the UK climate.

My first attempt at grill block closed off the lower radiator intake, apart from a hole for the ambient temperature sensor, but left the o/s open for the intercooler. It was cut out of 4mm black Correx sheet and held in place with cable ties around the grill behind:

GrillPhoto-crop.jpg


The combined effect of the grill block and pre heater lifted my commuting fuel economy to 66mpg.
 
One job that needed doing was replacing the O/S ARB bush. The previous owner had replaced the one on the N/S, but had not done the O/S one as it wasn’t as bad. On cold mornings I could hear a squelching noise from in front of the driver’s footwell when going over bumps, very similar to the noise worn console bushes made on the Mk1 Fabia we had some years ago. Given what a pain replacing the Fabia console bushes had been, I sincerely hoped it was the ARB bush and not the console bush making the noise. As the previous owner had given me the new O/S bush with the car, I fitted it in the hope of curing the noise and fortunately it did! I was very happy and relieved it turned out to be an easy fix.

With the arrival of lockdown and some nice weather, I got out with the Vactan and treated the front wishbones, and rust patches on the rear axle beam. Not a glamorous job, but hopefully one that will keep the rust monster a bay for a bit.

Photo before the Vactan has dried and turned black:
_OI000693.JPG


When I had changed the gearbox oil, I had noticed that there was a lot of movement in the gearbox rear pendulum mount, so I ordered the cheap Febi Polo replacement. It was easy to fit once the undertray was off and makes it feel smoother when coming on and off power.

My next fillup, which was mainly commuting, got me up to just under 68mpg. I have a suspicion that much of the improvement over the previous tankful was probably down to now running on summer diesel, as we tend to switch over in the UK, from winter to summer fuels, in mid-March. Summer diesel has about a 5% higher calorific value than UK winter diesel, so should show a similar increase in fuel economy.

Having seen some of the pictures on here of very congested EGR valves, I decided it would be good to clean mine out. The hardest part turned out to be cutting down the allen key with a blunt hacksaw blade. Once I’d done this and could get in to slacken off the allen bolt, it came to pieces quite easily, although quite a lot of it has to be done by feel.

The EGR valve itself was a bit mucky, but I had expected more buildup of deposits after 155k miles. I think the car has not suffered from too many short journeys in its life, which bodes well for the future.

IMG_20200425_162905127-02.jpeg


After a bit of a scrape and strub, the EGR was looking much better and I put it all back together again.

IMG_20200425_170050875-01.jpeg


My most recent modification has been the addition of wheel spats, extending down from the bottom front of the wheelarches. Rotating wheels are not good for smooth airflow, so blocking air from reaching them is actually good for aerodynamics. Audi added small spats in front of the front wheels on the 3L and FSI A2s, but larger ones have now become commonplace in front of all four wheels on modern car designs.

I made mine out of the same 4mm Correx plastic sheet that I had used for the grill block. The front ones fit with a slot around the undertray on the inboard side and a couple of small self tappers onto the wheelarch liner on the outer side. The rear ones I was able to attach using the wheelarch liner screws.

pixlr.jpg

My last fillup was 70.5 on the DIS, but actually only 69.6 at the pump, so I'm still looking to get over 70mpg for a tank. The rear seats are out now, to save a bit of weight and see if that makes the difference!
 
On the subject of the university of Warwick study, the gain achieved from blocking all the intakes is astounding! I’ve always wondered where one should stop however before negatives attributed to engine efficiency or reliability / longevity from marginal cooling come into play however.

As an aside, I went to bid on a FSI aero kit that covers the exhaust on eBay yesterday but just missed it. It was sold for 60 quid, not sure if that’s a reasonable price but you’d have to drive a very long way to save that in fuel with it fitted!
 
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I’ve always wondered where none should stop however before negatives attributed to engine efficiency or reliability / longevity from marginal cooling come into play however.

I've always liked the BMW idea of opening slats, so you get the aero benefits of a grill block at speed, but good ventilation when necessary.

As an aside, I went to bid on a FSI aero kit that covers the exhaust on eBay yesterday but just missed it. It was sold for 60 quid, not sure if that’s a reasonable price but you’d have to drive a very long way to save that in fuel with it fitted!

I think they were about that new, but not sure they're available anymore. Can't help thinking it should be possible to do something similar with a sheet of 1mm ally......
 
FSI aero kit
For general interest, and to aid in your hunting for parts, the aero kit originates from the 1.2 TDI and is therefore associated primarily with that model of A2. There are four aspects to this...
  1. The larger rear spoiler, which is also mounted slightly higher than standard
  2. The front wheel arch winglets
  3. The subframe spoiler
  4. The exhaust tunnel cover
The FSI only received the first two of these. Indeed, the exhaust tunnel cover will not fit the FSI without modification.

Cheers,

Tom
 
@gills how are you getting on with e-Alan? Any further progress and have you cracked 70 mpg yet?

Sorry, I've not been doing a good job of keeping up-to-date!

I had a couple of tankfuls over 70mpg, but then I got the aircon fixed, which seems to have hit the economy by 5% or so with the hot weather:

Spritmonitor 2020-08-31.jpg


I had a very economical trip up to Edinburgh last weekend - there was a following wind and the heavy traffic mostly kept the speed down under 70mph on the motorway. I arrived with the DIS reckoning I'd managed 75mpg over 275 miles:

75mpg Edinburgh.jpg


Driving out the the Flight Museum and back down again, dented the figure a bit, giving me 72.4mpg for the tank on the DIS, which turned out to be 70.4mpg at the pump:

IMG_20200823_231213875a.jpg


The current tankful has got off to a bad start with the wet and windy weather, but it's starting to pick up a bit now. I've also started to plug in the pre-heater again, now that the overnight temperatures are back into single figures. I doubt I'll be back up to 70mpg by fill-up time, but hopefully I won't be too far off....

Only other thing of note was that the MoT picked up that the front tyres were wearing on the insides, so it might be the front wheels are toe-ed out a bit, which will be creating a bit of additional resistance. I will get the tracking checked when I get the tyres changed, to see if that makes any difference.
 
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