How do you properly warm an engine up?

[Silverblade]

I let it run about 30 sec - 1 min to get the revs from 1K to 6 or 700, i can hear the lifters some of the time if i drive away right away, i guess because there isnt oil circulated yet.



But with the drag car it runs its fastest times when we push it to the burnout box so it is nice and cool(this is on hot days)

 

[DocVijay]

But a drag car is meant to go at full throttle for only a few seconds, and then it is usually rebuilt. I don't really want to rebuild my Explorer's engine every morning before I leave.

Top fuel dragsters engine life is about 2 minutes. Any more and you're in trouble. But hte engine is completely torn down after each run.

 

[Mbrooks420]

I unplug my block heater and am ready to go in about a minute with full heat I then baby it under 2,500 rpm's until it's at normal temp.

 

[Mikes95XLT]

We get pretty cold here in the winter, and I haven't had a winter with the Ex yet, but on my old car I used to let it run for a good 10 mins before I drove away.

Also, if the shocks groan when it's cold in the morning, is that an indication that they need to be replaced, or that they're just cold?

 

[wpurple]

I installed a block heater, I have it set on a timer to go on about 3AM so when I leave for work it has been on for about 4 hours. Even on nights that dip below 0 it heats the coolant to about 100, plau I can defrost the windshield immediatly! You get heat right away.

Block heater from Ford was about $45 and it just took about 15 minutes to install, the freeze out plug is easily accessable through the fender, pop it out, wait for the coolant to drain out, install the heater, tighten it in and refill the radiator and whalaa.....

With having a standard it drives nicely when warmed from a start.

 

[ld50]

The reason the revs are higher at startup is for the emissions.

That sounds good, but I recall even older cars I drove (carbuerated of course) had a high Idle that would keep the revs up until the car warmed up a bit. These cars didn`t have cats. I never gave it much thought, but I just figured it was a way of warming the car up quicker.

??

 

[DocVijay]

Hmm. Not sure about the carbeurated engines having higher revs. Don't know why. But today the computer monitors the O2 sensors and keeps the revs high until the sensors say the cat is working OK.

 

[Mbrooks420]

I think they rev higher cause the choke is open. (carbed engines) When you tap the gas it opens the choke and the revs go down. If you do it too soon sometimes it will stall them.