warming

["wendy wood" <dammwood@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You've got to be nuts. What a way to start a story.:-) It takes a full
minute for the oil to get to all parts of the engine on the first start of
the day, so driving immediately would have negative implications at the
same time. From what I know of cats is to remove HCs from the exhaust. I
believe that you would produce fewer at idle than at 3000 rpm even driving
gently so the cat would get more abuse while driving cold. Assuming your
car is in fair condition I don't understand where all the standing water
and fuel is coming from over night. I always warm my cars until the temp
needle has come off the peg. This would seem even more important with wet
liner engines as the steel liners and the aluminum engine block and head
will all be expanding at different rates. I could understand how the
different rates would release some of the pinch on the head gasket. The
thermal stresses of going from -30C to full combustion temps in the
thousands is seconds and then driving makes my mind swim with
possibilities. My two cents.

Carson Damm
Ft. McMurray, Alberta
Canada

1970 1750 GT Veloce
1977 Spider
1987 milano Platinum

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Hi there,

Shows all the more that before blaming alternators, batteries, belts
etc.
to first look for the obvious :))

I just wanted to remark, that "warming" up your car by letting it
running at
idle speed for 10 minutes or so, is very bad practice!
Not only is it bad for the environment (the catalyst(?)) won't get
heated to working
temp etc. But there's one thing even worse! Your engine oil won't get
warm enough
to totaly evaporate any water and fuel(-vapors) which are dissolved in
it.
We all know what water does to steel, and fuel-rests are like HCL; they
bite!
So there go your bearings . . . :(
To make matters a little worse.... your exhaust system won't get warm
enough,
at most it'll get lukewarm. You probably know, that when burning fuel,
H20 (water) is
formed (vapororized, ok) but when this water meets your luke-warm
exhaust, it'll
condense... and there we are again . .  water, steel, some warmth to
help the process...
ergo: bye, bye exhaust, it rusts from inside out.

The best way to warm up your engine, is to immediately drive off when
started.
Be polite to the revs (ie don't go over 3000rpm) and don't let the
engine do any hard
work, also shift gears early. After 8 to 10 miles your engine will be
properly warmed up,
as will the cat. and the exhaust system, now put the pedal down :))

(btw I learned this the hard way, I had an Alfasud SV in which I had to
replace the engine
2 times because the connecting rods bearings where gone, all because of
not warming
the engine in a "correct" manner)

Will you let me know when to uncross my fingers? :))

Cheers,

Chris Piepers
The Netherlands

'81 Alfasud Sprint Veloce (for nostalgic reasons)
'83 Alfetta Q'Oro (daily driver, since the Milano is waiting for it's
new heart)
'86 75 2.5V6 (Milano)
(I just LOVE those transaxles)
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End of alfa-digest V7 #496
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