Possible heater improvement

whilst doing all the usual improvements to make the heater as efficient as humanly possible I got wondering about a “free” increase in the ambient air temp entering the heater box. As we know the air enters the heater box via the wing vent/scoop now what I was wondering was would it be feasible to create some extra ducting from above the very toasty turbo and duct it into the heater box- so effectively pre heating the air before it goes through the matrix.
Pointless exercise or may be a stroke of genius- thoughts please
Cheers,Sean

The problem is the burnt oil smell from the rest of the engine, also if you get an exhaust leak it could be bye bye

Exhaust leaks from there, as above would make it a no from me

Anything is possible of course, you could use closed alloy ducting which wraps around the turbo/exhaust. But better to make sure the existing set-up is working as well as possible(plug all the leaks), and that the engine gets up to temp as quickly as possible (thermostat).

You need to also think about the summer when you need to use the fan to cool the cabin, it would need to be a moveable pipe, I would not recommend a plastic pipe near the turbo and as mentioned in above post it could be potentially dangerous if it pulled in any fumes from the engine bay.

Should know better!! said:

whilst doing all the usual improvements to make the heater as efficient as humanly possible I got wondering about a “free” increase in the ambient air temp entering the heater box. As we know the air enters the heater box via the wing vent/scoop now what I was wondering was would it be feasible to create some extra ducting from above the very toasty turbo and duct it into the heater box- so effectively pre heating the air before it goes through the matrix.
Pointless exercise or may be a stroke of genius- thoughts please
Cheers,Sean

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This has been asked and responded to a million times, Mike has a good solution.

i fitted heated seat pads to my front seats in a day. I don't have a heater. Seemed much easier and works a treat.

NiallRussell said:

i fitted heated seat pads to my front seats in a day. I don't have a heater. Seemed much easier and works a treat.

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Window de-misting?

discomania said:

Window de-misting?

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I fitted heated windscreen too.

https://www.paddockspares.com/defender-heated-windscreen-kit-with-carling-switch.html

bloody amazing.

Do away with the plenum and pipe up all the outlets, simple.

discomania said:

This has been asked and responded to a million times, Mike has a good solution.

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Bloody hell. You have to be brainy to do all that. Without putting a bigger one in like this, can you improve the heat by just putting a new matrix in?

The heat coming through your matrix is plenty hot, if it is working properly. The problem is the plenum chamber, the big box that the hot air passes into, its basically the bottom part of the dash. You are heating up the dash. Also, the heater box and driver vents are on opposite sides of the plenum. If you look on kit car parts suppliers there are all sorts of solutions to fit a 4 way plenum over the bulkhead inlet infront of the heater box and pipe it directly to the vents on the dash. This will exclude the chamber in the lower dash from the system and vent the hot air directly from the heater box to the vents. No vehicle that I know of uses a huge plenum chamber like Defenders do, why they did it I have no idea, all it does is trap moisture and rust out, making it even less efficient.

Our recently purchased XS has heated seats and they make a big difference to how warm you feel on cold mornings.
Oh and the heated screen is superb.
Both can be fitted to any Defender.