This is just a quick note on my experiences so far, albeit limited, with the Wolverine oil pan heaters I installed. These things are essentially stick on pads that go on the bottom of the oil pan and they have sizes for just about anything:
The company's web site is here:
http://www.wolverineheater.com/
You basically have to sand the bottom of the oil pan to scruff up the paint, stick these on, caulk around the edges with some RTV so water/dirt can't get into the mastic, and then touch up the paint. I installed an "Engine Room Heating Circuit" which was some 12/3 triplex boat wire (from bestboatwire.com) that has 3 junction boxes down in the lazarette area and engine room. Remember the 480 DB, like most of the other modern Sea Ray bridge boats, is a mid-engine boat and the lazarette area under the cockpit is as big as a Sundancer engine room... sans engines. My previous setup was an 800 watt Xtreme heater in the engine room an 800 watt Xtreme heater in the lazarette. The circuit is is tied into the AC panel with a 20A Carling breaker that matches the OEM breaker style and controls an 800 watt Xtreme heater in the lazarette and two of the 500 watt Wolverine pan heaters. The junction boxes are PVC 2x6x2 boxes I had to order from newark.com and have bus bars in them with crimped fittings on the electrical wire. This is a permanent install with no "plugs" and everything is in wire loom and installed neatly in the wire trays or tie wrapped so it looks OEM/stock. The pan heaters replaced an 800 watt Xtreme heater that was in the engine room.
The performance of the Wolverine heaters was something I wanted because it essentially keeps the oil warm so cold starts are reduced. What I've seen, even when I had icicles hanging on the boat yesterday, was the coolant temp was around 65 degrees per the gauge and the oil temp was 75 degrees per the gauge. The oil temp gauge is high up on the engine block so that's not the temp in the oil pan. When I fired up the engines, the oil temp went to 105 degrees almost instantly so that was probably the temp in the oil pan. Remember my QSM-11's have about 7.5 gallons of oil in each engine. These temps on these very big blocks of iron kept the engine room in the lower 60's even though it was down in the 20's here the other night. I also do not block off the side vents.
The Model 40 heater I installed on each engine is one size lower than what their website says to put on these engines. The web site says to install 1000w heaters on each for the engine size I have and I put 500w on each per a discussion Dom (osd9) had with the owner of the company.... just an FYI on that.
The big advantage over an Xtreme style heater is cold weather starting. You basically end up with oil at a better temp and the block temp is more like a summer day instead of dead winter.
The downside to these things is they don't have a built in thermostat. You could put one in the circuit but the time to heat the engine room from a convective heat coming off the engine block takes a lot of time. I'm not sure I would like that... If I put a thermostat on them, I would probably keep the Xtreme heater in the engine room to bring the air temp up quicker than the pads/engine. Also, I wanted these for cold weather starting in addition to engine room protection and you can't flick on an engine heater an hour before you start the engine and expect it to do any good.
Another big benefit, which I was not expecting, was the things really removed the moisture from the engine room. More so than the Xtreme heater has in the past. The raw water cooling circuits in the boat, for whatever reason, end up bringing a lot of condensation into the engine room... the condensation forms on the aftercooler and other heat exchanger/pipe surfaces and just creates a damp environment. By warming up the engine instead of just the air around the engine, the condensation is eliminated... I really like that. This is probably a function of our climate here in that it is pretty normal to swing from the upper 50's/lower 60's to 25 degrees at night almost all winter. Couple that with 40-50 degree sea water and big metal parts that don't change temperature that fast and you have a good recipe for condensation on things.
I know there are other options like coolant heaters/circulators (like emjay reported) but I just thought I would give my limited experience with this approach.
Just an FYI.
The company's web site is here:
http://www.wolverineheater.com/
You basically have to sand the bottom of the oil pan to scruff up the paint, stick these on, caulk around the edges with some RTV so water/dirt can't get into the mastic, and then touch up the paint. I installed an "Engine Room Heating Circuit" which was some 12/3 triplex boat wire (from bestboatwire.com) that has 3 junction boxes down in the lazarette area and engine room. Remember the 480 DB, like most of the other modern Sea Ray bridge boats, is a mid-engine boat and the lazarette area under the cockpit is as big as a Sundancer engine room... sans engines. My previous setup was an 800 watt Xtreme heater in the engine room an 800 watt Xtreme heater in the lazarette. The circuit is is tied into the AC panel with a 20A Carling breaker that matches the OEM breaker style and controls an 800 watt Xtreme heater in the lazarette and two of the 500 watt Wolverine pan heaters. The junction boxes are PVC 2x6x2 boxes I had to order from newark.com and have bus bars in them with crimped fittings on the electrical wire. This is a permanent install with no "plugs" and everything is in wire loom and installed neatly in the wire trays or tie wrapped so it looks OEM/stock. The pan heaters replaced an 800 watt Xtreme heater that was in the engine room.
The performance of the Wolverine heaters was something I wanted because it essentially keeps the oil warm so cold starts are reduced. What I've seen, even when I had icicles hanging on the boat yesterday, was the coolant temp was around 65 degrees per the gauge and the oil temp was 75 degrees per the gauge. The oil temp gauge is high up on the engine block so that's not the temp in the oil pan. When I fired up the engines, the oil temp went to 105 degrees almost instantly so that was probably the temp in the oil pan. Remember my QSM-11's have about 7.5 gallons of oil in each engine. These temps on these very big blocks of iron kept the engine room in the lower 60's even though it was down in the 20's here the other night. I also do not block off the side vents.
The Model 40 heater I installed on each engine is one size lower than what their website says to put on these engines. The web site says to install 1000w heaters on each for the engine size I have and I put 500w on each per a discussion Dom (osd9) had with the owner of the company.... just an FYI on that.
The big advantage over an Xtreme style heater is cold weather starting. You basically end up with oil at a better temp and the block temp is more like a summer day instead of dead winter.
The downside to these things is they don't have a built in thermostat. You could put one in the circuit but the time to heat the engine room from a convective heat coming off the engine block takes a lot of time. I'm not sure I would like that... If I put a thermostat on them, I would probably keep the Xtreme heater in the engine room to bring the air temp up quicker than the pads/engine. Also, I wanted these for cold weather starting in addition to engine room protection and you can't flick on an engine heater an hour before you start the engine and expect it to do any good.
Another big benefit, which I was not expecting, was the things really removed the moisture from the engine room. More so than the Xtreme heater has in the past. The raw water cooling circuits in the boat, for whatever reason, end up bringing a lot of condensation into the engine room... the condensation forms on the aftercooler and other heat exchanger/pipe surfaces and just creates a damp environment. By warming up the engine instead of just the air around the engine, the condensation is eliminated... I really like that. This is probably a function of our climate here in that it is pretty normal to swing from the upper 50's/lower 60's to 25 degrees at night almost all winter. Couple that with 40-50 degree sea water and big metal parts that don't change temperature that fast and you have a good recipe for condensation on things.
I know there are other options like coolant heaters/circulators (like emjay reported) but I just thought I would give my limited experience with this approach.
Just an FYI.
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