Anyone know how to force an AutoStop in Winter

[Steve C]

Insightful Trekker; Yves M. and JoeCVT
Great and thoughtfull (and on topic) feedback guys! I appreciate it very much.

John;
I'm going to attempt your 'hack' suggestion as soon as my service manual arrives. Sounds viable -thanks for your investigative work. I like your comment about causing the "ICE to chill"
With regard to your question about the cardboard rad block... no I have not tried it yet as I have read references to it, but cannot locate any specific details in the archived posts. Can you provide details? Also, I am not familiar with the intake hot air mod you refer to. I'll try to locate this is the posts too.

Yves;
Bypassing the interior temp sensor is interesting. I assume that the temp reading equates to a certain resistance reading in the sensor, so if I'm correct I should be able to apply a resistor of the correct value in place of the sensor in order to keep autostop on. Of course this would also mean that climate control would no longer work. hmmmm.
BTW Yves, I did test out your previous suggestion to turn 'Off' the climate control -IT WORKS!!! (of course as you mentioned, the windows did frost up real fast). That this worked surprised me, because up to that point I had believed that exterior temp (and of course air conditioning/defrost/Economy mode) was the sole factor in controlling auto-off functionality. I feel kinda' stupid that I did not think of it myself. Thanks...

JoeCVT;
Moving the exterior temp sensor sounds like a good idea and simple to boot!
Have you had a chance to test this and determine how well it works? Are you going to move the sensor back to the bumper come summer time?

Guillermo;
If you want to determine just how much 10 minutes of idle time effects your Fuel Consumtion readings, here is a simple test. I believe that you will be shocked by the results based on your comments. Try this... reset your FCD to zero, then let your car idle for 10 minutes. After you pick yourself up from the floor I think you will agree that Auto-stop has significate FC benefits in addition to reducing emissions.

Once again, great feedback everyone!
Steve

[Insightful Trekker]

Your welcome Steve

Radiator block link:

http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/vie ... 33c54a280a

MPG, right now on page 1

Another Insighter suggested a great idea for the cardboard. When cutting it out simply "leave" a handle for easy removal. Without A/C installed (no condenser) you'll need to work out some change in size (wider ?) or some way to tie the cardboard up snug to the radiator. Remember to prevent chaffing damage to the radiator!

See my webpage for one style of hot air intake mod (link in sig). Other styles use larger hose and interconnect differently but the concept is the same.

Don't chill your ICE too much! :lol:

HTH! :)

[Yves M.]

The bypass switch I thought of would have been with a parallel resistor to the sensor. The resitor would have a temporary switch to connect to the circuit

A bidirectional double pole switch could flip out the sensor to put the resistor in.

In both cases you would only need to press the switch just before the auto-stop engages. But once it is engaged, you can depress the switch and the auto-stop will stay until you restart