how much do you guys warm up your car, lets say after a cold night of parking outside? because i gotta wait like a full 5-8 minutes before the temp needle even begins to budge.

whats the bad side about only warming up your car a little?

 

i wait about 30 seconds to a minute, depends on the outside temperature, then i just keep the RPMs under 3 and ease the throttle till the cars warmed up. but i live in so cal, and it doesn't take long to warm up. but it's super dooper important to not boost or be hard on your car during that time. many many things like to break.

 

I normally get 1600rpm on a cold start and pull out of the garage when it gets down to 1250rpm. That's about 3 minutes.

 

i'm about 1500 on a cold start. i usually wait till it reaches 1000 or until my oil press gauge shows thats its went down some.

 

5-8 minutes? sounds like thermostat is bad.

 

Or just a bad estimate of time hehe...

 

Yeah, that COULD be a bad thermostat, but maybe not.

If you just sit there idling... it takes much longer to warm up than if you just wait 1-2 mins, then driving easy

I usually wait at least 1 minute before pulling out and then take it easy until it does reach to temp.

X2

 

it takes about 3-4 mins before the temp needle begins to budge. i dont think my thermostat is messed up. im just saying it takes up to 7 mins for the need to reach the stable temp. i park my car in the streets everynight, and avg. temp here at night is like 50 deg overnight.

so 1-2 mins, then drive lightly.

 

HA...i live in MN and during winter time i WAIT until my heat actually works before i start driving! damn snow!!

 

oh yeah...honda also says to not wait too long until the car heats up. due to the fact that when it gets warm it eats up more gas. that's what i was told. hell if i care but just letting ya know what was passed on to me.

 

It's also important to let the engine get to at least to warm up temp before driving, as Honda ECU's will advance the timing by as much as 4 degrees during initial warm up.


[Modified by Bryson, 11:28 PM 7/28/2002]

 

since my car isnt boosted yet... about 10 seconds :D

 

boost or no boost....engine warm up is important

 

i agree with that ****. In the winter i let my car warmup like 10 mins or so...I hate driving my car when the engine is not warmed up...it feels funny.

In any case in the summer i let it idle until the needle goes down until 1k...in the winter i let it idle until the temp gauge is near 1/3 - 1/2.

 

 

has anyone ever had or heard of problems directly related to not warming up their car?

 

I personally have never heard of a problem directly related to not warming up the engine. I believe it's just a wear and tear situation. You get more life out of an engine that gets warmed up before driving. I just wait a minute or 2 and take it easy driving out of my neighborhood.(about 3/4 mile). by then the temp is good.

 

Yes and No. The stock honda ECU runs the engine richer and advances the timing some when it's cold. So if you boost while it's cold you may or may not detonate depending on how decent your tuning is. But in either case it's just rougher on the engine when it's still cold. I've got my Zdyne set so that it won't rev over 3500 until the engine has reached "normal" operating temp.(about 150 degree's water temp). That keeps me from really spooling the turbo, and forces me to short shift and be easy on the car.

 

also for those peeps that has auto tranny, warming up is very important cuz it's more fragile than the manual tranny...

cold oil is just as bad as hot oil....