Alternate defrosting for a 914?

[Dave_Darling]

If you simply want something to satisfy the inspectors, there are electric heaters available. You can hook them up in the front trunk, running ducts to the ventilation system behind the fuel tank. Or you can hook them up in the engine bay and run ducts to the stock heating ducts that run through the longitudinals. They won't heat the car up very well, but they are a form of heat and hopefully will satisfy the inspectors.

Setting up a gas heater in a 914 is a non-trivial problem. Looks like quite a bit of fab work to me. Lots of fun if you're into that, though!

Depending on the exact headers used, you can purchase heat exchanger-type shells to wrap around the header pipes. Most aircraft supply catalogs will have this type of item--but not all headers have a good place to put it.

You can also work up something with an extra oil cooler. The best-sounding setups I have heard discussed on that mount the cooler in the engine bay and use the stock ducting to get the warm air into the ****pit. These will take a good while to produce warm air, though! But they may be good enough for inspection.

There has also been some talk on the Shoptalk Forums about wrapping copper tubing around the header, and running water through that (using an electric pump) and fitting a standard heater core somewhere.

--DD