Winter has crept in with it's shitty self and it's colder than an angry ex-girlfriend. I need to install a block heater for the days when it's too miserable out to drive the Z but I need some help on cord placement for the heater.

I have a custom grill with very little room around it and an alarm system that will throw a fit if I try to arm the car with the hood open. Can anyone help me with cord placement with those limitations in mind? Any help or pics of where your block heater cord is run is greatly appreciated.

 

Why do you need a block heater if it's too cold to drive the car?

Wherever you run the cord, be sure to add some protection where it comes in contact with sheet metal edges. The last thing you need is a hot car that's electrically hot.

 

Can you bring it in from underneath? If you take off the plastic undertray?

 

Is your Z garaged? What grill do you have, post pics.

 

It's covered parking but open in the back, so it's hella cold but the snow stays off of it.

This is the grille I have:




It needs to be plugged in when it's not driven during the winter months because it gets so damn cold here Jan to May that the block will freeze and it won't be able to be driven until spring when it thaws if you don't start it everyday or have a block heater. My Honda froze once and was as good as dead until April.

 

How hard is it to take your grill out? I'm thinking about what you'd do if you needed to install the tow hook.

I looked at my '08, and I can see the ground looking down and back from the right front side of the engine and past the steering rack bellows. You'd probably need a stick to guide the cord through the opening before retrieving it from under the car to hook it up to the power source.

 

Preheating engine oil will definitely prolong/reduce wear on your engine during startup.

 

EXACTLY. Trust me, the Z engine does not like cold oil in -20 Celsius weather.

 

Meshuggah, if I’m reading your post correctly, you say that you need to install a block heater. If your 2004 Z is an original Canadian model it already has a block heater hidden down in the bowels of the engine. A very short power cord is coiled up and zip-tied well out of sight down under the stock air box. A short extension cord is needed to get this plug to the grill of the car.

With the close spaced bars of your aftermarket grill, just cut the female plug end off an extension cord so that you can feed the wire between the close spaced grill bars. Zip tie the male plug in a convenient spot for winter use, (have the plug sticking out between two of the grill bars) and reattach the cutoff end to plug into the heater plug.

 

Just remove the grill, simple, easy and your car will look SO much better.

 

I forgot to mention my car is originally from Phoenix AZ, and was imported by a guy who manages the parts dept at a dealership here in Calgary, I in turn bought it off of him. Thus the dire need for a BH with super-cold coming next week.

I'm going to see about hiding the plug from the heater tucked under the hood next to the windshield during the winter months and just plug in there with an extension cord. This way I'd be able to tuck it away in the summer months. I'm gonna have a closer look at the grill and see if your concept will work as well, thanks for the good idea!