I am the owner of an older 3.0 liter diesel car and winter mornings are quite painful for both me and the car. Even though thermostat is fine, heating takes forever. I know diesel only heats up while driving, but since my daily route is very short, I arrive at work with the temperature gauge still in the blue area, even though I let it run for 5-10 minutes before taking off. While this is very bad to the engine, it's also very uncomfortable for the passengers. I am thinking of building an intake air heater to run it for a few minutes after starting the car, an arduino controlled DIY with a few cheap chinese heating elements and a build solid and responsible enough to avoid setting the car on fire obviously.
I'm ok with waiting 5 minutes for the car to heat up, as long as it does heat and defrost in this period.
Are there any drawbacks to this approach? I don't see this being a common thing anywhere. Will it confuse the ECU, because the external temperature sensor will read like -10 while the intake will read +30? is there anything else to take into account before starting this build?
