improving cold start FE [throwing around ideas]

[Erdrick]

There are a lot of great ideas on the site that deal with aerodynamics, driving techniques, modifications, and other FE-related things. The one thing that I haven't seen much interest in (perhaps I just missed it though) is overcoming the low FE that is inevitable after first starting your car.

Diesels have long employed engine warming blocks to help get heat ciruculating in the car faster, and to improve cold winter starts. This of course helps the engine avoid some damage that it would have incurred if it had been started without any assistance from a heat-producing device.

Are there any other things that we should be looking at which might help even out the FE you get while driving your car?

The fact is, long trips yield better MILEAGE than short ones (think 100 miles compared to 5 miles), but you end up using WAY MORE FUEL on the long trip. Let's say you get 10mpg and drive 5 miles. You end up using half of a gallon of fuel. Now let's say that you get 50mpg. You drive 100 miles. You end up using 2 gallons of gas.

While this may not be a great example, it is only for demonstrative purposes. If we could improve the 10mpg cars economy even by a little, there would be marked fuel savings.

I believe that if we were able to get that 10mpg car up to optimal operation conditions right off the bat, that the FE of said car would be much better.

So the question is... what do we need to change to make this happen?

For a diesel, it ends up being a block warmer. Some people swear by low weight synthetic oils. We need to think outside the box though, and come up with entirely new ways of approaching this FE robbing part of our journey.

Any ideas??