Anyone ever experiment with this? I saw in a manual that some of the older diesels (115 maybe?) had an oil bath air filter that had a "summer" and "winter" position that it could be rotated to. The snorkel pointed rearward in the winter position, purportedly to suck in warmer air.
Thought I might play with this to help with efficiency when the temp drops. The slight power loss doesn't concern me since I am mostly on level ground at 60ish mph. Even something as simple as removing the corrugated inlet air tube would at least pick up under-hood air. And the more adventuresome guy could build a snorkel that drew from near the exhaust manifold.
Thanks for all the constructive input.

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1983 M-B 240D-Gone too.
1976 M-B 300D-Departed.

"Good" is the worst enemy of "Great".

Once your engine is running I cannot justify this mod.

however, ForcedInduction installed one from a Cummins. It may be in the performance section. But easy to find nonetheless.

it is an electric in-line heater, different from what you are suggesting.

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he doesnt want it for starting purposes, he wants a system that picks up heat given off by the engine to raise the efficiency of the engine by warming its itake

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1981 300SD 512k OM603

I realize that, especially since there will be no warm air near the mani before starting. I am under the impression there are no gains to be made by preheating the air before compression.

...unless the OP lives on a glacier.

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Warm air intakes are an advantage to g@ssers because warm air is thin so the mixture is leaner. On a diesel, once its started getting clean air is all that matters.

Mercedes did lots of arctic weather testing and chose to make a permanent cold air intake.

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Great picture.
I'll bet dollars to donuts the glowplugs are in proper working order on that car.

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I did a test by putting a digital thermometer probe under the hood near the air horn on my Air Filter Housing.

What I found is that the temp went up when the car was idling and not moving. When the car is moving the temp drops to near what the outside temp is very fast and stays that way even at Freeway speeds. When you get off the Freeway an idle at a Traffic Signal the temp goes up again until you start moving.

I think that unless you have some sort of belly pan to keep the colder air from coming up into the under the hood area when you are moving there is no hot air available except when you need it the least; at idle.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel