Would I be wasting my time?

[scott s]

 They are strangely beautiful and sorta ugly. Like I asked two years ago...did you incorporate any sort of heat sink?
 Let us know how they work.

[youngnstudly]

Haha, yeah I wasn't really sold on the design, but it was a LOT less work than my original design. I still had to make  a bunch of patterns and mock up different variations to get what I wanted.  These are 16ga stainless so I didn't add heat sinks or fins inside (same with the stock boxes I assembled on here). I figured that the heavy material would create enough heat by itself. I think I am going to paint the outside of these boxes black with high temp paint just so they don't attract attention. I'll keep you guys posted on how they work. As for an update on the stock boxes I built, they worked out just fine. They don't heat the hell out of things, but you feel the heat coming in after only a few minutes, so that's a bonus. I channeled a pair of seats out of a '65 bug and added seat warmers to the drivers seat while it was apart, so heater boxes are strictly for defrost, my puppy, and any passengers sitting beside me that don't "bundle up."

[John P]

Love the new versions as well! They almost look like the bastard child of a VW/Type IV/Porsche 911 heaterbox. 

Re: heatsinks. I always assumed that the heat output would suck without them, largely due to my experience of using cheap stock replacements without the factory heat sinks around the J-tube. What I realized is that, with larger J-tubes (1.5" and up), the increased surface area helps to make up for the lack of a heat sink. While heat sinks would no doubt increase the temperature, I'm amazed at the temperature coming out of my 1.5" Berg heaterboxes, which don't have heat sinks.

I hope that things improve for you, and thanks again for sharing.

JP