has any one "upgraded" their ventilation system

[BLUNT]

hmmm, the heater in this 69 is like a saturn rocket booster under my dash. it will cook you out of the car. in fact my wife likes the heater better in the 69 than her e39 540. of course its only been down in the 20's so far here. no telling how it would work if it got really cold.

[02Les]

Prior to coming to the US, I drove '02s (since '73) in the UK and Europe. Cold and damp climates. The heater, c/w blower, in all my cars worked real well and the front screen defrost also, as long as the vent to the floor was closed off. Now the rear screen defrost is another thing.

[visionaut]

Thanks for the tip re: turning on the fan (low setting) right away when it's REALLY cold.

I finally replaced the fried blower motor in my 02 (while in there, got a new heater core too). I drove for 2 winters here without it - damn was I stupid. (My 02's my DD, except for snow). Fogged over windows were the norm, car only got to reasonably warm/tolerable right as I arrived at work or home. With no blower, even with heater set to on, you're just relying on purely radiative transfer :-)

Now I get real heat and defrosting in ~5 minutes. And it can get actually toasty after awhile. Amazing... I'm still not thrilled by the by-today's-standards rather anemic circulation you get from the fan - but I find the refreshed stock set-up works well.

[Marty]

I have a e30 heater in my parts pile and I have to say that its freaking huge no way it will fit into a 02 with out MAJOR mods to just about every thing in the area around the box. Right now I'm thinking of grafting a 320i squirrel cage fan to a 02 box. A 02 box that has new foam and a clean core is a pretty d heater but the fan could stand to be updated.

[Harv]

I'm working on using a Electronics cooling fan in my heater box. It has plenty of flow and power and also uses only 1.6 amps. It's also perfectly ballanced. I'm going to use a reostat insted of staged resistors.

The biggest problem is the cold air flap in the box hits the fan motor until you grind enough of the housing and flap away.

I'll have more pics on my blog when I finish putting the H box together and in my car.

John