Engine Manifold Cooking?

[icman95]

I've heard of cooking food on your engine while driving on and off for a while now. After watching an episode of "American Pickers" tonight where they tried it I got the idea to check into it some more. I knew there was a book on it, but didn't know the name. A quick internet check came up with "Manifold Destiny"-a cookbook on how to use your engine to cook food while driving. Sounds like fun to me. I was wondering if anyone here on the TDR has ever tried it, and better yet, had some good success with it. There are so many different people with so many different experiences here that I have to believe someone has some idea about it. I'd like to give it a try on my next trip.



Thanks.

 

[PBJ2500CTD]

When I was a youngster, many decades ago, I remember, often on our vacations, mom & dad would wrap some cold left over fried chicken we brought along, with some corn-on-the-cob or other veggie matter from roadside stands, in aluminum foil. It was a warm tasty treat from the cold picnic lunches and dinners we would normally get (ice box days) when traveling from Kansas to grandma's house in Washington state. The wife and I tried it in the early early 70's when I got PCS orders to other bases. I don't know what was different from the 50's, but I like hydrogentated vegetable oil better than 20w-50 racing oil and 425 horsepower, high octane gasoline flavoring. No matter how well we wrapped the food, it always had a "gas station" flavoring to it. Location under the hood, as well as time are critical, especially in some of our later model cars where the EGR crosses over in the intake manifold. Burnt hot dogs in less than 15 minutes... Darned EPA... Baked potatos, or rather half-baked on the block side potatos if you don't stop and rotate them every 10 minutes or so. The dog wouldn't touch the steak or hamburger, neither would the wife. Spent more time on the side of the road testing and rotating the food. We didn't have a book by those who perfected the under hood cooking process... we did our own R&D. Then we discovered Denny's... That was many years ago. Now it's the obligatory Cracker Barrel when the trailer food gets mundane.

 

[Bob4x4]

When I was in the USMC stationed at 29 palms I did it a bit while camping. I had no place to store camping gear and what little special services had was hard to get-other than AMMO. Never got fancy just a can of beans or chile etc

 

[mfurrh55]

Yeah when I was a Driller in the oilfield up in Utah, We used to heat our dinners up on the motors, just wrap them in foil and let em heat, You had to watch them though , we had one hand that put his beans on the motor and forgot to poke a hole in the can, It exploded and made a huge mess.

 

[EDankievitch]

We've cooked on the manifolds of our EMD engines on our ferry's there is just enough room between the stack tubes and the collector manifold for food items just don't leave them in there too long as 800-900 degrees cooks really fast. sometimes too fast as corn on the cob can and does pop.....

 

[JJPage]

we had one hand that put his beans on the motor and forgot to poke a hole in the can, It exploded and made a huge mess.

When in my late teens, I was working with couple of guys tearing down old telephone poles and open wire out in the middle of nowhere(wheat fields in the central basin of washington st). Since there was no place to go to have lunch, and we were living out of a motel, usually packing a lunch, one of my co workers suggested wiring cans of chili to the exhaust manifold of the D8 Cat we were using to pull the poles out of the snow covered frozen earth. I am not sure poking holes would have helped for the amount of time the chili remained on the manifold, but they may not have exploded in the manner in which they did .

 

[TJJEEPER]

I've done it many time when out Jeeping. The straight 6 on the Jeep lends itself to cooking burritos very nicely. I make the burritos in advance (pork sholder cooked to fall apart status with tomatos, chillis, and onions, and spices combined with some spanish rice rolled into a flour tortilla). Wrap 'em up in a couple layers of foil. Warm food when needed!

 

[BIGNASTY]

What a bunch of ROOKIES :-laf
You can tell your a bunch of MOTOR HEADS


When in the Air Force we needed to heat our rat's so the Avionics Tech took a terrain following radar unit out of an jet and hooked it up to the Aux mule for power. The commander come over and asked hey Wright what is that contraption for, This coffee sucks its cold!!! OH YA took the cup of coffee, gave him a flack vest and a splat hat told him to cover his best friend unless he didnt want kids and turn the radar on for MAYBE 4 SECONDS he couldn't even pick up the cup it was so hot :-laf

 

[icman95]

This is great! I was hoping for a few guys to tell me they heard about a friend of a friend doing it many years ago, but this is better than I hoped. I especially like Big's radar variation, but as an F-15 doesn't fit in my toyhauler that's out for me. I like the idea of using canned food as it's sealed against fumes/engine stuff. Of course I know the downside to that is the explosion if left on too long. I hadn't even considered canned food when starting this post. I was thinking more of wrapping regular food in foil and cooking it. Maybe I could start off easy with the canned food as a learning experience and then graduate to bigger and better. Maybe hot dogs second and then something more complex. I might try in a few weeks.



Would love to hear more stories. Anyone know how long hot dogs take (or how many miles)?

 

[JJPage]

Anyone know how long hot dogs take (or how many miles)?

Take a couple of pieces(15" long) of #12 THHN solid copper wire, strip back 3" on each end, wrap the other bare end around each battery terminal, then plug into each end of the dog... 24 volts would be quicker yet... JUST DO NOT SHORT TOGETHER!

 

[BIGNASTY]

This is great! I was hoping for a few guys to tell me they heard about a friend of a friend doing it many years ago, but this is better than I hoped. I especially like Big's radar variation, but as an F-15 doesn't fit in my toyhauler that's out for me. I like the idea of using canned food as it's sealed against fumes/engine stuff. Of course I know the downside to that is the explosion if left on too long. I hadn't even considered canned food when starting this post. I was thinking more of wrapping regular food in foil and cooking it. Maybe I could start off easy with the canned food as a learning experience and then graduate to bigger and better. Maybe hot dogs second and then something more complex. I might try in a few weeks.



Would love to hear more stories. Anyone know how long hot dogs take (or how many miles)?

Thanks for making me YOUNGER than what I am the F15 was after my time my primary was the F111 or we worked on ANYTHING that HIT the ground and didnt leave to big a CRATER :-laf I could work very well on VWs so they put me on Recips



THIS WAS MY BABY!!!!!! 2. 5 MACH GROUND LEVEL WITH HOT DOG HEATER ON!!!!!!!!



Sorry for jacking your post just wanted to set things straight

 

[Tractorat]

Ive always found that when all else fails, stopping at a restaurant works quite well too

 

[BIGNASTY]

Ive always found that when all else fails, stopping at a restaurant works quite well too

TO EASY !!!!!!!!
Nothing beats the taste of 10w 30w or the hint of exhaust fumes to add to the texture of your food, heavy grease on your hands while eating your sandwich proves the true mechanic in your blood.

 

[icman95]

Hey Big-If your gonna post cool photos like that, you can jack this post anytime. I knew I was taking a shot in the dark with the F-15, but I also ran the risk of making you too old if I said the P-51, so I gambled. And I'll agree with you about grease and food. I know for a fact that diesel goes very well with pizza.



A buddy and I used to do PM on busses on Friday nights. Nothing too heavy duty. Just check fluids/tires/general appearance, etc. , and fuel them for the next day. It took a few hours to do all of them so we'd order a pizza and have it delivered to the motorpool. The pizza box would go on top of the fuel pump and we'd grab a slice as we were working. Of course we had diesel and oil all around and on us. It made for a unique pizza topping.



Now that I think about it, we could have warmed or cooked the pizza on the bus engines. HHMMmmm.....

 

[icman95]

Ive always found that when all else fails, stopping at a restaurant works quite well too

Why? Does heating the restaurant on the manifold work as well as it does with food?:-laf

 

[BIGNASTY]

While not as glamours, ask any ground troop if they felt better when they seen these circling around above them. These guy's took the HIT'S

 

[SHobbs]

A must have for any railroader riding the rails.





http://www.nebraska-locksmith.com/articles/ManifoldM.pdf

 

[JHumphries]

Hello...
Has anyone not realized you could just SMOKE your food! Oo.

Who wouldn't love some Cummin's Brisket!

 

[icman95]

A must have for any railroader riding the rails.





http://www.nebraska-locksmith.com/articles/ManifoldM.pdf

Now that's COOL!!! The author obviously had some time to experiment and try all those dishes. You and Ed D. (post on first page) both have RR cooking. Awesome!



JH- I should have thought about that before starting the thread. I could just slap some ribs or something over my stacks and in a couple of hundred miles yummy diesel dinner.

 

[Bob4x4]

Hello...

Has anyone not realized you could just SMOKE your food! Oo.



Who wouldn't love some Cummin's Brisket!

:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf:-laf