I am buying a '97 7.3L and will be converting to WVO. I would appreciate info from those who have done this conversion.

 

Welcome to FTE wvoburner.

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I am runnig a 95 on WVO. What do you need to know?

 

Thanks for the help! Basically I am hoping to learn from your experience. I do not trust 'testimonials' on a website that is trying to sell me something. Did you buy a kit or build it yourself. Either way, any info is appreciated.
Jerry

 

I'm in the same boat- I want to convert my 99 F-350 to run WVO. While I do appreciate the effort and money spent by some that have companies that market WVO conversions, I just can't see spending a few thousand to get a system for my truck if I can reliably install my own system for less than a $900 using good components. I just need to figure out how to plumb the WVO lines into the trucks fuel system. Any advice Willbd?

 

I bought a kit. It was a Greasel kit that some bought and sold their pickup before they got around to installing it. It came with hose on hose fuel line and a large Racor fuel filter with 200 watt heater, heat exchanger for the front fuel tank and all the parts need to install. I added an Artic Fox fuel heater to ensure good hot fuel. The Racor fuel heater failed in about 3 months. I had a 200 watt blanket heater made that raps around the Racor fuel filter. Michaels Enterprises made me my blanket for $85 usd delivered. You can get a heater from vegistroke from about the same money.
Just remember heat is your friend in running WVO.


If you want a turn key system I would go with a vegistroke.

http://www.michaelsenterprises.com/Pricing.html
www.vegistroke.com

Greasel changed their name to Golden Fuel Systems.

 

Thanks for the info on Michaels Ent.

 

I run a WVO blend in my '99 F-350 without a single mod to the fuel system, although I am thinking of putting a Dahl 100 filter just before the fuel pump. The filter isn't for the WVO blend per se, but only because I've read where people that never got any water from the OEM set up are seeing the Dahl extract moisture. I digress.

I also run the WVO blend in my 1981 Mercedes.

I have been doing it in the truck for a year come April and in the car since July of '06.

I filter my oil well and so far I have not even clogged a single filter in either vehicle.

I went this route instead of BD because I did not want to deal with the hazardous chemicals. Both the health aspect as well as procuring them. I also did not want to put much money into a processor.

I did not convert my truck to run straight SVO/WVO because I constantly read about people having problems with their conversion components and fittings failing or sucking air.

Finally, I did not want to tie up a lot of money in a venture that could dry up. Although I have been fortunate to get oil when needed, if my suppliers go away tomorrow I will only be out the couple hundred of dollars I have into my filter station. I have recouped that amount many times over with the fuel I've made and used.

 

Interesting - what is the ratio of the blend?

 

WVO/Diesel blends are not a good idea. The two will eventually seperate in your tank then you will be running 100% of whicever layer the fuel pickup is drawing from. If it is the WVO you run the risk of coking

 

Blending (#1) is fraught with problems, and although some enthusiasts swear by it, others end up swearing at it, as they damage expensive injection pumps with the heavier fluid. Some have suffered explosions when trying to mix extremely lighter fuels, like gasoline, with vegetable oil. Those reporting success seem to be limited to a mix no more than 50/50 with petro-diesel at no colder than "shirt sleeve" temperatures, on a few engines that have very robust injection pumps.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3986.html

Even if the fuel system can pump the thicker oil there is risk of damage to the engine. SVO will not be injected into the cylinders as effectively as diesel fuel, the injector will not provide as fine a fuel mist with this less viscous oil. A mist of larger droplets will not burn as effectively causing difficulty with starting and incomplete combustion which will lead to build ups of carbon and vegetable oil residue. As deposits build in the engine they will cause the engine to run poorly because of low compression due to sticking piston rings or coked valves and poor injection spray pattern from build ups on the injector nozzle. A bad spray pattern will produce different combustion activities with a greater amount of incomplete combustion and possible piston damage due to increased heat on the piston surfaces, this can end in a holed piston .

http://vegburner.co.uk/votheory.htm


Check out the links...

 

First, you bought a great rig for converting. The 97's take a bit more to do "right" than the 99+, however the PSD is well suited for oil for a few reasons. First and foremost is the fuel rails are actually drilled through the middle of the heads. With a warm engine, it is nearly impossible to get cold oil in the injectors. Second, there is no injection pump.

On the 97's you have a few ways you can go. The route I prefer, is of course a bit more expensive. And that is eliminating the sotck mechanical fuel pump, and replacing it with an electric pump on the frame. Then having a seperate pump and filter for the WVO. This allows for a complete seperation of WVO and diesel all the way to the heads themselves. Doing that minimizes purge times, and maximizes reliability.

You can also keep the Mechanical pump, and basically put a three port solenoid on the line between the high pressure side of the pump and the OEM fuel bowl. Then another 3 port valve on the return lines coming from the front of the heads. On the return side you have to go prior to the fuel bowl, since a small amount of fuel is recirculated through the fuel bowl. That would allow WVO to backfeed into the diesel system.

Or third, the easiest, cheapest, and least reliable and most problem prone, is the basic three port valve on the feed and return lines from the motor. Again this route is the easiest, but you WILL plug up OEM filters, possibly kill your pump, and will have rediculous purge times.

Obviously these are rough overviews of the three most common methods of converting your truck, and I can expand on either of them if you would like

 

This can be done succesfully, but requires one to be very aware of what they are doing. The mixture level changes based on oil type, climate, truck use, filtering, etc. You almost need to mix outside the tank because it becomes difficult over a period of time to make sure your mixture ratios are correct. I did this successfully myself as well for a while. But the first time I went on a trip, and the temperatures went from 70, to 40, I plugged up the fuel filter. DOA. Even before that I used 100% oil all the time. Until my blackstone report came back saying my wear levels were going through the roof. In the end, It was not worth the trouble. For me. It can be done succesfully if you live in a warm climate, but the first time youget it wrong, you will be hating life. And there is no switching back to diesel.

 

I blend my extremely well filtered, settled and de-watered WVO with 20% kerosene, 5% gasoline, 20 ounces of Diesel Kleen Cetane Booster, 2 ounces each of naptha and xylol per 30 gallons of WVO.

I blend outside of the truck. The blend is polished by being recirculated for half an hour or more through my filtering station filters.

I have samples of the blend from back in July of 2006. I have set these in the refrigerator overnight and they did become noticably thicker, but never seperated. They sit on my workbench to this day and still have not seperated.

I don't understand the statement about not being able to go back to diesel. When I'm far from home and get low on fuel I'll top off with diesel without a problem. I try not to do this often, as there have been isolated reports of a bad reaction between the diesel and WVO clogging filters with a wax like substance. Reports of this are rare and I have not experienced it.

Regarding the issue of coking and so on, I feel that viscosity plays a huge role, as has been pointed out. Below is a cut and paste from a discussion I had with another guy about viscosity. Read it if you feel like it and give me your thoughts:


I am the dumb one in the family. I have two younger brothers that are chemical engineers, and I have talked at length with them about my blending and converting to WVO.

If you go to Frybrid, you will find an explanation of the "frying pan" test to demonstrate the issue of coking.

Don't try this at home. This is for mental illustration only. (I know you won't, I just feel better having said that).

In short, the test goes something like this:

Take two frying pans. In the first frying pan, put a drop or two of WVO in the middle. Heat the frying pan to 500*. As the pan heats up, you will notice that the oil gets hot and starts to smoke. Finally, all the oil burns away, leaving a crusty residue on the pan. That crusty stuff (supposedly) is the result of coking.

Now...take the second frying pan... heat it up DRY to 500*, then put a drop of WVO in the middle of it. It will explode, taking with it your eyebrows and stove... and leaving no residue.

That demonstration/analogy is supposed to show you why you can't burn "cold" WVO.

I ran that scenario past one of my brothers, and his reply was "sure, that's the case... but I wouldn't draw the same conclusions from the experiment". The reason? Do the same experiment with a drop of #2 diesel. If you slowly heat the #2 diesel, you are doing nothing more than BOILING away materials... leaving whatever impurities were in the fuel behind on the pan.

Heat up any material hot enough and fast enough, it will ignite/explode/burn. This little frying pan experiment is just showing you the difference between evaporation vs. ignition.

I then asked my brother another question... "with the exception of water (which seems to break every rule anyway), does a liquid tend to hold a constant viscosity right down the the freezing point?"

Surprisingly, his answer was NO. In fact, with the exception of some pretty oddball and rare stuff, liquids tend to follow the SAME viscosity curve, with only the freezing/boiling points being different.

He checked a viscosity reference graph in one of his official "smart guy" manuals, and said that it looked like a typical liquid will increase its viscosity as much as 8% from its "midpoint" (halfway between freezing/boiling) to the freezing point.

8%. WOW. That means that my diesel engine is running a fuel that is 8% "thicker" at 20.1* than on a sunny summer day.

Translation (in my mind): If I blend my fuel, I am doing nothing more than "simulating" the viscosity of colder #2 dino-diesel.

So... how do I figure out what blend % falls in that range?

Well... infopop says to do the "Dr. Pepper" test. In short, you take a pop can, and poke a pin-hole in the bottom. Pour in a measured quantity of a liquid, and measure how long it takes for it to drip out the bottom. (Jeff Foxworthy ain't got nothin' on me... "if you ever poured diesel fuel into a Dr. Pepper can, you might be a red-neck").

My first test was of raw #2 diesel. My measured quantity of #2 fuel dripped out in 2:50 (2 min 50 seconds).

My second test was a blend of 10/90 (WVO to #2). This took 2:53 to drip through. (About a 2% increase).

My third test was a blend of 20/80... which resulted in a time of 2:57 (about a 4% increase).

My fourth test was a blend of 25/75... which resulted in a time of 3:00 (or just over a 5% increase).

All of my tests were done at a temp of 70*F... and I stopped there.

If I would have been thinking, or had less beer to drink that day, I would have tossed a measured quantity of #2 diesel in the freezer to make sure that the viscosity increased at the lower temps...

BUT...I learned that a 25% blend resulted in a fuel mixture that was 5% "thicker"... well within my 8% threshold.

So... why is viscosity important? It's because of the atomization/splatter pattern of the fuel through the injectors. Today's diesel engines have a very tight tolerance for the spray patterns through the injectors.

You ever had to lube a squeaky bolt... and you grab a can of WD-40... but the straw thingy isn't in all the way? You press the nozzle, and the lube goes all over your hands, as well as your new jeans. Doesn't mean that the lube is BAD, it's just that it didn't wind up going where it was supposed to. Since WD-40 stains denim... you can consider your jeans "coked".

Same thing with the fuel. If the viscosity of the fuel changes too much, your splatter pattern will also change, resulting in fuel going where it's not supposed to....like on your cylinder walls, (or worse) left in your injectors. When that flashpoint hits, you have fuel igniting in places it wasn't supposed to.

How will your mileage vary in these experiments? Again, my temp was 70*... if you live in HELL, then the higher ambient temperatures will allow you to run a higher blend of WVO/#2 without altering the viscosity outside that 8% threshold.

So... how will starting your engine COLD in the morning damage your engine if you have a WVO blend? If the viscosity of your fuel hasn't changed, then my answer is "none". But let's just say that a freak ice storm came in the middle of August, and dropped your fuel temp to the point where it DID affect it. Then, the answer might be "some".

Now... I am sure that there are folks here on this forum that are smarter than me that will say that all my data is flawed because I didn't do some experiment when the moon was in phase, and the ocean was in high-tide. Certainly all of my knowledge here is the result of standing on the shoulders of giants. I'm just piecing together what I have found. I always defer to folks that have more experience than I do.... and bow down willingly.

But... that's my .02, and it's what I have come the the conclusion of to explain what's going on 'under the hood'.

Hope that helps.

 

Firemedic- AWESOME explanation. I've read all of that before, but you have a flair you put on it. Hell, we might all be a little redneck- I'll be happy being damn near all myself LMAO...