I am starting to look into this whole biodiesel thing and have found some talk about using straight vegetable oil from fast food joints and mixing it with diesel. While the cleaness is great, I am mostly looking at the possible cost savings, especially if you can get your local McD's used oil for free

 

I was looking at the website www.greasecar.com looks interesting, don't know if I will try it.

In there forums they say McD's won't give out there fry grease scared of the liability or something. Best place is asian restaurants, cleaner.

 

What site(s) was you looking at for the WVO diesel mix? Lat time I knew for direct injection type systems people were still testing using SVO or WVO in larger mixture percentages or just heating it and using at 100%. The pre-chamber for better atomization was the way to go like the Mercs. I'd be curious to see the injection tests after using for a long time. Would be great to not have to make BioD for a DI like the PSDs. What were the percentages of mixtures to combat viscosity problems or was the injection pressures of PSD enough to not have to worry on high %'s about that?

 

I haven't found too many websites with details. Lots of hits, just nothing good. Only a referance to a book called "From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank" The most informative site I have found so far is http://www.veggievan.org/biodiesel/
I don't want to run Straight Vegetable Oil(SVO), just mixed to reduce fuel costs.

 

I converted my F250 to run on waste vegetable oil about a six weeks ago. I've got a 100 gallon tank in the bed dedicated for waste vegetable oil. The tank is heated with engine coolant diverted through several heater cores at the base of the tank. I also have a heat exchanger under the hood to boost the vegoil temp as little more before injection. My vegoil is being injected at approximately 150 Degrees F, which is almost perfect, as that is the temp at which the viscosity of the vegoil approaches the viscosity of diesel.

A six port valve with a switch on the dash controls which fuel is being drawn into the fuel pump. You have to remember to shut down on diesel to prevent the possible coking of vegoil in the injectors of Direct Injection diesels after shutdown (coking in the injectors is a theory. Not sure if it is proven or disproven yet) Starting up on diesel is also much easier when the weather is cold. Once you take off and the engine comes up to temp you can flip the switch and start burning the vegoil again.

I've got just under 3000 miles on so far with no problems. Power and mileage remain unchanged. One benefit (other then free fuel and lesser environmental impact) is that acceleration is significantly quiter when burning vegoil. I assume it's because combustion is a tiny bit slower. I'll have another 1000+ miles by the end of next week.

The following a some links I used for some excellent info. Their conversion kits are a bit pricey. I made my own.

http://www.greasel.com/body_index.html
http://www.vegburner.co.uk/votheory.htm
http://danalinscott.netfirms.com/thebasic.htm
http://www.greasecar.com/products.cfm?productID=1

Good Luck

 

Now thats awesome!! Free fuel will shortly pay for the conversion kit, or parts to make your own. Where do you get your V-oil from?

 

Most v-oil will work fine, but the cleaner the better. Just means less filtering that you will have to do. Just take a look behind any restaurant with fryers. However, if you decide you to do this thing, be sure to ask for the oil. Even though it's waste, don't just take it. Some restaurants already have an outlet for the stuff. Plus, it's courtesy.

 

I would highly recommend NOT to burn vegie oil if it hasn't gone through the process of transesterfication. The glcyerin in the oil will destroy your engine, it acts like sugar in the fuel tank and will ruin your fuel system. Here is a link that gives great information about it.
http://energy.cas.psu.edu/soydiesel.html

I don't care how cheap or free the vegie oil is, I don't think it's worth the cost of rebuilding your fuel system, if not the whole engine.

 

Farmboy is correct, impuraties such as water and clarifiers in the oil can wreak havoc in your fuel system. I usually run B-20 in my Jetta TDI with great results. Here in Iowa many farm co-ops sell Bio-Diesel as the pros (farmers) have figured out that crappy fuel leads to injector pump failure. CLEAN Bio-D is the way to go.

 

I have yet to hear of anyone having a problem running vegie oil - specifically one as serious as ruining the injection system or engine. And I've done A LOT of research. The article states what vegoil can do, but then states that there are no long term studies to prove it. It sounds like he carried his hypothesis right through to the end result without ever having tested it. He gives absolutely no specifics. There are people out there that have been doing this for 15+ years with 100,000+ miles. Maybe you're right though - maybe in the long run I will have a problem. If so I will share my experience.

Thank you for the article. I do find it interesting and will likely try to follow up for more information. Hopefully some specifics on how it affects the injectors and engine.

For now I am happy to burn vegoil. We'll see how far it gets me.

 

They stated there were no long term tests of soydiesel because the engines haven't lasted long enough to run accurate tests. There is also the issue of legally burning vegie oil and meeting ASTM standards with it.

Maybe there is a difference between the oil you are burning and what he is talking about, I can't say for sure. But yes, do keep us posted as to how your engine runs and holds up to the vegie oil. I think it's critical that we start finding alternate fuel sources with the rising fuel prices. But for now I'm going to stick with my soybean biodiesel, I just don't feel comfortable putting all those impurities through my engine yet.

 

What the author is saying does not make sense. If the author of the article actually ran an engine on vegetable oil long enough to destroy it - I would call that a long term test. Running an engine long enough to destroy it IS a long term test. One with definate results too. Results that he should have been duplicated and shared to be credible. But he says there have been no long term tests. They would have to run the same vegetable oil through several different types of engines and several of each type all with the same end result to get accurate results.

I am burning pure waste soybean oil (washed and filtered) so we'll see if the results are as disasterous as the author predicts. I've got 3000+ miles and I know of many others with many many more miles than that - all without a problem.

Vegetable oil burns much cleaner than diesel. From what I've seen on the internet, much less CO2, CO, hydrocarbons and particluates. NOx is about the same. I didn't perform these tests myself so don't hold me to it. But I've never seen anything saying that it is more polluting.

I realize this article is probably just a summary without all the necessary information. Maybe that's why I can poke a thousand holes in it. But it still sounds like the author came up with a hypothesis and carried it through to the end result, based on assumptions, without performing accurate tests.

I intend to follow through on this article with the source given at the bottom. I'm curious to see if they actually did perform real life tests in a scientific manner that would yield accurate results.

I'm going canoeing for 10 days so you'll hear from me when I return. That is if my truck makes it back.

 

SVO and/or WVO has been used since the 70's as a direct fuel source. That is fact. It is also fact it is illegal for on road use. You won't get caught now anyway. They look for off road diesel, not vegetable oil. The 'new' issue involved is using it with DI engines versus IDIs. We don't have pre combustion chambers, that I am aware of anyway, on a PSD. VW TDIs have been using directly for a while now with success, so who nows? A couple years or so ago, I was browsing a few web sites where people were using it straight in PSDs but mostly Cummins. That was the last time I checked on it.

Camel, sorry I can't make myself put the suffix toe on, may I please, pretty please, keep in contact with you on this? I am very curious. I am also curious why no one has mentioned anything about your log in name yet? Kind of makes me miss my cowboy days and bars.

 

It's only illegal if you are not paying the Alternate Fuel Tax.

The DI issue I believe only pertains to coking on cylinder walls if it is injected too cold (doesn't mist properly) and coking in the injectors if the engine is shut off with vegoil in the injectors. I avoid both of these by heating the vegoil to 150 Deg. F using engine coolant before it's ever injected and by shutting the engine down on diesel (most of the time). Both of these situations are hypotheses, but I suppose possible non-the-less. To my knowledge neither on has ever been verified.

Yeah you can keep in touch - absolutely.

Cameltoe out.

 

So Cameltoe, could you give some details on how you performed the conversion? Specifically what size/type of hose did you use for the coolant/WVO, how did you plumb them? How many miles do you have to go at shutdown to deplete the WVO from the system so that you shutdown on deisel? I know you added an additional tank. I've got dual tanks and plan on converting one of them. I agree that the kits are pricey, and since you've already built your own, I hope to benefit from your experience.

Thanks,

John