Hey guys, I’m not close enough to look at it but does anybody know if the 02-7.3 came stock with a fuel filter heater. I’m going to run B100 and for the most part it’ll be Spring,Summer,Fall and was looking at fuel heaters and learned that Ford put a heater in the fuel bowl, just wondering if that’s stock or part of a cold weather option package.

 

The 7.3 has a fuel heater in the filter housing. It is stock item on all 7.3 engines. I doubt it is large enough to pre-heat B100. Look here and it might help.

http://www.forddoctorsdts.com/forddo...tInjection.pdf

Other 7.3 books here

https://www.forddoctorsdts.com/coffeetablebooks.html/

 

If I could remember how to tag him i would but SkiSkyJason would probably be of some assistance with alternative fuels in the 7.3.

 

Great info, thanks a lot.

 

Excellent, I’ll look him up.

 

Paging @SkySkiJason

 

The fuel bowl heater is useless. Especially for reducing viscosity of your fuel.

Depending on the feedstock, B100 can gel anywhere from 70*F to well below freezing. You’ll have to figure out the gel point of your fuel and add diesel to it to get gel point below the overnight temps.

You cannot really ‘heat’ B100 to get a lower viscosity, because the fuel in the heads and injectors will always be cold at startup. Even heating the whole fuel tank doesn’t fix this.

I made B100 for a few years. Toooo much of a PITA and not worth it to me. I continue to burn straight VO in a 2nd (heated) fuel system to this day. 270k miles in my dually on the high cholesterol fuel.

If I can’t talk you out of making biodiesel, I’ll make you a KILLER deal on a BioPro 190.

 

Thanks, good to know. More homework. I’ve been looking at this for a long time and bought a 300D Turbo planning a WVO conversion. But life got busy and that was shelved. Damn Merc ended up costing much more than it was worth. So now I have 3 diesels, the 7.3, a 15 kw genset indoors and a big tractor, bio diesel is just more practical than veggie and cutting it with diesel when it gets colder isn’t too big a deal as I do winter in a warm place anyway. The heated fuel bowl interests me because I figured warm fuel is going to be easier to push through the filter. I realize the rails and injectors will still have bio in them but the high pressure pump cranks up so much push that It won’t matter much.

 

My advice is the same. Fuel bowl heater is not going to help.

If you are ‘having trouble pushing the fuel through the filter’, you need to adjust the viscosity by adding diesel or using different feedstock.

You will learn that making and using B100 has its own challenges and failures are eminent. If you choose this path, expect to have problems that will rock your trust and the reliability of your truck, tractor and genset. It took me 4-5 years to give up because I am exceptionally stubborn... I was using a $9k biodiesel processor - theoretically the easiest way to make the stuff.

Furthermore, the genset in particular, but the tractor as well may not like life on B100. Engines tolerate veggie-based fuels much better under load. Generators often run on a fraction of their full load. This creates lower combustion chamber temperatures and tends to generate coking in the combustion chamber and downstream of the exhaust valves.

 

Yes, I’ve read two study’s that agree that combustion chamber deposits worsen with lower combustion temps. That’s with all fuels but on b100 it is more pronounced. Counter to that is the increased lubricity of Bio. But, spot on and I’ll have to work on keeping the combustion chambers clean. More to think about. I’m surprised that diesels tolerate straight veggie better than B100, seems counter intuitive as all the soaps still in the fuel and from what I’ve read those kill injectors.

 

lol. You mean ‘glycerin’?? That burns too. I started in 2005 and I am regularly amused by the myths propagated by the other groups. The added lubricity does nothing to mitigate coking.

Straight VO is no problem except for viscosity. We fix that problem by heating the VO in a separate fuel system so we can run on diesel until the engine is warm then ‘switch over’ to veggie. I’ve been 450 miles in the last 2 days and only burned about 2 gals of diesel. My F350 has 270k greasy smile miles and I put about 120k high cholesterol fuel miles on my Excursion.

That said, there are a lot of wrong ways to burn straight VO and several companies have come and gone proving that. Many fuel systems and engines have been destroyed (as well as at least a few marriages). I’ve ripped out and thrown away a bunch of WVO ‘kits’ that were akin to middle school science projects (that failed miserably). I’ve installed a few dozen proper VO conversions and many of them have over 100k and even 200k trouble free miles on them now.

Heres more stuff you didn’t ask for. I apologize. I’m bored waiting at the dr’s office.....

I use SS hard lines and ptfe-lined SS braided hoses with JIC ends to plumb the engine. Feeding VO to the rear of the heads and D2 to the front of the heads. The fuel systems are totally redundant (separate tanks, filters, pumps, etc) and are separated by check valves. Here’s a pic of the modified engine plumbing on one of the recent conversions I’ve done.




I often use a 44gal factory Excursion fuel tank under the bed of F250/350’s for VO. VO fuel lines are heated with coolant using a tube-in-hose system. Like this:




This is a Vegistroke V4 system with a RACOR PS120 added to it on one of my conversions. The V4 manifold has fuel pump, FPR, filters, Purge valve, check valve and an air bleed orifice built into it. There is an auxiliary coolant pump mounted above the V4 to insure coolant flow through the VO loop.



The primary filter is heated with coolant using copper tubing.




The V4 system includes an OLED to monitor system operation. It is also fully automated and switches fuels automatically when the coolant temp is high enough - then purges all of the VO out when you shut down.

 

Nice clean setup.

 

In theory, water/methanol injection will mitigate carbon build up/coking in the combustion chamber.

 

Yes, I’ve read where that’s done in direct injected gas engines. The issue is with the EGR and PCV gunking up the A/F charge. It wouldn’t be too tough to plumb in a hit of meth post turbo. Lord knows I’ll have lots of methanol on hand to work with.

 

Yes, W/M is injected post CAC on our trucks. Pretty simple really. I would only use enough methanol to prevent freezing in your climate. Straight water is fine for summer. We aren’t looking to add power with this - just the cleaning effects.

Check out the Snow kits and let me know if you want to DIY a system. I’d imagine there’s stuff on the university of yourtube by now as well.