WVO - Best kits?
 

I've got a 96 F-250 with the PSD and I've been toying with the idea of getting a WVO kit. I just read the thread about the Greasecar kit and was wondering what other kits are out there and any good/bad experiences you all have had with them.

I too am interested in kit comparisons.

so far, i have found:

http://www.vegistroke.com/

http://www.greasecar.com/

http://www.goldenfuelsystems.com/

http://www.frybrid.com/

My truck is a 2005 (6.0) and of the above, the only one who even claims to have a kit for the 6.0 is vegistroke. He is a sponsor and active member. i have been meaning to call him and ask about ten thousand questions. I have read a bunch of web info on kits but none go deep enough to give valuable comparisons.


The Golden Fuel folks actually bad-mouth the 6.0 saying the engine is problematic and prone to failure. Doesn't do much to endear me to them.

Vegitsroke please chime in with anything you can (especially 6.0 info).

addendum:

i DID find this comparison, but i tend to distrust them when done by one of the candidates....

http://www.frybrid.com/kittest.htm

I have a Greasel kit on my truck. Greasel is now Golden fuel system. I picked it up from guy on craigslist. Some cheap parts and poor instructions. I called Greasel to ask some questions and because I din't buy the system from them they would not help me.
I installed the system in one day.
I added a arctic fox fuel heater to my system.

I have seen the Vegistroke system installed on one truck. It looks like it is the best system built today.

Bryan

Hey Guys, well my business partner is out on vacation with his family and when he returns I will let him know about this thread. Needless to say, both Jason and myself are chomping at the bit for a magazine to do a side by side comparison, but as of yet it doesn't exist. In the recent year we have changed the way we start our conversations with people when they call us with interest in WVO or biodiesel. What we have come to realize is that some people hear about this and consider it the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they tend to overlook the biggest, and what we at Vegistroke consider being the most important, items:

1: Where are you going to get your oil?

2: Have you taken the time to get to know your oil source? (i.e., how do they clean their fryer vats, do they dump the cleaned vats waste into the storage container, do they leave the lid on their storage container open all the time, do they dump food waste into the container, what type of oil do they use and how often do they change it out?)

3: How is your home filtration system set up?

Now, I know that this seems like a lot of questions and we haven't even begun discussing kits yet, but we have figured out that the people who get into veggie oil without answering these questions first end up walking away from this with a bad taste in their mouth. WVO done wrong can destroy your truck, just like biodiesel done wrong can destroy your truck, and even I can’t afford to run right back out there and buy another truck. We take this approach because people's trucks are in a lot of cases their livelihood, and a broken down truck is just not an option.

We have figured out, and this includes our own customers, that out of all of the customers that continue to call the kit manufacturer back with problems tend to be the same customers over and over again. Now out of those people, the same theme rings out again and again, which is home filtration and their oil source! Although those people try to deny that it could be that at all, and that they’re doing it perfectly, they then they call us because their pump froze up from half of a French fry that got sucked in there and want us to fix our $400 pump that they destroyed. Now, this isn’t everyone mind you because the other 90% of our customers we never hear from all have one thing in common: they answered those first three or four questions first. 80% of all your problems will disappear if you address those issues first, and that is a fact for any system you can buy on the market today.

Now as far as our system, we make kits for the 94-07 PSD trucks (obviously 6.0 included). We may be the most expensive kit on the market, but people tend to overlook why that is so due to our top quality parts, the only 2 year unconditional warranty in the industry, the only system that is both manual or fully automatic and the only system on the market that, if there happened to be a system failure, you don’t break down on the side of the road!!!

As far as the 6.0s, well, they do tend to break down on average more than the 7.3, so as long as the owner of the truck understands that, we have no problem selling 6.0 kits. The other manufacturers don’t want to be held liable for the customer’s truck breaking, but we basically let the customers know that this industry is still in its infancy and that they need to make the decision to use WVO on their own and that we cannot be ultimately held responsible for their actions and their truck. Now, don’t take this the wrong way because we have a ton of 6.0 kits out there and have only had one guy ruin his injectors. Then again that brings us back to the first few questions, because if that person had investigated his oil source more, he would have never had that problem (as he admitted himself). If you guys have any more questions we are more than happy to give you a straight and honest answer, because you may find that in this industry people either have no clue and fill you full of bull or avoid answers that may turn you off enough that they wont make a sale!! The simple truth is that this done wrong, well, you know the result. Although, this done right, well... let’s just say that you will find yourself taking way more family trips without even thinking of the fuel cost. Average Vegistroker in-town mileage i.e., stop and go 1500 to 3000 miles to one tank of diesel, and of course on the freeway, well... the best that has been done is 17 gals of diesel to one 6200 mile road trip, which is roughly 365 mpg.

If you have any more technical questions, please don’t hesitate to email or call us.

Thanks for everyone's replies. The Vegistroke system does look like it's the best one out there. I may have to wait a little while until I have a suitible place to have a home filtering station.

Thanks James. I have started just now to investigate sources. I have asked a couple of Chinese food owners about their waste oil and if I could have access. Discussions are difficult and vague. Most of them don’t even know if they are paying the local rendering company or if they are being paid by them. Apparently it changes based upon oil prices.

Most do not want to be bothered as there is really nothing in it for them.

I trolled around behind a strip mall this morning and found four separate waste bins. They stuff inside varied from foul to just plain terrible, with a horrible rancid odor and tons of crap lying in it. I would not be surprised to hear there was a dead body in one of them. Is this typical of what I will find in a broader search or was I just unlucky in my first forrey?

Additionally, one of the four vats had its lid left open with a torrential downpour last night. I assume that this make it unfilterable.

Is there a better approach to this? Do I have to go buy 55 gal drums or cubies and give them to the restaurant owners?

Yea, FastCote
the oil ally as we like to call it is a sticky icky mess sometimes. Nothing in this world is free or eazy so don't get discuraged on your first few attempts to find oil. You will find that people disscarding the oil could care less about what happens to it the moment they are done with it. So what you are finding is very normal, just keep looking and you will find what your looking for. As far as the rain in a container well it just means that you will go through more filters so do yourself a favor and stay away from that.

Now buying a 55 gal drum isnt a bad idea and this is how most people do it so try and investigate all of your options. Also here is a web site everyone should look at if they are considering getting into the oil world. It is the best way to clean WVO to date, without breaking the budget.

http://www.dieselcraft.com/

Thanks James,

I was cruising around on the Frybrid forum and came across the long thread discussing the one guy you mentioned with the 6.0 and the bad injectors. That was completely terrifying!!! The thread also just ended and I don’t even know what happened to the guy (New2Vo). He was at different time for sure gunna dump his 6.0 and at others not. What DID happen to him, and what did cause the failure?

I am still real interested in converting my 6.0, specifically using Vegistroke, but am real timid and would like to hear a couple of 6.0 success stories. I would actually most like to meet with a 6.0 Vegistroke owner nearest Columbus OH so I can learn more.

James, can you also talk to the differences between DieselCraft and these folks:

http://www.simplecentrifuge.com/index.html

I think I would rather go simple centrifuge route for reasons I can not vocalize. Just seems like a better approach.

Thanks,

Ben

Ben- This is Jason From DFA and I have just returned and getting caught up. I honestly don't know much about the simple centrifuge, but do have experiance with the Dieselcraft unit. The biggest problem with the DieselCraft one was finding an affordable pump to use with it. I spent the last 6 months tyring to find th eperfect pump, and finally found it, and just added it to our new site. Again, not sure about the simple centrifuge, but I have found that I still have the best luck preheating and settling my oil for a day, then running it through the centrifuge for a few hours, then through a final filter into my clean tank. BTW, I would be happy to shoot you the contact info for a few of our 6.0 customers, one of which has had a kit for well over a year, and was our first 6.0 kit

You guys can go the the infopop site

http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/foru...rm/f/159605551

and read tons of info on the dieselcraft, spinner II and the simple centrifuge. I will say that the centrifuge is the better way to go if you are going to process lots of oil. When I say lots, I mean 50 gallons or more per week. I have been collecting and filtering for better than 6 months now. I have almost 1200 gallons filtered and ready to go. I don't even have my kit yet. I've exchanged emails with Jason before he went on vacation about ordering the kit for my 7.3. Like they said, filtering is KEY to the entire process. for small processes, sock filters are ok, but they are messy at times. And you can expect to make Large messes at times as you go through the learning curves. Why do I have so much oil? I also have a detroit diesel 2-71 20 kw generator that I will be running on wvo also. hurricane alley here. We were out of power for 18 days for katrina. so I want to be ready for everything nest time. I am ready to order my system now, as I just finished everything I needed to be ready for the kit.

Veg'd Out
 

2002 F250 with 6000 miles on WVO. Put 5k on the truck last year on bio, since April, I've put 6k on her! :)

Installed the Vegistroke in April with great success.
throw the 3 kids in the truck, off we go. just came back from a 300 mile trip to the beach. filling the tank in the parking lot of the hotel is fun too!!! lots of questions....some i answer, some i just smile (no one needs to know, right?)

My cousin has a 6.0 with the Vegistroke, he found the install easier on his than mine.
He's got about 1k on his so far.

Only had to call Jason\James 3 times for the install and once to give my CC number :-X07 . the investment is well worth it.

NOTHING IS FREE....not even the free oil.
take your time, filter it GOOD, and your set.

before it goes into your tank, it should look like NEW motor oil....very clear, brown or gold.
Like you, i had TONS and TONS of questions, one being 'why would i want to spend 3K on my truck, to ruin it'.

Remember this, you only get what you pay for, nothing is free, and the vegistorke is the best kit for your truck.

I'd rather give 3K to a few guys from Oregon than a consortium of people that hate me, anyday (i.e. OPEC)

All statements above are only one mans opinion.

oh yeah, i did have one problem.....the light on the rocker switch burned out the other day...
james, is that new switch\bulb in the mail.....
:-wink

If you have dual fuel tanks (or an extra aftrmarket one mounted in the bed) could you just fill one with Diesel/BioDiesel as a "starting/short trip/shut down" fuel and the other with SVO/WVO as a long trip fuel and just switch back to the "starting" fuel a few miles before you get to where your long trip ends?

I seems all they do is add a small fuel tank for your starter/shut down fuel.

If you already have 2 tanks, why bother?

the stock fuel pump is not strong enough to handle unheated wvo. the wvo would eat away at the coating of the tank and stop up the filter and kill the pump. And in the cooler months, if there is any amimal fats in the oil, it will solidify and plug up the tank and plug up the fuel lines. eventually it would kill the injector pump because there would be wvo left in the lines when you shut down, unless you switched over lonng enough before you shut down.
In short, it would work, but for how long???