Performance upgrades and WVO????
Performance upgrades and WVO????
Will WVO shorten the life of my diesel engine? Maybe, depends. If done improperly, most definitely. I have sources for oil (family owned Asian restaurants) that provide an excellent base of WVO. If you don't, the variability of your WVO, as FI has mentioned, will make your work to prepare it for fuel very difficult and possibly detrimental to your engine. Do you have room to process the fuel? You will need room to properly settle and separate, filter and centrifuge, dry and neutralize your fuel. Then, the vehicle has to be properly converted, be it single tank in moderate climes, or duel tank for areas with some chill. Most of the conversions I have seen are NOT adequately heating the fuel. Elsbett of Germany has been doing decades of work converting diesel vehicles to run on clean rapeseed oil. Their system final heats the oil to a temperature much higher than engine coolant temperature to make sure of proper atomization patterns from the injectors and to eliminate the problems of ring coking and injector tip fouling. Most domestic systems I have seen do not reach this higher temperature. Coking and fouling can be an issue in these systems. Subsequently, it can shorten the life of your engine and increase emissions. But so can improper tuning. Or superturbo tuning for that matter, so why even discuss life of use? I'm being jocular, if u didn't notice. I have seen a 10% decrease in fuel economy consistent with the fact that WVO on the average has 10% less btu's than fossil diesel.
If done properly, MBz diesels CAN live a long time on WVO. I have an 84 300SD with a 2 tank system at 435k miles; WVO started at 183k. The body is rusted to the point of near uselessness from a life of ocean misting, but the engine and drive-train still are going strong. It is semi retired. I have a 85 190d with a single tank system and an estimated (log book) 627k miles (ODO broke at 549k), WVO started at 70k when the vehicle was rescued at auction from the insurance company (rear ended). I still drive it on a daily basis as a parts getter.
Summarizing, I usually advise AGAINST someone converting to WVO unless it is for the fun and learning. Most people do not drive enough to make it economically viable even at 5 dollar a gallon prices. Put your time and money into maximizing your MBz diesel. Even if you want to have the fun and learning experience of bio fuels, go the bio-diesel route as was advised above. You can make relatively small batches to start with, and if you decide to end the experiment, you will not be out a ton of money and your vehicles will not have been modified to WVO specs. I have 5 MBz cars, 4 diesels, 3 running on WVO which last year used just under 700 gallons of WVO. Even at today's diesel prices which are at roughly $4.50 per gallon as of this writing, it would not be worth the time and effort were it not for my teenage son who does most of the grunt work so he can drive for near free ( we do log and pay road tax fees). You would have to drive an awful lot of miles to make the effort pay off.
Can you use superturbo tuning tech on your WVO diesel? Most certainly! But you may not have the time left over after you collect, filter and process your WVO.
I will have to remark on the CNG/propane fogging in another post.
RustyLugNut
03-09-2011, 12:31 AM #23Fist off, yes, technically WVO is illegal to run in your MBz diesel. But that should not deter you. If it is really in your bones to experiment with it go right ahead. It does mean you will have to work with your local government to deal with your WVO collection plan and road tax fees. It will be years to never before the Federal government will be interested. FI is right, it is illegal by Fed standards, but mainly because WVO is of such a small portion of the energy pie that it is not worth the time to set standards and tax it. I have tried, contacting the local and state tax board, DOE and EPA, and so on. We just came to the conclusion, there is simply no proper guidelines and a compromise of sorts was agreed on. Is it Federally legal? No. But until FI quits driving faster than the speed limit, I'll keep using WVO in my old MBz diesels.
Will WVO shorten the life of my diesel engine? Maybe, depends. If done improperly, most definitely. I have sources for oil (family owned Asian restaurants) that provide an excellent base of WVO. If you don't, the variability of your WVO, as FI has mentioned, will make your work to prepare it for fuel very difficult and possibly detrimental to your engine. Do you have room to process the fuel? You will need room to properly settle and separate, filter and centrifuge, dry and neutralize your fuel. Then, the vehicle has to be properly converted, be it single tank in moderate climes, or duel tank for areas with some chill. Most of the conversions I have seen are NOT adequately heating the fuel. Elsbett of Germany has been doing decades of work converting diesel vehicles to run on clean rapeseed oil. Their system final heats the oil to a temperature much higher than engine coolant temperature to make sure of proper atomization patterns from the injectors and to eliminate the problems of ring coking and injector tip fouling. Most domestic systems I have seen do not reach this higher temperature. Coking and fouling can be an issue in these systems. Subsequently, it can shorten the life of your engine and increase emissions. But so can improper tuning. Or superturbo tuning for that matter, so why even discuss life of use? I'm being jocular, if u didn't notice. I have seen a 10% decrease in fuel economy consistent with the fact that WVO on the average has 10% less btu's than fossil diesel.
If done properly, MBz diesels CAN live a long time on WVO. I have an 84 300SD with a 2 tank system at 435k miles; WVO started at 183k. The body is rusted to the point of near uselessness from a life of ocean misting, but the engine and drive-train still are going strong. It is semi retired. I have a 85 190d with a single tank system and an estimated (log book) 627k miles (ODO broke at 549k), WVO started at 70k when the vehicle was rescued at auction from the insurance company (rear ended). I still drive it on a daily basis as a parts getter.
Summarizing, I usually advise AGAINST someone converting to WVO unless it is for the fun and learning. Most people do not drive enough to make it economically viable even at 5 dollar a gallon prices. Put your time and money into maximizing your MBz diesel. Even if you want to have the fun and learning experience of bio fuels, go the bio-diesel route as was advised above. You can make relatively small batches to start with, and if you decide to end the experiment, you will not be out a ton of money and your vehicles will not have been modified to WVO specs. I have 5 MBz cars, 4 diesels, 3 running on WVO which last year used just under 700 gallons of WVO. Even at today's diesel prices which are at roughly $4.50 per gallon as of this writing, it would not be worth the time and effort were it not for my teenage son who does most of the grunt work so he can drive for near free ( we do log and pay road tax fees). You would have to drive an awful lot of miles to make the effort pay off.
Can you use superturbo tuning tech on your WVO diesel? Most certainly! But you may not have the time left over after you collect, filter and process your WVO.
I will have to remark on the CNG/propane fogging in another post.
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