AltFuel SVO with no mods? (1 Viewer)

[amaurer]

Summer is coming here in the Bay Area, and now that diesel is $4+ and VO is <$3 at costco, I'm toying with trying SVO out.

I thought that, if the outside temp. was warm, you could use SVO without any mods. Is this a true statement? I have a stock 3B...

 

[ozwallaby]

Hell yeah, you try it and get back to us with the results..

 

[arcteryx]

depends on the temperature. I would go conservatively and start with a 20% blend, then move to 50% and see what happens.

 

[M John Galt]

I run a 20% mix of canola VO in a 13B-T, no mods other than 115v preheating that gets the engine to 20°C/68°F or warmer before start-up.

 

[amaurer]

Well itll be 20C or warmer here for 6 months now so I'm OK on that front. What do you find is the maximum % you can run?

 

[M John Galt]

I recommend 25% VO max others use more. Start with 10% or 15% then 20% of clear clean bulk oil from the store. If the exhaust is smoky on start-up then the unburned fuel is forming engine deposits.
Increase the percent of oil till the exhaust smokes then back off a bit.

 

[rtarh2o]

Try this link
The Best Blend for Diesel Fuel - Topic Powered by eve community
It was started by John Galt (I assume you are the same?) It has some good information and there are alot of other threads on that site that will help as well. I am about to do the same but am planning on using 50-75% clean, dry WVO. I have added some inline fuel heaters to help thin the blend even further. The heaters I am using are electric and coolant heated, once the engine is up to temperature the electric heat is switched off and the coolant heats the fuel. I have tested various blends and have found that 25% gas mixed in with WVO is very close to the viscosity of very cold diesel. Assuming most IP's a built to handle cold diesel I should be ok.
Good luck
Rusty

 

[M John Galt]

The issue isn't with what percent VO a hot engine will run on, but rather about the damaging engine deposits which form when VO-ULSD blends greater than 25% are used to cold start a cold engine. As well as the problem with unburned VO depositing on injectors, piston tops and rings, there is unburned VO diluting the engine oil. VO in engine oil can increase polymerization of the oil, reduce oil flow and damage bearings.

This is why most people recommend using a two tank SVO system for high percent blends, with the possible exception of older indirect injection engines like MBenz and B & H series non-turbo Toyotas, which are more tolerant of higher percent VO blends.

 

[joshoisasleep]

why non turbo??

 

[M John Galt]

why non turbo??

The non-turbo Toyota engines are indirect injection and like MBenz they're more tolerant of a wide quality of VO.

 

[ozwallaby]

The non-turbo Toyota engines are indirect injection and like MBenz they're more tolerant of a wide quality of VO.

While the indirect injection engines do seem to be more tolerant of vo/wvo, it may also be a combination of several factors. The i/d engines tend to be older designs and therefore are possibly built stronger and heavier, especially the i/p. As engine development has "progressed", engines of all types have been built closer to the event horizon of distruction. While this is good for production costs, power to weight and fuel economy, they don't tolerate changes to the fuel type they are designed for. I think an older i/d engine with turbo will work fine on wvo/vo, it may in fact be better, due to turbulents in the combustion chamber mixing the fuel n air better. I note engines designed to run on vo have different injector spray pattern and injector opening pressure to give a wider more atomized fuel spray. This is all theory, I have no practical experience of this.

 

[amaurer]

This is why most people recommend using a two tank SVO system for high percent blends, with the possible exception of older indirect injection engines like MBenz and B & H series non-turbo Toyotas, which are more tolerant of higher percent VO blends.

Well, I figure one tank of 50% probably won't kill my 3B, so I'm going to Costco after work. Will keep you all posted.

EDIT: oops, I lied, soy oil is $5.75 at costco, while diesel is $4.99. Mother earth will have to wait...

 

[magnus_heydoc]

canola

I was gonna say and then I read the last post;

I just bought some bulk canola for testing and it works out to over 1.80 cdn per litre.

Seemingly the only way to get ahead is to clean up some waste VO.

 

[dreko]

Amaurer
I tried looking up the cheapest veggie oil prices online, what a waste of time that was...
Couldn't tell if rapeseed oil (canola) or palm oil was cheaper than Costco soybean oil.. but maybe, Costco
does have good prices....,

 

[magnus_heydoc]

wholesale

I asked the guy that is giving me his waste oil if he'd order me some new canola for testing until I set up my home filtering. So it worked out to about 1.80 cdn and this is the price Mr. Chong gets to run his asian resturant fryers! Similarily, a farmer who was in the office recently told me corn has doubled in price per bushel since a year ago.
and the vice gets a little tighter......................