I have a 1985 VW Golf non-turbo diesel that I'd love to turn into a pusher trailer for my 2013 Nissan Leaf. On the one hand it's a perfect candidate, economically speaking, since it's very fuel efficient (I get about 55 to 60mpg with zero modifications), very reliable, and then I could stop paying insurance on it and not have to spend money getting it looking and feeling good (the interior is falling apart, the body is rusting terribly, no A/C system at all, heater has issues, odometer stopped working at 400,000 miles...). But on the other hand, there's this inner voice that keeps telling me that putting a black cloud mosquito fogger (hyperbole) behind my zero emissions Nissan Leaf wouldn't be exactly what I'd want.
So I've been tossing up ideas (while I still use my VW diesel for long trips) on whether I should just try a different type of engine for a pusher/generator trailer for the Leaf or should I try to attempt to improve the emissions to a reasonable degree for my Golf, or whether I should sell the bunch and by a different economy vehicle that would be some sort of happy medium.
Well, on the diesel pusher idea, I've considered water fumigation, propane fumigation, adding a catalytic converter, adding a particulate filter, adding a DEF exhaust fumigation system, etc. But one idea that seems to top them all is a fuel and water emulsification system.
The internet seems to promise that by emulsifying water into the fuel NOx emissions can be lowered by about half, and PM emissions by up to 90%. Then all I'd need is that diesel catalytic converter and I'd be set emissionswise! And there's an added benefit of lower fuel consumption.
The fear is what would 5% to 25% water in the fuel do to the injection pump and the injectors.
How I'm thinking of doing it is to put some sort of blender tank in the engine compartement. A simple fuel pump would pull fuel from the fuel tank instead of using the injector pump to do this. I'd need some sort of float in the blender tank to shut off the fuel pump. I'd also need some sort of device that meters water into the blender tank. Maybe I could figure out how much fuel the fuel pump pumps and get a small water pump and adjustable nozzle that turns on along with the fuel pump, and adjust the nozzle so that a fairly precise amount of water comes out for every amount of fuel. The injection pump would both take and return emulsified fuel from the blender tank. At the end of the run I could have a water separator that is plumbed through solenoids between the pump and blender tank that I could let the engine idle and separate for a while before turning it off in an attempt to get the water out of the injection pump before shutting off.
Anyhow, any thoughts?