[diesel_john]

Originally Posted by AmpEater
"Would an intercooler make a significant difference in this regard? It should lower the intake temperatures to close to ambient. The cylinder pressures would still be increased over designed operating conditions however."

Yes, that is the purpose of an aftercooler, not only does the air absorb heat from being in contact with the compressor blades it also is heated from being compressed from 0 to whatever psi. However, the engine compression of a factory turbo'd engine starts at much lower ratio some as low as 15 to 1. This is similiar with gas engines also.


"I'm a little curious as to how one advances the timing on a diesel? My understanding is that timing refers to the point at which the spark ignites the fuel mixture, but seeing that diesels have no spark I would assume that timing is fixed. Do you instead adjust when the fuel is injected instead?"
Yes
The timing is advanced by tilting the injection pump or slots in the timing gear, just like turning a distributor. this is normally set for max. power at the factory.


"I had no idea biodiesel actually burned any cleaner, I thought its sole appeal was better lubrication and being "renewable". This is very interesting, perhaps I can eliminate the need for propane if this is the case. Is your experience with fossil diesel/biodiesel blend, or would this apply to a biodiesel/WVO blend as well?"

My experience is with fossil diesel and up to 20% biodiesel blend. Yes, the biodiesel blend acts as a catalyst, i haven't researched why.

"Again, very interesting. Because the generator will be belt driven I could set the ratio at whatever engine speed is ideal. If I could get close to full power with a reduced engine speed and significantly increase the life expectancy I would be very happy. I assume the 60hz tidbit applies to direct drive generators? I'm glad you mentioned the cooling fan. My plans did not include one. It seems like an electric radiator fan should provide more than enough airflow, while still allowing me to turn it off at highway speeds and just allow the passing air to do this work."

i meant the fan on the engine needs a certain speed. you can't lug an air cooled engine like you can a water cooled engine, unless you speed up the fan.

Because your gen. is 20hp and engine is 10hp, you will need to control the generator draw or it will overload the engine. Find out the Rpm at peak torque for your engine. Ideally run the engine just below that speed. Is your engine speed governed? A generator engine is speed governed to get 60 hz. but you can direct couple and run the engine at peak efficiency RPM because you don't care about frequency. if belt, look up the transmission loss of your type of belt. i think you might be shooting yourself in the foot on that one.