Quote:
Originally Posted by Gasoline Fumes
. . . Nobody's going to talk me out of putting the diesel in the 1980 Chevy.  |
When I did my conversion, WVO was my plan as well, and there wasn't any one who was going to talk me out of it either. I abandoned the WVO idea after realizing the engine I had wasn't worth the effort. I was a bit disappointed with the power and fuel economy (12-15 mpg with the 4-speed and 4.10 gearing), though I've heard of better mileage with overdrive and 3.73 gears. Still, I was hoping for high teens considering that most of my driving was at lower than highway speeds.
As far as your initial question--how to ecomod the truck--I'm not sure what you could do to the engine, or would want to do. It's been several years since I thought about and researched WVO, but back then it was still pretty experimental, and a lot of people were ruining injection pumps pretty quickly. Those old ID diesels will run on almost anything for a while, but eventually parts start failing if the fuel isn't really clean and the right viscosity going into the IP. I remember thinking I would definitely want to use an inline electric fuel heater right before the IP, because others' experiences were that the coolant tank heating system didn' quite heat the fuel enough. In the end, I sold the truck and went back to gas. Nevertheless if you want to modify, make the exhaust as free-flowing as possible (will BBC headers work on the 6.2?), and I remember there's a few different intake manifolds for that engine, one of which is more unrestricted than the others. Run synthetic oils all around and put in a block heater for faster warm-up times. I found my engine ran cold (I did use an external/supplementary oil cooler, I now remember) and I had a full grill block except in the warmest months of the year.
Aero mods for a plow/tow vehicle
Have fun with the project, that's the important thing, right?