'85' VW Jetta WVO success

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by james.lafrance

ok, not to ruffle any feathers but, an EGR is used for emmision control right? and that only matters if you believe emmisions are a problem, which to some extent i can understand but it's not something I give a rat's @ss about. global warming and that whole nonsense doesn't matter much to me (since it's about the BIGGEST scam man has ever undergone-soley to bring about a carbon tax...) just research solar activity/history.... so an EGR valve is good for lower engine temps, lower emmisions, and it makes the tree huggers happy right? AND less power? so it's not really needed is it?

Weather or not EGR reduces emmisions is debateable.
You get Less NOx, more soot, lower FE, less power and more problems later on.
The only benifet for FE I see is it could reduce engine warm up times. But then again so will grill shutters.
EGR lowers combustion temps, so does water injection (but water injection does not increase diesel soot).
Diesel EGR is not needed and seems to all around be bad.

So as long as you are not in LA or houston TX, NYC then NOx is generally not a problem.

Of course its a scam, they want to back door tax every family between $600 and $3000 a year and they have no way to fix the problem, and will offer no product or service in return, unless you count making electrical power and fuel more expensive as some kind of a service.
I have no problem paying taxes as long as I get something in return.

[Josh8loop]

I used WVO on a 1986 Mercedes 190D 2.5 L diesel for 10 months. Initially after I created my fuel heating system, and some other engine mods the engine was running great. It didn't like to start on WVO that's for sure, but once it was up to temp, it ran well. I LOVED the smell of the veggie, and miss it to this day. After 5-6 mths I had issues with my fuel filters clogging. I added stainless steel cleanable prefilters to help deal with chunks getting through the fuel system. The oil was completely dry and settled for a month before useage, and was filtered down to at least 5 micron. Most times it was brought down to 1 micron. As far as the WVO quality, I don't think I could have gotten any better unless I adapted a centrifuge system. What I learned the hard way is that if the WVO is not atomized well enough(due to fuel temp or low injection pressure/poor nozzles) it will wash down into the engine oil and dilute it. It also gums up the piston rings, and can cause them to not move like they should. Non moving rings, and diluted engine oil are very bad things! I also noticed growth in the steel fuel tank. There were large flakes of reddish brown gunk that was coating the inside of the fuel tank, and was the worst where the fuel met air inside the tank. This was what was clogging my filters so frequently. I knew my fuel going into the tank didn't have that junk in it when it was going into the tank, so what gives??

After some research I found that used veggie oil is a very strange chemical animal and no two batches are the same. Some oil is fried at certain temps and exposed to certain cooking ingredients, and some is exposed to a whole different gamut of things. This chemical inconsistancy combined with the fact that veggie oil tends to pick up trace metal elements like copper and brass which catalyzes other chemical reactions was what was causing my fuel component system growths. Since most folks use brass and copper components or copper and brass bearing components in fuel injection systems or fuel preheating systems allows it to receive plenty of catalyst to allow a whole host of unanticipated chemical reactions to happen. My whole fuel system was full of these types of growths on very critical functioning fuel system components, and functionality was severely degraded as a result. Take that for what it's worth!



If I were going to use veggie oil on a vehicle I would move toward a different type of injection strategy-namely one that totally volatalizes the fuel so it was be combusted in a completely homogenous form as an percentage of total fuel delivered to the engine. For instance use the injection system in the car to control start of injection timing, and allow it to supply 100% of total fuel need for initial startup and warm up. Once things are warmed up and ready to go, introduce the volatalized gasseous veggie oil into the engine but limit it to only 40-60% of the total fuel introduced. This way it would allow you to supplement your normal fuel of choice(D2, or bioD) with the veggie oil and not cause issues to fuel system components, and be introduced in a way that the vehicle can readily make use of it. I have created a prototype and experimented with a system just like this during my work for a company to create a fuel saving device. I was never able to finish that project for that company since they terminated that part of their business, but what I learned is still fresh in my mind.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by Josh8loop

It also gums up the piston rings, and can cause them to not move like they should.

Try water injection.

If you dont want stuff growing in your fuel tank add diesel to your wvo.

[Josh8loop]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Try water injection.

If you dont want stuff growing in your fuel tank add diesel to your wvo.

I've done the water injection/decarbonization as seen here, and I fully believe in it's benefits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugn8TI0TMio

Also, I did actually add D2 to my WVO-I mostly ran 50/50, and still had funky stuff growing

The diesel obviously in my case help-there was still dissolved catalyst( brass, copper etc) in the WVO and combined with elevated fuel temperatures and exposure to air it caused polymerization in my tank and other fuel system components. Plastic tanks, plastic fuel lines, and stainless steel based fuel injection systems would be better at alleviating this type of condition I should think. Maybe that's why some powerstroke guys have had much better luck with it.

..

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Josh8loop

I also noticed growth in the steel fuel tank. There were large flakes of reddish brown gunk that was coating the inside of the fuel tank, and was the worst where the fuel met air inside the tank. This was what was clogging my filters so frequently. I knew my fuel going into the tank didn't have that junk in it when it was going into the tank, so what gives??

It's bacterial growth, but there is some anti-bacterial stuff that you can add to the tank / WVO to kill off bacterial growth before it even gets started.


These critters will get anywhere, and grow anywhere, given the right conditions.
WVO is a treat for them.
Add a bit of water, heat, and the stage is set.

[oil pan 4]

I have a mostly factory fuel system with the minimum of added copper and brass fittings and I dont heat the fuel, also only rarely run 25% or more WVO.
I have never had any problem like that.

A little bit of methanol will kill pretty much anything.

I should bore scope my intake runners now that I have been running water injection. Hmmm....

[james.lafrance]

Good to know, thanks folks. I haven't noticed any growth or build up in my little tank, but I will take a good look again later, and see if i can get a 'swab' sample of the side or bottom of it. As far as the WVO gumming stuff up, well the only problem i've had was the failure of the selector valve, that i found upon examination after taking it out that it had a 'gummed' up internals, but i did not test it to see if it was actually ceased. the other factor to that problem was a small rub in the fuel line going to engine had developed an air leak.
with that in mind, and from what ive seen with WVO, when WVO is exposed to air it gels and gums up, but if left in an air tight vessel that gumming and such NEVER occurs. also there are hundreds of different types of VOs that are used for frying, and your climate is a factor, as well as a few other variables....peanut, soy, coconut, olive, corn, rapeseed, hemp, jathro, there's a bunch of different types of oil that a WVO enthusiast can run into and each has similar yet DIFFERENT characteristics... there are ways to test your oil to determine: free fatty acids, Ph, viscosity, etc. on top of that you have to deal with the human factor- EVERY BATCH is different. each restaurant has different chefs, and different chefs fry different things, and change their oil at different times, etc. one may have a lot of FFA and one might have alot of water cooked in it. i can't say that I practice what I preach 100% but I am aware of it and try to KNOW MY OIL and know what it is i'm gonna be putting in my engine that i rely on getting to work with.

Now for the 'decarbonization'. I haven't learned to much about that one, but right now i'm not fully convinced. is this a process for newer engines or is it something that will work on all diesels? what about this on a gas engine?

The only experience i have with MIXING WVO is a 50/50 blend with Kero. I used this on an oil fired furnace in my home for a winter. I had problems with it lighting, but ran good for most of the winter. I ended up using a small container of heat fuel (diesel) to start it and then would switch to my blend (same theory as in the vehicle minus a heat exchange). towards the end of the winter i began to have problems with it even running consistently on heat fuel. then again that aint a diesel, it's a whole nother animal... but i did learn something there.

IMO, i've learned that heated diesel fuel (say diesel you put in your WVO tank) will pass by the pistons and mix or displace your engine oil. A very bad thing to occur. so unless you heat your setup with electric, or have valves & bypasses on your 'engine coolant' heated WVO lines, with out having a way to turn off the heat i wouldn't run diesel through it, straight or mixed. that's my opinion, but it is fact that heated diesel will go past the pistons and its bad.

now josh8loop, i like what your talking about in regards to the complete combustion/''volitalization'' that's needed. Possibly injector work, tighter springs in them would mean higher pressure, meaning more complete mist, right? water vapors help this process? why not just use a nebulizer and have real true vapors going in there? if it can all be burned then there will be nothing left to 'polimerize' inside the engine, problem solved. hah

thanks folks, good food for thought!

[oil pan 4]

I tore down my diesel in 2009 and I had burned a lot of WVO and there were no signs of WVO gunk build up and this was long before I ran water injection.

You have to be carefull what you fumigate your intake with, vaporized WVO wont have much detonation resistance.

Water injection works on cleaning diesel and gas engines, wind sheild washer fluid works better because it has alcohol and soap on it.
Water injection does not appear to boost fuel economy on gas engines.

[james.lafrance]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

I tore down my diesel in 2009 and I had burned a lot of WVO and there were no signs of WVO gunk build up and this was long before I ran water injection.

What's "a lot"?

You have to be carefull what you fumigate your intake with, vaporized WVO wont have much detonation resistance.

what does that mean? detonation resistance?

Water injection works on cleaning diesel and gas engines, wind sheild washer fluid works better because it has alcohol and soap on it.
Water injection does not appear to boost fuel economy on gas engines.

are you familiar with Tom Ogel's work back in the 60's [or 50's?] ? From what i understand his device would 'vaporize' water and would be compressed by an AC compressor and directed into the engine. I'm sure i have some of the story wrong here, you should look it up your self, but he managed to get 100+ mpg on a gasoline studebaker that weighed roughly the same as a Hummer. Just by vaporizing and compressing water and/or gas. I'd say 100+ mpg on something that would of got less then 20 is a boost to fuel economy. I looked up his original patents, but had a hard time understanding it completely, so i didn't retain the info, but it's out there. oh watch that movie called "gashole", he was mentioned in there.

James.

[oil pan 4]

I ran many gallons of WVO, in the hundreds. Aside from making note of how much WVO I added to a tank of fuel to track MPGs I never bothered to track it.

Detonation resistance in fuel is the same concept as octane in gasoline. Diesel, kerosene, vegetable oil or any fuel molecule that is in a long thin hydrocarbon chain or fatty acid chain typically do not handle being compressed and heated in the presence of air.
Naturally detonation resistant fuels are short hydrocarbon chains like those found in propane, butane and a lot of the HxCx chains found in gasoline tend to have good detonation resistance.
Fuel molecule that are in clumps or rings tend to have excellent detonation resistance, fuels like methane, methanol, most of your alcohols are clumps. Benzene, acetone are rings. Both groups have "octane" ratings well over 100.
Natural gas, methanol, ethanol and propane are what you typically fumigate diesel intakes with to boost power and/or fuel economy.

If you feed a low octane fuel in high enough concentration into a diesel it will all ignite well before the piston reaches top dead center.

Water injection has been used on carburetors to lean the mixture, cool combustion temps and reduce pumping losses there for boosting fuel economy.
These days we use computer controlled lean burn and replace the water with EGR.
The only data I have found shows experiments with water injection on gassers producing lower fuel economy.

FEeding an engine hot humid air appears to give better FE.