1993 mercedes w124 diesel auto how to
 

trying a few different styles of ecodriving with my automatic 200D


last 3 fillups i tried with the tiniest amount of throttle i could give :snail:
steady throttle during uphills, only accelerate downhill if possible,
the result was 38.8 mpg (US), 6.1 L/100 km


next 3 fillups I will try more of a pulse and glide style with full throttle accelerations still doing my best to otherwise ecodrive the same way as last 3 fillups

(aparently I need to make 5 post before i can post pictures of her so we will wait for that)

cheers/Johan

Welcome to the forum. The mods never seem to mind if a real person, who is not marketing a product either, posts a few dummy posts just to get to the 5 post point. Feel free. I'd love to see your pictures.

thank you California98Civic, also wonder if I am the one driving the oldest car here on this forum haha!

I also wonder why it is that introductions must be checked by admin, seems a little strange when I can post these other forums, also a scangauge does nothing for this pure mechanical car, nowere to plug it in haha

Hello and welcome!!! Not sure if pulse and glide will work on your car. It usually works well with overmotorized cars and will have no effect on undermotorized cars, which is quite the case of your car.

To me you should accelerate strongly (80% of gas pedal, not flooring) between 2 and 3000rpm when you want to get your speed, and after that anticipate the maximum, use engine brake and not normal brakes (so decelerating earlier).
Your only potential for me is in reducing speed and anticipating.

Hi and thank you for the welcome :thumbup:

well that is sortof what i mean by "pulse and glide" give throttle to kickdown (no kickdown) wich is about 80% throttle and glide as long I can

she can really glide long way, being a slippery car, especially if there is slight downhill and this is what I use a lot already :)

right now I am reading on the forum: How to Eco-drive the VW PD TDI Diesel by COcyclist and I am guessing my car will have similar driving style.

the difference is that my car is automatic wich will make coasting in neutral very bad.
this will negate that part of fuel saving measures from that are possbile with manual transmission

5 post wehoo :thumbup::) time to show you how she looks right now

https://i.postimg.cc/G3yzyQwW/20200430-143144.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/s2W1cvjg/20200501-153838.jpg

spring change is on the meny since I am scraping a lot of places where I drive

also a dream would be to reach a milage of 5.4liter/100km (43.5 US mpg) this is what i got from my w201 I had about 8-9 years ago with the same engine and it was manual

one must dream anyway :)

Didn't know the 200D also had automatic transmission available

it does, is atleast here in europe :thumbup: other side of the pond I think this engine is very unususal and non existent with automatic :D

some also say this is underpowered but in my opinion it is not :confused: I can drive way faster than speed limits and it is just on really rough hills i need full throttle to keep speed :thumbup: but for sure it is no racercar

AFAIK there are some in Argentina and Uruguay.


Nobody should hold high performance expectations for a naturally-aspirated and relatively small Diesel from the '80s and early '90s, but they provided a reasonable performance for a daily driver.

That is so true or like someone else said:

She won't win any races but she will run forever

The thing with old NA diesels is simplicity, longevity, durability and sometimes pretty good fuel consumption

You can tune a NA diesel with exhaust, port/polish and injection pump modification, just like any NA gas engines

only injection pump modification is known to yield up to Around 50hp/liter and this is on peugeot, citroen, VAG 1.6(75-80hp) and 1.9 (85-95hp) stock they had 1.6 (54hp) and 1.9 (75hp) but it is costly :(

Have you ever tried making diesel from vegetable oil?

If you mean biodiesel or FAME then no, impossible to get hold of the chemicals needed for it here

If you mean blending the yes, have probably blended for more than 100 000km in total (62 000miles) over the last 12 years both with SVO and WVO

with only this car I have alrady blended for 10 051km, actually have a blend between kerosene(ULSD) 45% and unused canola oil 55% in the fueltank right now

That's why some of them still held some popularity among customers with a more traditional profile until Euro-4 pulled the plug on the Peugeot DW8 and Euro-5 led to the demise of road-going versions of the Volkswagen 2.0 SDI.


While reaching some gasser-like specific power could appeal to a broader public as it did with the increased presence of turbochargers and common-rail injection, I wouldn't hold my breath for a high-cost tuning in a non-turbo Diesel to get so much attention from folks who would never even lurked about owning a Diesel-powered vehicle before.

That is not my intention at all, getting attention from others that is.... just find technology and tuning facinating (and enjoy more power) and plan on doing this to my car later sometime.

The thing is many people think it is impossible to tune diesels without turbo and get a more drivable car, wich is far from the truth, but it is quite expensive, turbo is always a lot cheaper...

I didn't mean to say that you would be looking to get attention from others, even though a tuned naturally-aspirated Diesel could be a good way to start some random talks and maybe convince some folks that Diesel is not evil at all. But you know, some people simply look at the power figures and ignore any benefit a no-frills Diesel could get them.


And a stronger sales argument for the automakers.

the frills with a diesel like this is in the calm you get when driving because you cannot hurry even if you try LOL :D and the easy/cheap maintenance :thumbup: (and also low fuel consumption)

people today want to hurry everywhere, preferably in a car that drive itself and drives very fast, turbo is better for people like that...


the thing i can say about dieselhaters is: try to smell the exhaust of a old diesel that runs on wvo/svo, never heard anyone complain about that haha :D

It's not so much the smell.

It's the deep-lung particulates.

well my response to that is:
1. mine is prechamber(one of the last prechamber engines in fact) so way less particles :thumbup: much better swirl inside combustion chamber than ever possbile on direct injection, this also makes these stock engine possbile to rev to about 6000-7000 rpm with relative ease if you adjust the governor (try that with direct injecton diesel HAHA!) but the downside to this is these engines are less fuel efficient and more complicated/expensive to build

2.no particule filter so the particles are big enough to get caught by your Cilium in your nose and throat before reaching the lungs :thumbup: the thing is just because something is invisible to your naked eye doesnt make it gone or harmless, it might actually be the oposite :rolleyes:

Do such blends pollute less? Is it cheaper to run?

yes it does, burning biodegradable oil instead of fossil fuel is better, less soot and more power, atleast compared to the kerosene"diesel" we have here :thumbup:

yes, saves me quite a bit of money since I only buy canola oil when it is on promo and cheaper than the gas station crap :)

hopefully my friend will start filtering his WVO so i can start with that(even cheaper) before it gets cold again :D

the downside is that winter is no good with blending, oil turns into butter instead of liquid.... and we all know that fuel lines in traditional cars can only transport liquids right? :(

another downside is how BLENDING ONLYS WORKS ON OLD CARS like mine with mechanical fuel injection and preferably prechambers, common rail and all these electrical injection systems cannot handle the increase in viscosity, so the limit is said to be cars built around year 1995 and earlier or thereabout, it depends on the car. Some might even be earlier (or later)

I admire these cars and their reputation for reliability. Wouldn't mind owning one someday.

The thread reminds me of pgfpro, who was running an Eagle Talon on paint thinner. Cool stuff.

I think my car is capable of burning ethanol but I guess there's really no cost/efficiency savings to that.

I Like these cars A LOT. The W123 and W124 in particular. I drove a manual 250D once, it gives a very robust feeling. And that sound, wow. The quality of those cars are from a very high level, so congratulations for owing a car like that. Hopefully I can say the same someday!

Like the Toyota Hilux that Top Gear couldn't wreck, these
Merc's are indestructible too. I remember Fifth Gear tried it with a 250D. Only downside is that they rust easily.

Old-school indirect-injection Diesel engines actually get a better mileage with vegetable oils than with either regular Diesel fuel or biodiesel.

It depends, there used to be many vegoilforums, but now many are gone.... most people there reported same fuel milage or slightly worse with vegoil compared to diesel but this was about 10 years ago :eek: (damn i am getting old)

All i know for sure is that the kerosene "diesel" in gas stations here is a lot worse than vegoil, hvo and real diesel from rest of europe/the world

Have you tried blending? Most gas cars can handle 20-40% E85 and usually there is no ill effect in fuel consumption until about 35% E85 blend



I like them too, that is why i have two :D perfect when driving long distances, quiet and comfortable, my former cars (volvo 240) are also legendary but a lot louder, a bit too loud for comfort when driving long distances like I do now

Like with all old cars rust is the biggest enemy :(

Thank you guys :thumbup:

With emissions compliance being developed only around regular Diesel fuel and occasionally some low biodiesel blends, such outcome is quite predictable, not to mention the unfair regulations preventing older cars to access central areas of some cities due to their emissions certification even if they can be easier to adapt to use a less-polluting fuel.


With direct injection it usually increases fuel consumption while using veg oil, while the opposite happens for IDI.

So time for an update, getting used to her now and with more low throttle power from removing throttle plate.

my driving is most of the time letting up the throttle enough to make the autobox shift at around 2500rpm and also coasting as much as possible, accelerating is still heavy on throttle (and same uphill) most of the time my speed is 75-85km/h, the speedlimit is mostly 80km/h so I follow traffic rythm pretty well