1.6D Fiesta bike build

[Tetronator]

Maybe buy/build an cheap enfield diesel or similar something to cut down on fuel costs in the meanwhile?

Thinking bang-for-buck here, just to get you going.

I'd hate to see this end.

[dieseltech]

Damn it all, it's really not about the fuel cost. Man, how I wish that was my only worry.

Also, "cheap enfield diesel" are, IMO, 3 words that should never appear in a single sentence, let alone consecutively - in the last few years, I've only encountered 1 or 2 diesel Enfields put up for sale in Poland, and the price was so ridiculous, that they might've as well been made out of solid unobtainium.
Seriously, it was so expensive, that price would've been enough to buy a similar used petrol bike in a good condition, and ~4-5 thousand liters of fuel for it - easily enough to last the life of the bike.

Back to the point now...

(I'll use PLN here because it's more pertinent; 1USD ~= 3.8PLN, but that's a big fat lie - if you take the difference in average incomes into account, it's much closer to 1USD ~= 2PLN, or even less)

Let me put a few things in perspective here.
Let's start with cars, because that hits closer to home:
Total operating cost (TOC) per kilometer = 0.7PLN (IIRC) - that's the value currently mandated by law, for purposes of compensation, if you're using your own car for work-related duties (commuting to/from work doesn't count, though!).
That value includes pretty much all the expenses: amortized purchase cost, fuel, consumables (ie. tires, brake pads, etc.), maintenance, insurance, and so on.

The actual TOC ranges from ~0.5PLN/km for bloody capitalist sardine cans (think Smart(*), Tico, Matiz, etc.), to well over 1PLN/km for "luxury" cars. The "average" car falls roughly into the ~0.6-0.85 range, so that 0.7 value is fairly representative, even if a bit on the low side.

Interestingly, based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations, it's fairly independent of whether that's a brand new car, or a used one - in fact, it seems to be only weakly dependent on the age of the car in question.
Of course, it's a statistical measure - "your mileage may vary", heh.

(*): Fun fact - in Poland, the Smart is often derisively called "Smark", which means "(glob of) snot" in Polish.

Now, let's consider how much of that is due to the fuel:

My crumbling, ancient Astra 1.7D uses ~6.5L/100km in a mixed cycle of roughly 50:50 (on a per-kilometer basis) of stop-and-go traffic, and what passes for "highway" driving around here. I'm not counting the extra fuel used by the Webasto (as much as +4-6L/100km in the dead of winter), because that's not relevant here.
A modern car of similar size might use as little as half of that, gasser and diesel alike.

Current fuel prices are ~4.0PLN/L for diesel, and a little higher for gasoline, around 4.2-4.3 - but sometimes it's the other way around!

Doing the math, that works out to ~0.26PLN/km for my old beater, and maybe 0.15 or less for a new car.

Still a far cry from the 0.7PLN/km TOC mentioned earlier - most of the difference is due to the initial purchase cost, amortized over the useful life of the vehicle.


OK, now how does that play out for bikes?

A bike is considerably cheaper than a car. However, it's useful life is also a good deal shorter, so this contribution to the TOC is still of a similar magnitude as in the case of a car.
The fuel consumption for gasser bikes of reasonable size isn't much different than that of modern cars.
The maintenance costs are much higher, since the parts are ridiculously expensive compared to car parts, largely due to the economies of scale.
Fewer consumables are involved overall, but the tires wear out rather quickly, and are very expensive - a set of 4 decent car tires is less than 2/3 the cost of a set of 2 decent bike tires, and the car tires last a good few times longer!
The mandatory "OC" insurance isn't much cheaper than for cars, and for the large displacement bikes (>1L), is actually quite expensive. Especially when you consider the length of the riding season, and the fact that the average biker does a lot less kilometers annually than the average car driver.
Do not even think about the optional "AC" insurance - that covers things such as theft, and costs an arm, a leg, and a kidney.

Also, the cost of just keeping the bike around: not everyone lives at a house with a garage attached - and renting a garage, or a spot at a guarded parking lot, isn't exactly cheap either.

So actually, the TOC for bikes tends to be similar to that for cars.
Maybe somewhat lower in the most optimal case - if you ride your bike a lot, do the repairs/maintenance yourself, keep the bike at your own attached garage, and are not at a substantial risk of theft.

Again, the contribution due to the fuel cost isn't all that great.


*******************************************************

For the time being, I've already made arrangements to hit the road (hopefully not literally!) by borrowing my friend's XVS650 - he hardly ever uses it anyway.

Already fixed the carb a few weeks ago (was faulty, and quite messed up - plugs totally black with pure soot!). Might have to rejet back to stock, too, as it seems to have been refitted with bigger jets by the previous owner - thankfully we also have the stock jets in our possession.
One of the ignition coils (a non-OEM replacement by the previous owner) is almost completely dead - misfires badly under load, and has visible arcover on the outside surface; already ruled out everything else. I have plans to replace it next Saturday, maybe.


*******************************************************

Trust me, I'm not happy about the prospect of abandoning this build, either.

But the situation is looking increasingly hopeless. In fact, I'd say that "hopeless" is a bit too optimistic in this case.

The worst thing is, there isn't quite a single factor (or even a small group of factors) that can be singled out as being THE main obstacle(s). That would be too easy, because it would be simple (at least in principle) to work towards eliminating these obstacles.
Rather, it's a case of a lot of relatively minor problems, which, when gathered together, become an apparently invincible mass.

It's like shoveling snow from a driveway - it's not excessively hard to clear away 5, or even 10cm of snow, even though it might be a lot of effort.
But this is more like trying to clear a driveway that's covered in packed snow a few meters deep - an essentially futile undertaking.

Well, there is actually a single factor that it can be invariably reduced to: cold, hard cash - which actually tends to solve most problems, when thrown at them in sufficient quantities.
However, it's in fairly short supply, and this is very unlikely to change for the better, so there's that.


Again, let me reiterate this:
It's not about lacking the funds to buy parts and materials needed for the bike. That's not the issue, especially since that naturally tends to be hugely spread out in time.
The big problem is lacking many of the tools required, and a place to keep them (a good workshop) - and, in direct consequence, the obscene amount of money that this requires, far in excess of the cost of actually building the bike itself.

Buying that big 270L compressor, and modifying it for my needs, was a good start - but taken in context, it's more like a single step on a long-ass trip.

Also, above everything else, I'm very, very tired of constantly having to fight pretty much everything at more-or-less every step along the way.

As recently as yesterday, I had to fix a broken tool, which was needed to use another tool, in order to perform a single step towards making one of a few of the parts required to repair another makeshift tool, which can then be used to make some of the parts for the bike, and also some of the parts for other tools required (well, you get the point). As a result of that, I only got about half of the planned amount of work done.
And yet, that was what I would call a fairly good day. You can probably imagine what the "bad" days are like.

[Tetronator]

Such a shame, hope you get to use your friend's bike then.

I was thinking more along the lines of ;
Due to the simpler nature of an diesel enfield(or similar) you'd be able to build it with less tooling. If those expensive diesel enfields
you talked about sell, you could even sell your own build diesel enfield once you're done with it. Maybe even break even on the costs.

Then again, as you stated, cash is not your only problem. But a simple build like this might be the little fun you need?

Hoping for the best here.

[dieseltech]

Eh, just thinking about all of this makes me more depressed.

In the end, I'd say it all comes down to the amount of effort required, relative to the benefits.

Which would you say is better? A difficult, backbreaking job, or an easy, undemanding one, if both result in about the same salary, and both are available to you?
It's pretty much the same here: do I stay true to my preferences - knowing that doing so will cause me more suffering, without fail - or do I renounce them in order to actually move on?

That's very much the case here.
And let me tell you, if the situation is such that it can be actually improved by first throwing out everything you did and worked for so far, that really makes you wonder where exactly did everything start to go wrong.
Sadly, this is far from the first time, and certainly not the last, that I've been in such a situation, and dealt with in such a way. So at least it's nothing new to me.

A common pattern I had noticed in my life, is that even otherwise "fun" things stop being any fun whatsoever, and in fact become pretty much the exact opposite of "fun", once your ambitions begin to significantly exceed what the circumstances allow.
And, just like cancer, it tends to creep up on you slowly and insidiously - unnoticeable at first, and usually devastating and hopeless by the time you figure out what's actually going on.

Case in point, #0:
This build, I guess?
'Nuff said.

Case in point, #1:
A long time ago (long before the Internet was even a thing around here - would be a good few years before we even got our first dial-up connection), I started messing around with electronics.
The total "work area" I had available in our small, cramped flat was effectively less than a square meter.
I started out with fairly simple things of course, and gradually worked my way up with more complicated stuff.
Eventually got into the microcontroller field as well - quite a game-changer in its own right. And that was more than 10 years before the advent of the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and other such things!

Fast forward to present day.
It's fairly safe to say that I'm very good at this - not ALL the fields of course, just the ones I consider relevant to my purposes - which means mostly embedded systems (8-bit AVR only), power processing (in a fairly broad sense, including switchmode power supply design), analog signal handling and processing (but no RF stuff!), and a bunch of other "odds and ends", in no particular order.

There's just a "small" problem (literally)...
...I still only have under a square meter to work with. Please just kill me already.

While it certainly is a case of "performing amazing feats considering the limitations given", that's totally overlooking the issue of the sanity-destroying aspects of having only such a tiny space (and - for the most part - craptastic tools) to work with.
As a result, the prospect of actually wrapping up the 5 or so major electronics projects I have "in progress" as of right now, is looking about as preferable as the prospect of setting myself on fire, repeatedly, until cooked alive. Or stabbing myself in the eyeballs with a broken bone ripped out from a rotting corpse. Or... well, you get the idea.
Not to even mention thinking about starting another project...

Case in point, #2:
There are a few qualities I'd like to have in my car - it should be a simple, old, reliable IDI diesel (no frills) station wagon, require minimal maintenance, have a useful corrosion life of >40 years (so effectively, a "for life" deal - no mean feat, considering the mountains of salt present on the roads in winter), absolutely minimal electronics, and preferably be affordable to buy and operate - although if it had all the other qualities, I'd be more than willing to pay a higher cost.
Output power is largely irrelevant - even a 1.6D NA IDI engine would be perfectly fine for my needs.

A W123, or even a W124, would fit the bill nicely in most respects - except for the corrosion issue. Dammit.

The Audi 80 B4, with its zinc-plated carbody, is also a close contender, but an engine swap would be required (ie. for the older B3 IDI diesel), since IIRC the B4's only had the throttle-by-wire TDI's as the only diesel options. Also, this car has its own share of deficiencies, as well - and in any case, the resulting lifetime requirement would still be a massive challenge for the carbody, zinc-plated or not.

That pretty much leaves a plastic bodied, metal framed car, with its nonstructural outer paneling and nondecorative, normally-unseen load-bearing structure.
There are a few viable options here, including the venerable Trabant station wagon, but pretty much none of them involve a diesel of any kind.

An engine swap is of course a viable possibility, but that requires a suitably equipped, fairly large workshop before anything else.
At least in case of the Trabant, major frame repair and alterations would be required also, again requiring the right equipment, and a lot of workshop space to do this properly.

In the end, the initial cost would be at least as much as that of a new car, but the operating costs could be made competitive, and it would be potentially far more durable and reliable. Sounds like a win to me...

...except that this is effectively forever out of my grasp, because the one major condition required - a suitably large (for car work!), well equipped workshop - is just never going to happen.
Certainly not within a timeframe which would allow finishing the car within my lifetime, with a reasonable margin to actually get any benefit from it.

As a final nail in the coffin, even if I actually had a suitable workshop (by some sort of miracle no doubt), the sheer amount of work involved would mean that doing this, and working a full-time job as well, would be effectively impossible. And without a full-time job, there would be no hope of even just paying the bills.


**********************************************

Well, the one good thing in all of this, is that I now have a good reference point for knowing what to NOT even try doing, given my circumstances.

Unfortunately, it seems to include nearly everything that would be actually meaningful to do.
Oh, my...

[Tetronator]

Well, I don't want to make you depressed...

Isn't moving to a new house an option to solve your workplace requirements? Sounds like you'd need it, not only for the dieselbike.
...but then you run into the money/time problem. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Doubt you'd want to build an ratbike, those can be made REAL cheap and in no time whatsoever.


Modern cars are shite, second reason I do not own one myself.
First being the ridiculous road taxes here.

They've "recently" pretty much outlawed the old merc diesels here.

[dieseltech]

Well, I don't want to make you depressed...

No worries there, buddy - I seriously doubt you could make it significantly worse, even if you tried.

Isn't moving to a new house an option to solve your workplace requirements? Sounds like you'd need it, not only for the dieselbike.
...but then you run into the money/time problem. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Well, the "fun" part is - even if I somehow ended up in posession of a suitable house at no cost whatsoever (say, won it in a lottery, or something), then after paying the bills, fuel cost (for heating), expenses related to car ownership, and other basic neccesities, I'd be left with pretty much nothing to spare at best - or with a crippling debt at worst.

At my workplace, a lot of people are working overtime, usually a total of 10hrs/day instead of 8 - not because they have to (as in, requested by the management/boss), but because they have to, in order to be able to make ends meet.
As for me, it's not really an option - the state of my health pretty much rules that out in the long term, even though my job isn't really very demanding by normal standards.
With things as they are, I consider these extra 2 hours far more valuable than what I'd actually get paid for them.

In the end, that workshop I mentioned, is pretty much the only solution which is even remotely workable, even if it's a huge compromise.

Doubt you'd want to build an ratbike, those can be made REAL cheap and in no time whatsoever.

Nailed it.
As far as I'm concerned, for the amount of effort it actually involves, the results aren't worth it.
Also, that would not go over very well when attempting to actually register such an abomination.

Finally, "penny wise, pound foolish" - I've long ago learned, multiple times, the hard way (most of the time), that "going cheap" tends to be very, very expensive in the long run, and must be rigorously avoided.
(naturally, not limited to vehicles)

Modern cars are shite, second reason I do not own one myself.

+1 on that...

But that nonetheless raises a huge problem for me, and most of the people I know: once our trusty old clunkers finally exhaust their usable lifespan, then what?

That's actually one (but only one) of the major reasons for my depression - my car has, at best only a few years left, and when it finally dies, dafuq am I supposed to replace it with??? (and pay for it with what?)
(BTW, just to clarify: our winters make it outright impossible to ride a bike 365 days per year, mainly due to the amounts of snow and ice involved; a car is absolutely essential)


*******************************************************************

Well, today sure was an eventful day.

Finally some good news: I've finally managed to get that XVS650 into a more-or-less usable condition.
The previous owner had been fooling around with the carb jetting, and it was way out of whack (#122.5 main instead of stock #90, also a #35 pilot instead of #20...).

Incidentally, that moron also installed a KN(?) racing air "filter". Which is only good at "filtering" large rocks from the airflow.
If you hold it to the light, it's like a kitchen sieve - full of holes! And yes, they're all like that, even when brand new.
When I reverted that garbage back to the stock paper filter setup some 3 years ago (at the current owner's request), the airbox was so full of sand and other crap, that a better name for it would've been "sandbox".
That certainly did the engine a lot of good.
Call me radical - and you'd be right, no less - but IMO, people who install these "racing" non-filters in street vehicles (not for any actual racing) should be immediately and unceremoniously executed by a shot to the back of the head. (In Poland, we have our own expression for that - "they should all be sent to Sachsenhausen" - which amounts to more or less the same thing.)

Went back to stock jetting - MUCH better.
No longer hacks and wheezes badly above ~75km/h, but now I have flames shooting out of the exhaust pipes when closing the throttle, and I think the stock #90 main jet might be actually a bit too small. Needs more high-speed testing.
Also, I had to move the jet needles to the richest (5th) groove, to make the engine run even close to "properly". Odd.

On the other hand, even with the #20 pilot, the idle air screws are out by 3.5 turns (normal = ~2), and it's still a bit rich.
Even unscrewing them a good few turns still doesn't lean it out enough to drop the RPMs any. Dafuq? Stock pilot still too big?

I think a large part of the remaining problem might be due to the exhaust pipes. Not stock.
It had stock pipes when bought, but they were rusted through, and the replacement pipes are different - unrestricted constant diameter glasspacks, as opposed to the stock "tin can" mufflers.
Apparently, these can mess up the carburation in all sorts of weird and wonderful (?) ways (never a problem in a good old diesel... ehh...).

I'll be messing around with the carb settings a bit more next time, after extensive on-the-road testing at more representative speeds.
According to my initial testing (hard accel up to ~80km/h in low gears), it should already be easily "good enough" to at least allow me to hit the road for the duration of the riding season.
And if I consider it worthwhile, or neccessary, I could overhaul the carbs during the winter months.


*******************************************************************

For now, I'm considering the possibility of converting an existing large (800-1200cc) bike V-twin engine to diesel.

Obviously, the compression would have to be kept fairly low, probably no more than 14-16:1.

Most likely an IDI arrangement - maybe with an OM60x-style prechamber arrangement screwed in place of spark plug? (bonus of getting near-DI performance with IDI technology...)
If bad comes to worse, the cylinder head would have to be completely redesigned (and remade!). Best avoided.

With that level of compression, DI would actually be more suitable, but it's too impractical - and too expensive - to implement "from scratch" like that.

Ideally, reuse existing pistons if possible... although rather unlikely.

The other major challenge - arranging the injection pump to be driven from the engine somehow. Preferably in a way that allows for proper RPM-dependent injection advance, unless already provided internally by the pump itself.
Also, obtaining/making a suitable pump for a non-90-degree V-twin, or even any V-twin to begin with.
Avoid electronic controlled injection if at all possible...

Actually, a Bosch VE pump from a 5-cylinder engine could be used, without substantial modification, in a 72-degree V-twin... (use outputs #1 and #3, connect remaining outputs to the fuel return line)
With a custom ground camplate ($$$!), and the 5-cyl pump head, it should be possible to allow for a V-twin angle from the range of ~65-80 degrees, or perhaps even a little broader range.

Individual-element (ie. inline) pumps are best avoided here, because of the mechanical difficulty of providing the required variable injection advance in the very limited amount of available space.

[Tetronator]

But that nonetheless raises a huge problem for me, and most of the people I know: once our trusty old clunkers finally exhaust their usable lifespan, then what?

That's actually one (but only one) of the major reasons for my depression - my car has, at best only a few years left, and when it finally dies, dafuq am I supposed to replace it with??? (and pay for it with what?)
(BTW, just to clarify: our winters make it outright impossible to ride a bike 365 days per year, mainly due to the amounts of snow and ice involved; a car is absolutely essential)

Global warming has killed our winters, you can ride year round if you don't mind road salt.

VW beetle diesel conversion maybe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiELDpBjiqQ

Finally some good news: I've finally managed to get that XVS650 into a more-or-less usable condition.
...
but now I have flames shooting out of the exhaust pipes when closing the throttle
...
I think a large part of the remaining problem might be due to the exhaust pipes. Not stock.

Well 'dere's yer problem. The 'after-fire' is just the good 'ol non-catalytic converter burning off un-burnt fuel.
Jus' being environmentally friendly, am-i-rite?

Honda Shadows are infamous for doing this, including mine. Not sure about Dragstars tough.

For now, I'm considering the possibility of converting an existing large (800-1200cc) bike V-twin engine to diesel.

This man, I like how he thinks. Keep us posted.

[UAofE]

Global warming has killed our winters

Outright BS.

[Tetronator]

Global warming has killed our winters

Outright BS.

M'kay, "something" killed our winters. Better?

[gearhead1951]

Dieseltech , If you are for real about converting an existing engine to diesel you should consider starting with the largest displacement engine available after market !!

An S&S 1500 -2000 cc should have stout enough main bearings to support a 1000 -1200 diesel top end and a pair of yanclone cylinders , heads and pistons paired with a set of HD pattern con rods built for drag racing !

This combo should (on paper) result in a usable , reliable diesel !! Expensive though unless you are one hell of a horse trader and get shitfaced lucky !!

Good luck and let us know how it works out if you try it !!

[dieseltech]

Well 'dere's yer problem. The 'after-fire' is just the good 'ol non-catalytic converter burning off un-burnt fuel.
Jus' being environmentally friendly, am-i-rite?

Honda Shadows are infamous for doing this, including mine. Not sure about Dragstars tough.

Uh, no - there's no 'cat' on that bike. Not on any of our vehicles either, for that matter.

Do they even do any good on a carburated engine?
I was always under the impression that they needed a precise, near-stoich A/F ratio in order to do any good at all, instead of melting into a pile of scrap metal...

Back on topic - AFAIK the flames are due to the A/F ratio getting way out of whack when the throttle is closed. Seems to be a limitation of slide carbs in general. (?)
(although my friend had an LPG(propane/butane) slide carb in his previous car, and it had no problem holding a near-perfect A/F ratio at all times - other than during starting, since it wasn't designed for starting the engine on LPG in any case)

I have yet to tackle the issue of the main jet size, maybe this weekend if the weather permits.
Hmm, I just realized that I forgot to readjust the idle air screws after messing around with the needle jets last time... maybe that's (at least part of) the reason for the flames and popping?

For now, I'm considering the possibility of converting an existing large (800-1200cc) bike V-twin engine to diesel.

This man, I like how he thinks. Keep us posted.

Well, I hate to disappoint, but I thought this over some more, and it's not looking good.

The problem, unsurprisingly, boils down to providing the appropriate pumping action, with the right (variable) timing.

Fact 1:
The Bosch VE5 pump has all the required functionality built in. Just drive it at camshaft speed (with fixed timing), and Bob's your uncle.
Even better, it the engine has a V-angle of 70...72...75 degrees, no internal pump modifications are needed ($$$$$!).

Fact 2:
Said pump is also unfortunately rather bulky, by motorcycle standards at least, and creates serious packaging issues.
Not only "where to put it to make it fit on the bike", but also "how not to make the engine an ugly mess" at the same time.

Fact 3:
The inline pumps, as used on most industrial constant speed diesels (ncluding the Punsuns), are fairly compact, simple, and relatively cheap.
In the Punsuns, it's effectively an inseparable part of the engine, being highly integrated into its structure - which also makes for a fairly tidy appearance.

Fact 4:
Unfortunately, these pumps SUCK for anything else than constant-speed operation - which is what they were explicitly designed for.
Since the mechanical timing is fixed, and the injection is also inevitably delayed by a near-constant time (which translates to an increasing angle as the RPMs increase), we get the exact opposite of what is required!
Instead of the timing getting more advanced with increasing engine speed, it gets more retarded.
So, we have a big compromise. Too retarded towards redline, way too advanced near idle.
Of course you can tweak the timing, hence moving the optimal operating point up or down, but it will never work well over the entire RPM range - which pretty much defeats the entire point of using a diesel in the first place.
(this would actually work quite well on a CVT-equipped bike, but that's not what I want)

Fact 5:
There is no feasible way to convert a Punsun to the proper variable timing - at least not without resorting to electronic engine control, at which point you might as well not even bother with the diesel anyway.

Fact 6:
With all of the above in mind, it doesn't make much sense to reinvent the wheel and try to squeeze a fixed-timing pump onto a formerly-petrol engine.
Might as well buy a Punsun and save yourself a lot of trouble - although the practicalities (and aesthetics) of this approach do leave much to be desired.
OTOH, slapping a VE5 on a formerly-petrol engine - I just don't see that happening in practice, certainly not on a bike at least.


Really, this is the kind of thing that's best done when designing an engine "from scratch".
Unfortunately, that's only plausible in a production context, since the costs involved in making even a single prototype engine would drive the average mortal to absolute ruin.
Also, since mechanically-controlled diesels have absolutely no future in "new" production road vehicles (barring some sort of Mad Max / Fallout post-apocalyptic scenario), the whole point is well and truly moot anyway.


And before anyone asks - no, I'm most certainly not interested in attempting to develop/manufacture/sell "modern" diesel bikes.
Even disregarding the prospective market (or lack thereof) for such a thing, the required emission controls would make it highly impractical, and far removed from the reliability and simplicity of an "old" diesel.
Finally, I already feel very dead inside without throwing most of my remaining principles out the window, thank you very much.

So, in the end this whole "conversion to diesel" idea not only totally falls flat on its face - it then gets thoroughly steamrolled flatter than a pancake.
Doable? Yes. Meaningful? Nope.

[klondikekid]

Off subject a bit, but makes me think of Oldsmobiles 350ci gas engine that they converted to diesel for the GM trucks, worked, but not the best.

[mark_in_manchester]

I have a friend - a Pole living in the UK - who covers very large distances on a Guzzi V50 with a Kubota Z482 twin diesel in it, using Guzzi gearbox and final drive. It does about 120mpg, 60mph, engines are common and reasonably cheap, the conversion can be done without stretching the frame, and it looks tidy. If I were going to build another diesel bike, that's what I would do. I know someone else with this engine in an Aixam micro-car which has covered more than 100,000 miles - it seems like a practical way forward. In fact, if I lived in Poland I might use the engine in the car in winter, and in the bike in summer

[Tetronator]

Well 'dere's yer problem. The 'after-fire' is just the good 'ol non-catalytic converter burning off un-burnt fuel.
Jus' being environmentally friendly, am-i-rite?

Honda Shadows are infamous for doing this, including mine. Not sure about Dragstars tough.

Uh, no - there's no 'cat' on that bike. Not on any of our vehicles either, for that matter.

...the good 'ol non-catalytic converter...

The joke, it went the way of the cat.

For now, I'm considering the possibility of converting an existing large (800-1200cc) bike V-twin engine to diesel.

This man, I like how he thinks. Keep us posted.

Well, I hate to disappoint, but I thought this over some more, and it's not looking good.

...

So, in the end this whole "conversion to diesel" idea not only totally falls flat on its face - it then gets thoroughly steamrolled flatter than a pancake.
Doable? Yes. Meaningful? Nope.

Well, I still like the idea... ...Also pancakes, I like pancakes.

Just a thought, I recalled this ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ehuvSfxuRI
Maybe an option?

[Tetronator]

I have a friend - a Pole living in the UK - who covers very large distances on a Guzzi V50 with a Kubota Z482 twin diesel in it, using Guzzi gearbox and final drive. It does about 120mpg, 60mph, engines are common and reasonably cheap, the conversion can be done without stretching the frame, and it looks tidy. If I were going to build another diesel bike, that's what I would do. I know someone else with this engine in an Aixam micro-car which has covered more than 100,000 miles - it seems like a practical way forward. In fact, if I lived in Poland I might use the engine in the car in winter, and in the bike in summer

https://picasaweb.google.com/p0088tata/ ... orItalians

'ere ya go.

[gearhead1951]

Ever see a "Rooseamaster" (I'm sure I've spelled that wrong) injection pump ? It's from the late '20s and is quite compact , In use for over 60 years on all types of diesels , designed for variable rpm use and was intended for 4 cylinder engines !

Might be possible to make one work on some thing other that a 90 degree twin or inline 4 !

[dieseltech]

Off subject a bit, but makes me think of Oldsmobiles 350ci gas engine that they converted to diesel for the GM trucks, worked, but not the best.

FWIW, it's much more feasible to convert a car engine to diesel, than a bike engine.

The form factor is about the same; really you just need a diesel head, and an injection pump; also, the aesthetics are largely noncritical.
Not really a plug-and-play kind of conversion, but quite doable nonetheless, given suitable resources.

In fact, the 1.7D engines in old Astras have a nearly identical block casting as the 1.6 petrol engines, it's obvious it was a "copy and paste" sort of deal.

NB, that kind of approach is quite common in engineering in general - why reinvent the wheel, when you already have a robust foundation to work off of?

...Kubota Z482 twin diesel...

Isn't that used in small forklifts? If that's the case, it pretty much has to be the definition of durability, to withstand the brutal operating conditions typical in forklift duty.
(devastatingly low power for a bike, though...)

No, the durability of these engines isn't an issue here.
In fact, I'm fairly sure that even a good air-cooled diesel would easily last my entire life in a bike application, except perhaps for a bit of leakage from the seals.

In any case, I'm drawing the lower limit at 0.8L displacement, and even that I'd consider very marginal at best.
That Z482, or a 1-cyl Punsun, would be OK for putting around town - but what I need is a consistent performance at 100km/h, uphill or not, and plenty of power to pass.

Unfortunately, around here, >95% of the roads outside cities are only 1+1 lane - the lanes themselves being way too narrow to pass anything wider than a bicycle/moped without fouling the oncoming lane (on a bike - forget about in a car!), the oncoming traffic tends to be very heavy, the visibility range is usually poor (lots of minor hills), and there is a good deal of obstructingly slow traffic - buses @70-80km/h, and total morons in cars @50-70, all in a 100km/h zone. (also, bloody slow tractors and combine harvesters during growing/harvest season!)
This is the kind of crap that I have to deal with.

...the good 'ol non-catalytic converter...

Well, I understood it as referring to a faulty/melted cat, which seems to be very common around here - the universally prevalent combination of poor fuel quality and very poor engine maintenance (usually oil burning, and/or faulty lambda sensor) tends to slaughter them in short order... hence the joke went right over my head.

Because of the high cost of replacement when it dies, the virtually total lack of legal enforcement in the private sector, and no perceived practical benefits of replacement - hey, the engine runs just fine, if not better, without it - a LOT of the cars in Poland have either a straight pipe section, or at least an empty can ("fake cat") or a regular muffler installed instead. (or, just the dead old cat - sometimes gutted - left in place to rot)
Same goes for DPFs, and other such nonsense.

I don't have any hard data on this, but I'd imagine that >95% of the market for brand new replacement cats/DPFs in Poland is driven by the industry, which is under much tighter legal pressure and scrutiny than the average joe in that respect - and also much more capable of coughing up the $$$ involved.
The remaining few % consisting of private vehicle owners that are either "eco-terrorists", or just completely clueless (is there even a difference between the two?).

In fact, there are many workshops in Poland (at least 1 in every decent sized city) that specialize exclusively in cat/DPF chops - including installing suitable "black box" electronic modules when appropriate, to fool the ECU into thinking that the exhaust system is totally unmodified, thus avoiding the dreaded "check engine" / "limp mode" issues in modern cars.
And trust me, they never complain of a lack of customers; a situation that's highly unlikely to change in the years to come.

Normally, the high scrap metal value (precious metals!) of a reasonably-intact cat offsets most, if not all, of the cost of removal - sometimes you even leave the workshop with more money than you entered with!
So there's a strong incentive to remove them long before they fail completely, too.

How's THAT for being "eco-friendly", huh?

Ever see a "Rooseamaster" (I'm sure I've spelled that wrong) injection pump ? It's from the late '20s and is quite compact , In use for over 60 years on all types of diesels , designed for variable rpm use and was intended for 4 cylinder engines !

Well, it it's from the twenties, it's very likely a variant of the inline pump.
The inlines normally don't have an internal timing advance mechanism - when it's present at all, it's usually located externally to the pump itself, typically inside the sprocket/gearwheel which drives the pump shaft, a prime example of this being the MB W123/W124 diesels.
The operating principle is very simple - it's basically just a beefy, scaled-up version of the centrifugal advance mechanism from a spark distributor.
Unfortunately, that tends to be rather bulky and heavy, considering that it has to transmit the entire power to drive the pump.

Also, keep in mind that in low RPM applications, even with variable speed (ie. farm tractor engines), the lack of variable timing is largely inconsequential.
During that era, a performance level of merely "making the engine start and run at all" was pretty much considered good enough, and the engines and injection systems were very crude in any case.

It's only above ~1.5-2k RPM where it begins to be significant enough to make a practical difference, and becomes very important when dealing with speeds of >3-4k RPM.

Might be possible to make one work on some thing other that a 90 degree twin or inline 4 !

Doing that with an inline pump involves, for a start, making a custom pump camshaft - the costs involved would be probably in the few hundred $ range; about as expensive (or slightly more so) than a fully custom camshaft for a car engine.

With a distributor-type pump, might as well forget about it, since a custom camplate/camring is required, most likely also a custom distributor head and plunger (matched set).
It's technically possible, of course, but the costs are in the range of a few thousand $ in the case of an axial-piston (camplate) pump, such as the Bosch VE.
Somewhat cheaper, maybe around $1-2k, with a radial-piston (camring) pump, ie. the Lucas DPC.

Note that it's only the cost of the camplate/camring. A custom distributor head and plunger set would be another few thousand $, due to the EXTREMELY accurate machining required.

How accurate? Let's put that into perspective:
There are no seals of any kind involved between the plunger and bore, other than the sealing provided by the very close fit between them, and yet the fuel leakage rate is on the order of only a couple of drops per minute... at pressures in the 150+bar range - many tens of times higher than the pressure of tap water!

Another way of putting that in perspective:
If you decreased the plunger diameter (or increased the bore dia.) by a few micrometers - that's roughly a few times less than the thickness of tinfoil - the leakage rate would be so high, that the parts would be only worth their value as scrap metal.

Yet another way:
The surface roughness typical of finish ground parts (such as the non-raceway surfaces on ball bearings, or the chromed OD of hydraulic cylinder rods / bike fork stanchions) is too rough for this application... by an order of magnitude.

(note: the above also applies to injector nozzle bore and pintle, same deal)

[dieseltech]

Well, this is it. End of the line.
Although it's more of a "derail, crash and burn" kind of stop, as opposed to actually arriving at the intended destination.

Effectively, this build is permanently and irrevocably dead, with no hope of any recovery.

I had considered writing a more detailed explanation for this hopeless predicament that I had found myself in, but in the end, it would've been very long, and mostly uninteresting.

Instead, I'll explain rather briefly:

The actual problems are fairly involved, but in the end, most of them reduce to being "simply" financial issues. Monumental financial issues, no less.
As for the remainder, well, let's just say that "with family like this, who needs enemies?".
Of course, all these problems are inseparably connected.

TL;DR - the important point is, no workshop for me.

The future is looking very bleak indeed. It's time for some blasphemy...

Let's just say that I'd consider it an excellent result, if I would manage to afford owning a relatively modest petrol bike, something along the lines of that XVS650 that I've temporarily borrowed from my friend.

As far as cars go, I've already had to renounce diesel power a good while ago, purely due to economic reasons - with the measly ~6kkm/year of driving that I do, owning, operating and maintaining a modern gasser is actually significantly cheaper in the long run, as opposed to a modern diesel.
I'm still driving my dilapidated, ancient 1.7D Astra, but that's purely in order to squeeze every last bit of economically useful life out of it.

All in all, it's far from the first time that I've been effectively forced to renounce what I held to be essentially core values, or to write off a major project as a total loss.
Knowing my rotten luck, certainly also not the last.

* * * * *

Well, that about wraps it up.

I'm now left with a large pile of various now-useless parts - a lot of them brand new - which I'll probably try selling in the future, to recover at least a bit of my losses, as well as freeing up very valuable storage space.

I've also got a whole bunch of 3D models that I made (in SolidWorks 2010 format), both of reverse-engineered parts, as well as my own designs; in varying degrees of completeness, and accuracy.
If anyone here feels like challenging fate, and hopes to succeed where I was thwarted, feel free to contact me, and you can have them.

[touchwoodsden]

Sad. RiP. Fiesta Diesel Bike Build