veg oil in a diesel?

[gsfighter]

can you run a diesel on veg oil alone? as long as you heat it first like wrapping a copper pipe around the exhaust and run it on diesel first till its hot then switch to veg oil with the use of twin tanks
you know just like the old petrol-paraffin tractors?

Dave

[oldbmw]

It depends on the vegetable oil. Some reclaimed oils are very prone to solidifying and they need the heating. For many pure virgin oils it is not necessary providing they are not brought to low temperatures. Try a bottle in the fridge to see if it solidifies or precipitates, personally I would always prefer to run with a mix of diesel fuel and veggie oil.

[coachgeo]

can you run a diesel on veg oil alone? as long as you heat it first like wrapping a copper pipe around the exhaust and run it on diesel first till its hot then switch to veg oil with the use of twin tanks
you know just like the old petrol-paraffin tractors?

Dave

What your asking is too complicated for a simple answer.

Exhaust may be too hot and it varies in temp a good bit.. so you need to wrap in a way that as you do trial and error you can add or unwrap easily till you get it right. You will need a fuel temp guage as well. Hint---- no one out there I know of (10+yrs of study) has successfully used an exhaust to fuel heat exchange system.

You might be better going to a coolant wrap on the exhast so you can balance out the temp and have more control of it's application. Granted that means adding coolant jug and a 12v??? pump. With this you can easily do a Flate plate heat exchanger (coolant heat to fuel exchanger) to transfer heat to oil.

There is a huge amount of knowledge to be gained before jumping on that wagon. Proper filtration, dewatering, polymerization etc. orrr... use a not so good engine and learn as you go... (while reading too) knowing you will end up changing out engines in the future.

Best place to learn all this is by reading tons of stuff on a veg oil discussion board then ask questions. IMHO the best is burnveg.com

[royaldragon]

Alexander of ANC in Germany has been very professional and helpful to me. He would be able to help any one find out how and if you can convert your bike to run on veggie oil safely. They specialize in using vegetable oils in diesels. I am working with him now for my bike.

Their website is anc.me

When I start building more bikes Alexander is confident that the engine I have chosen is good for veggie fuel.. just imagine, one tank... put in veggie oil from home ride with the satisfaction of 150mpg and knowing that your exhaust will make people hungry. Fill up with any combination of diesel and veggie oil in the same tank. Don't do a two tank system on a bike if you can avoid it. I think you will save yourself a lot of frustration, plus I think it is better for the engine. You really need to go long distances to do a two tank system. Also with a motorcycle you don't really need the clutter of another tank plus all the plumbing to switch tanks to start and purge.

[alexanderfoti]

I would be interested to hear what the modifications are, as I currently run a dual tank kit on mine, and only switch over when the cylinder head temp excees a certain temp. I am currently teaking to see what the best temp would be, and running a 25:75 diesel mix.

[coachgeo]

it helps to see the issue if you understand "why" they kick in the 2cnd veg tank after "engine" reaches a certain temp in the first place.

It is NOT just to raise the oil to a temp where its viscosity is lower..... but mainly to make sure that veg oil does NOT hit the cylinder walls. If it does..... then two things come into play. ONE......... obviously the veg. oil did not combust properly which brings up various questions why. TWO... it means this oil on the cylinder wall makes it's way down to the rings and cokes there. This coking eventually kills the rings, may damage cylinder walls..... ruins compression leading to engine failure.

This coking is what was reported in all the studies of industrial (tractor and genset) diesel engines that showed engine failures when ran on veg oil when used as fuel INCLUDING start up. These were the first studies and it gave Veg. oil use a bad name. Folk went back to the drawing board and discovered #1 and 2 mentioned above. Now.... by waiting till "engine" is up to temp..... the temp inside the cylinders are now at a range to get best combustion of what ever fuel is injected in there. Also..... engine better combust the; now finer misted, fuel since its viscosity also dropped as well. A win win situation.

So the point is.... "something" has to be done to allow a high probability of complete combustion AT START UP to prevent coking. Even diesel will coke an engine that does not get a good complete combustions at start up. Ya just gotta get max combustion at start up and thru out the time the engine is fired up to prevent coking. Sooooo... it does not matter if ya get more complete combustion of the veg. fuel by getting engine to best temp range for it... or by magic injectors that will turn oil as thick as hearty mustard into a highly combustable mist (or both).

[royaldragon]

I will question Alexander as I do not know enough to speak of his system without possibly misleading anyone. When I get some good information from him I will post it. With ANCs system you should be able to run veg without needing diesel and without ruining your engine. Diesel designed an engine to run on peanut oil, dinosaur oil industry stepped in and said no we can do it better(ie we can control the fuel source to profit) and then the design of diesel engines were made more for the viscosity, burn etc. of petroleum based diesel rather than veg. All one needs to do is take a few steps backwards then a few steps forwards with new technologies and once again we can use a renewable recourse for fuel.

[royaldragon]

Well I got a fair enough answer from him as he is very busy right now. Check out his website. anc.me and you will find there are descriptions of what is needed for modifications.

[meadejones]

something that i have done in the past on diesel's is a small heater circulation pump on the fuel tank. they run on 12 volt and would tie into the ignition. i have seen them on ebay for next to nothing.