Mustang Eater

How do I ? OR should I run used vegetable oil? Do i lose power?

xtoyz17

Little bit less BTU per gallon, but it's free. To safely run it you need to heat the oil, which may cause issues with your VP44 since it doesn't like heat.

Personally, I'm teetering between building and buying a kit as we speak.


www.frybrid.com is a great place with forums to go.

kawi600

check out some of the posts in the fuels forum
the short story is you cant run veggie safely without processing the water and crud out, then heating it to >150f pre-injection. Requires a secondary fuel system for startup and shutdown on diesel.
You can run bio but youre dependent on methanol or ethanol to react the stuff and then you still need to de-water and filter before use. It doesnt do well under 40F.
the newer common rail setups are a lot more difficult to run biofuels on. vp44's and VE's will run veggie but they run an increased risk of failure. P7100's are the best for veggie.
Both approaches are a lot of work, no free lunch there. =(
with oil prices climbing increased demand for the stuff to put in livestock feed or shop heaters and the like will probably make it hard to come by as well.
If youre big on energy security, angry at big oil, or youre an environmentalist, its worth the trouble. financially its probably not worth the bother.

xtoyz17

Financially it IS worth the bother. Just depends on how and what you use your truck for. If your commute is less than 15 minutes it will take a LONG time to see the payback, but if you're like me and commute during the week about 20 minutes and drive 400 miles highway every weekend it pays for itself FAST. I'm on par to spend at or more than 6000 this year on fuel. For 2500 for a complete kit from Frybrid, thats less than 6 months for pay-off. WVO is free, filtering might taker a bit of work. For FREE fuel though, you can't argue it. If you go through one injection pump a year you'll still save money.

SOhappy

Make sure you have a good source for the veggie oil before you jump head first into a conversion. I was seriously going to convert an old MB the last time fuel prices were this high, but I got calling around/visiting different restaurants in my area and no one wanted to bother with me taking their old grease, as there is a rendering plant that contracts with them to pick it up for free. Best if you or a close friend/relative own a restaurant, thus guaranteeing a source of oil.

As for making your own bio-d, I decided $3.50/gallon for diesel was still a bargain by comparison to the effort required. Personal choice though.

xtoyz17

Bio-diesel definitely isn't worth the hassle. At a 30-50% savings over diesel plus A LOT of your effort, inability to run it by itself in the winter, and the cost of methanol going up like everything else IMHO make it not worth it.

Baja

Be careful for what you wish for, or at least deeply consider what you are doing. I call it my demented hobby, and I tell all that the romance of running on veg is far different than the reality. You will need time. Time to collect, filter and in general deal with a really skanky product. You will need time to monitor your restaurants, making sure that nobody is ripping off your oil. It's getting ugly out there and is going to get worse. You will need space to store your stash. You will spill it and in the process quickly come up with a new string of unprintable words that will cause your neighbors to close their windows. Trust me on that one. I made my own system and it still cost about 1,000. Are you ready to potentially ruin your engine of IP? The long term use of WVO is still out there, although there are users who have 100,000 greasy miles and still going. BUT....... if you satisfy the criteria and have a strong dose of insanity, you can do this. Would I go back, no, not at all. I love driving past gas stations and being able to drive my truck like I stole it. Two years now and Blackstone is giving me positive oil reports.

xtoyz17

Yep. If done right the savings far outweight the cost of just about anything that can or may go wrong. Obviously if you lose your motor in 5k miles you might not, but 50k miles of free driving comes out a 12,500 dollar savings. Thats about two years for me, and even less if fuel keeps going higher.

I don't mind the mess, my sources are all family members and very close friends who own restaurants and bars. I have the time, I have a huge barn to set-up shop, I even have free heat from my wood burning stove.

I agree, it's not for everyone. It's definitely for me, though

irocpractice

I think I'll buy a 100 shares of Chevron that way my fuel will be discounted.

rjm022

me and a couple of buddies have been making bio diesel since last oct. it has been a cold winter, so i have only been running about 30% bio, with a lot of anti gel additives. no problems!! i also been using it to heat my home. latest break down of costs- 1.50 a gallon to make-(this includes us going to get the wvo)
within the next month or two- we will have to start paying to get the wvo from certain places! with the price of diesel high- there are companies now willing to pay restaurants to take it away. averaging about 5-10 cents a gallon! we will obviously still come out way ahead. i am also lucky when it comes to buying methanol- i get it at cost through my buddy- he is a mechanic and they buy it by the 55 gallon drums at the shop he works at- they make their own windshield wiper fluid.

Mustang Eater

so for me too run it i need to run it through a strainer a filter and a water seperator? What mixture do i use do i use methanol or diesel? or just straight? I live in Las Vegas so it doesnt get very cold here in the winter and defenetly not in the summer.

Mustang Eater

What about fuel mileage? Do you get better or worse? The same?

xtoyz17

You don't use any mixture, you burn it in a separate tank. Methanol is used to make bio-diesel from the veggie oil. Two totally different ball games.

Baja

You should do a lot of research. Go to "vegoilinfopop.com" "frybrid.com" and a bunch of other sites and do a lot of reading, just like you would do here. Heck, even go to the site everybody loves to hate, Lovecraft. There is a lot of information there where you will find answers to your questions. You will have to figure out what is best and what makes sense.
Learn the difference between a nominal or absolute filter. Water separators will not remove emulsified water. Methanol is not used. Some blend with diesel, most do not. Mileage is abut the same.
The jury is very much still out on the best way to run veg and a lot depends on the individual. If you think a strainer, a pass through a nominal 5m filter and water separator is good enough, go for it. There are some who spin the oil through a centrifuge. Some dewater, some don't. You have to read and figure what is best for you, what you think is enough, how much time you want to spend and so on. Lots to learn. Like I said, my demented hobby. Welcome to the wonderful world of WVO.

95dodgectd

actually if you have some extra $$$$ buy as many shares in exxon mobil as you can possibly afford, buy some in walmart ,cummins isn't doin too bad either. but mainly get in on some exxon mobil stock should change your view on oil maybe. at least then you get a nice little check everytime the oil companys have record profits each quarter.