Here is a great article for vegtable oil as an alternative diesel fuel. Click the Veggie Fuel link. Adobe Acrobat is needed to read. PDF file

http://www.homepower.com/index.cfm

Very interesting

 

These systems work well but it is a pain to collect waste vegetable oil and filter/deal with it. You usually have to install a separate tank, and heated fuel lines, and a switch in the vehicle. People that don't do that end up with gunked up injection equipment. Biodiesel is a much more readily available option. It's able to be run without any modifications, and is renewable, much more emissions friendly, and has many benefits for your engine. 8)

 

Lightman,<br>I have read many of your posts regarding biodiesel. You definately are an advocate for biodiesel. Have you considered mixing your own? In the article it mentions vegetable oil, methonal and lye to create your own biodiesel, it didn't mention the percentages. The article also mentioned if you mix you own it's about .60 cents a gallon.<br><br>Do you know anyone how has made their own???

 

[quote author=Lightman link=board=8;threadid=17297;start=0#162062 date=1058729469]<br>These systems work well but it is a pain to collect waste vegetable oil and filter/deal with it. You usually have to install a separate tank, and heated fuel lines, and a switch in the vehicle. People that don't do that end up with gunked up injection equipment. Biodiesel is a much more readily available option. It's able to be run without any modifications, and is renewable, much more emissions friendly, and has many benefits for your engine. 8)<br>[/quote]<br>I wonder if they get much performance at that kind of expense. It seems that some guys have been striving to cool their fuel for better performance and longer pump life.

 

Redleg: The cooling of diesel to increase inj. pump life is done to get a higher viscosity of the fuel that does cool and lubricate the pump. If you run on pure vegetable oil it will be too viscuous to properly flow in the pump and lube all the parts, and will not fill the elements fast enough. So you heat it up to obtain the same viscosity as No2 diesel. The spray pattern of the injectors depends on viscosity too, so we need to heat the veggie oil for this to be able to run on No2 adn straight vegetable oil.<br><br>About the economic side of straight veggie oil burning. Over here with the fuel prices in bazoink mode ( Germany now getting close to 4US$ per gal) there is much interest in alternatives. On big engines like busses etc, in applications where the vehicle is refueled at the same point and maintenance is conducted to proper specs veggie oil is very economical. Especially if you consider that you can't just dump used veggie oil. <br>I do really wonder why some people spend much money to convert their vehicles to straight veggie oil and still have a mineral oil heater at home- to convert this one to veggie would cost somewhere around 50 US$ .... and you could undo it within half an hour. <br>One reason why veggie oil is not too popular is that some of the blowby products can lead to oil polimerization and a rapid degradation of the oil.<br><br>Just my 2c <br>AlpineRAM