Scotty

Running Milligan Biotech biodiesel additive appears to have netted me a solid 1 mpg and maybe better.

Towed with a total weight of 21,000 lbs to Denver and back. Cruised at 75-85 most of the route and was very impressed with the hand calculated 13.2 mpg. Overhead read 14.8.

I do have an injector pump sputter that will be looked at on Thursday. It was doing this prior to the additive.

I thought I would share this as I was a big skeptic of these kinds of additives. I will get a more accurate number after the next long trip without the additive.

Scotty

Ripper406

We have had the same results, Running homebrew biodiesel at about 20% got more mileage, most likely cleaned up the fuel system ( 850,000miles on 95 Volvo detroit 60). Engine noise was lower and still is but it isnt as quite as the engine was running B20. EGT's went down and the engine felt like it had more power, probably most likey b/c of the cleaning abilities of Biodiesel. Glad to see you've seen a gain aswell.

The Domie

Ripper406- - I am interested in the home brew idea. Could you describe your process?

MnTom

Scotty, I sure would like to know how you guys get that kind of mileage. The most I pull is 17k and if I keep the speed down I still only get 12 to 14 mpg. My best empty was one time I broke the "magical" 20 mpg figure.
Tom

Ripper406

3 ingredients, Wasted Cooking Oil, 20-25% Methanol compared to WCO and Lye, Naoh. Red devil lye from home depot works good, methanol can be bought from a speed shop for about 2-2.50 a gallon, wasted oil can be picked up from a willing resturant owner.

Basically you must remove any water from the Wasted oil, either letting it sit and drain the water, or a faster method is to heat it up to boil off any water. But in order to prevent water vapor from blowing up, you must recirculate the oil or stir it to help get the water vapor out. After that a titration is in order, figuring out how bad the wasted oil is determines how much lye to use. Then you mix however many grams of lye needed per litre x how many litres to get your grand total that has to be fully mixed with the methanol. After the hot oil has cooled to no more then 160*F the methanol/lye mixture is mixed up in the reaction tank and aggitation needs to take place to get a good thorough mix. Settling takes place after that and you end up with about 20% total volume in a dark thick liquid which is waste, and the clear fluid that sits ontop is your biodiesel. Filtering, washing and drying is the next step to ensure a good clean batch.
Biodiesel forum More detailed info on here.

Superduty

Most biodiesel formulations are high cetane, which effectively advances the timing of the engine and completes the burn earlier and cleaner. That might account for the increase in fuel economy.