Vegetable Oil SVO WVO waste cooking oil as biofuel

[John Galt]

@#$*&^%$!!!

[SunWizard]

Another problem with an emissions test is that its easy to get a 0% opacity reading as I do on my 15 year old high mileage truck, with no special adjustments, running on 100%D2 on a dyno under a 60mph load. I discuss this in another thread here. This leaves no way to measure any emissions improvements by VO blends or any other adjustments. Power changes are always measurable.

I get no smoke even with 5000 pound loads on hills, on D2 or VO.

[BMW Fan]

That's a DYNO test / BMW 324 td Touring, 1989, +/- 180.000km

first on Diesel, second on 100% used veggie oil

DIESEL

100 km/h Opacity : 3% HP: 55

80 km/h Opacity : 3% HP: 46

60 km/h Opacity : 4,5% HP: 36

VEGGIE OIL
100 km/h Opacity : 1% HP: 56

80 km/h Opacity : 1% HP: 46

60 km/h Opacity : 3,5% HP: 38

I don't believe the opacity test accurate because I am aware of German reports telling to be careful.
Reason : Diesel particles are black, Veggie = grayish colored.
Conclusion : The test equipment does not recon the grayish particles hence the better value.

At least for me, the light increase in power was the best indicator for a well adjusted / optimized system.

BMW Fan

http://www.crawldog.com/klausold/

[SunWizard]

Thanks BMW Fan for some real data from a dyno. Its good to see even a small increase in power on VO. I agree about the inaccuracy of the opacity test. This makes dyno numbers more important for optimizing power and mileage.

When you say "well adjusted/optimized system" does that mean you adjusted the timing or anything else to optimize for VO?

[BMW Fan]

I just wanted to show how easy it is to pass the North American opacity test with a 1% value.
Not with a blend but on 100 percent veggie
If I follow John's argument ( 20 % veggie blend ) then in theory I would pass with 0.2 %

When you say "well adjusted/optimized system" does that mean you adjusted the timing or anything else to optimize for VO?

I always go through the basics before I convert a Diesel engine.
I do not add gimmicks without knowing the condition of the motor.
If the engine is optimized only then do I start the conversion.

This BMW already has a electronically controlled injector pump.
Adjustable only is a certain window ( mechanically ) the rest is done by the pump.

BMW Fan

http://www.crawldog.com/klausold/

[zoochy]

So BMW fan,

Does that mean NO you did not adjust the timing?
Or YES you did mechanically?

[BMW Fan]

Yes I did because the window was slightly out of position for veggie.
It was good for Diesel
Then it was good for both.

BMW Fan

[coachgeo]

Yes I did because the window was ....

Just to clarify.... "Window"

are you using that term literal as in the BMW has a window you peer thru to view something you set your timing by....... or do you mean the term like the "window of opportunity" is small. AKA- there is a small amount of mechanical adjustments available and thats it.

Also I find it interesting that you state the IP has some internal "on its own" timing adjusting. If Im not mistaken even the old 617 MB motor's Bosch IP's did to. They could adjust some to viscosity due to piston movements within the IP; or something like that.

[David]

I saw only 1 post who said better MPG (by DCS), and V95/RUG 5 but he didn't answer more power compared to what when I questioned him.

I must have missed the question, never saw it.
The 5% RUG blend gives more power than V100 and B100 by my seat of the pants and driving feel. I have never run Diesel in my car or blended with it to compare.

I don't remember saying anything about economy but I used to be a lot more anal with keeping mileage records than what I used to be. These days I only worry when I think the consumption is excessive and that I might have a leak somewhere. as long as I get the expected approximate number of miles per drum I'm happy. Having pretty much settled on standard mixes, I don't do comparisons like I used to.

I have no doubt in my mind that the addition of a small amount of RUG also helps combustion ( as compared to SVO) makes starting easier and creates less smoke at idle. Again, these are all just non scientific observations made over the last 2 years and 40,000KM of driving and experimenting.

I used to run 20% RUG in my WVO and have since come to the belief this is too much and I would agree with anyone that said they lost power on this mix because that was my own conclusions. I have formed the opinion that the less RUG you can add to the fuel and get decent starts when cold, the better. In my experience in cold weather, the amount of RUG needed for good starts is not the same amount for optimal power. In summer, they line up nicely!

I was playing around this afternoon with an industrial motor on a generator and made an observation perhaps relevant to testing blends and what may satisfy some as a reasonable test......
I was running the engine on B100 and noting the seemingly impossibly frugal fuel usage even with a middle size load.

I put some WVO in the thing and ran it about 30 min and noticed there was a little more smoke haze but the thing was running perfectly on the unheated oil. I also noticed how hot the return fuel was which I would estimate was around 50oC. It was too hot to hold my finger in long and I know 50 is about my personal threshold temp.

I had some military turbine chopper fuel (Av-cat) a friend gave me and thought I'd give that a try. I purged the WVO and then put the fuel pickup in a jar of the Jet fuel. I was running a load on the generator and was monitoring the voltage with a digital multimeter and did notice that the voltage dropped slightly on the jet fuel. I ran the thing like this for about 15 min all the time with the multimeter not moving 1/100th of a volt and then tipped some of the WVO in with the jet fuel. I noticed that after a short while the voltage went up again ( about 6/100ths of a volt
) which confirmed what I noticed with a slight increase in engine RPM and sound.

The fuels I used are not relevant to this discussion per se, but it but reading this thread and about accurate testing made me think this may be a test that precise numbers can be obtained from that may show small differences in the power the engine is putting out. If I put a syringe on the fuel line to feed the engine from, an economy difference may also be able to be seen over a specific time frame but I'm not sure if I would have to adjust the engine speed to maintain the same voltage to make the test relevant. I don't think I would be able to make throttle changes small enough but who knows?

Now if it's worth doing this and putting the results here or people are going to say its non scientific or whatever is something else. I might do it just for my own curiosity and to see if it backs up my seat of the pants conclusions.
I'm not really worried about what anyone else thinks, I know I do my own tests to a standard I am happy with that shows the facts rather than wishful thinking.

*** I just remembered ( and managed to find) some 25ML graduated Serological Pipettes I got from the lab I work at, They are about a foot long which would be great for timing fuel consumption. Having something this accurate to work with will make things a lot more meaningful.

[bio_cowboy]

Hey David, I know I would be very interested in seeing the results of your experiments, so please do post them here.

[SunWizard]

It sounds like a good idea for tests, almost like being on a dyno. A lower voltage means you are getting less power, although it would be hard to compute a % unless you can accurately measure both amps and volts. Amps probably drops more than volts. Power = volts x amps.

2 blends that would be good to compare would be V80/D20 and V80/RUG 20 since these are around the average of the most commonly used.

Do you have a way to change the timing of the engine? If so that may be a way to partially compensate if you continue to see lowered power of a RUG blend.

If you change the engine speed to keep the power (both volts and amps) the same, that would be the way to measure any change in fuel consumption.