[Vwdiesel] fuel warmer idea and question

Wed Mar 15 14:31:32 EST 2006

Hey Paul, and others, I appreciate your thoughts.

The car I am driving is a Cabriolet that I stuck a
diesel engine into a year and a half ago.  

In the year and a half, I've considered doing a dual
fuel system and biodiesel.

Being a Convertible, the Cabriolet doesn't have a lot
of trunk room, so coming up with a good place for a
second tank has been a challenge.  The best I could
think of would be to relocate the battery to the trunk
and fab something to sit in it's place in the engine
compartment.  I've gone back and forth on this,
questioning the intellegence of adding a fuel tank to
the engine compartment.  On the other hand, it would
only be veggie oil, so it probably wouldn't be that
big of a deal...

Given my living situation, I don't have a good place
to convert my veggie oil into biodiesel, so that is
pretty much out.

Starting late last spring, I started experimenting
with mixing the veggie oil with the diesel fuel, and
have had success.  For regular driving, I've had
mixtures of anywhere between 10-50%, and all have
worked out fine.  (Well, there was one time I ran on
approx 75% for about an hour accidently.  Car was
pretty sluggish for the first 20 minutes or so until
the fuel warmed up...)

Naturally, I don't go to the higher percentages until
the summer time.

The engine doesn't seem to care about this.  On a cool
morning, especially if I haven't plugged in for some
reason, the engine runs just a little more roughly for
the first few minutes compared to just diesel fuel,
but after the engine gets warmed up a bit, it runs,
idles, has power, etc very similar (I cannot percieve
a difference) to straight diesel fuel.  I even think
fuel mileage may be a little higher with oil mixed in.

Anyway, I know that mixing oil into the fuel thickens
it somewhat, which is why I was thinking that heating
it would help.

Given that even a small percentage of biodiesel
significantly raises it's lubricity, I'm thinking that
even if I had a pretty low percentage of veggie oil in
the tank, having my fuel heater idea may still work
okay without lowering the lubricity too much.

Does this make sense?  Again, I'm thinking that maybe
a valve in the line could solve the worry about
overheating the fuel when it is nearly 100% diesel. 
In the summer, I'll likely be always putting veggie
oil in the tank, unless I take a long trip which will
require refueling somewhere out of town.

This heater wouldn't do much for a cold start, but
should reduce the amount of time that the engine is
cold and running on thicker fuel.  

Thanks,

David

--- paul lew <biovolks at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The minimum you would heat the oil to without
> causing problems before switching is 70 F .
>   If you wan,t I can e-mail you a good paper that
> explains the heating, cetane #'s etc. of all fuels.
> 67KB
>   Paul
> 
> James Hansen <jhsg at sasktel.net> wrote:
>   Strictly guessing, I would wager the lubricity of
> warm vegetable oil is
> higher than warm diesel... viscosity being what it
> is and all.
> 
> I think it HAS to be heated, or it causes the
> injectors to puke eventually,
> so that's sort of moot.
> The heater valve would work as long as you didn't
> forget to turn it on when
> vegetable oil is running.
> -James
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com
> [mailto:vwdiesel-bounces at vwfans.com]On
> Behalf Of David Cook
> Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 9:11 AM
> To: diesel list
> Subject: Re: [Vwdiesel] fuel warmer idea and
> question
> 
> 
> Good point. So, does the heated veggie oil thing do
> anything bad to the pump (or, is it okay because
> veggie oil lubes better than diesel fuel anyway...)
> 
> Maybe I could put a valve in one of the lines
> (similar
> to a heater valve) so I could close the coolant flow
> to the heater when there is little or no veggie oil
> in
> the fuel or it is very hot outside.
> 
> David
> 
> 
> --- James Hansen wrote:
> 
> > fuel is used to cool and lubricate the injection
> > pump and injectors during
> > normal operation, and return the warm fuel to the
> > tank or filter in winter..
> > supplying it with hot fuel may not be good, dunno.
> > -James
> >
> 
> David Cook
> Red '86 Cabriolet Diesel Powered
> Red '90 g60 Corrado
> Brown and White '78 Westy Campmobile "Bear"
> and others in various states of disrepair
> Pictures here:
> community.webshots.com/user/superdave5599
> 
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David Cook
Red '86 Cabriolet Diesel Powered
Red '90 g60 Corrado 
Brown and White '78 Westy Campmobile "Bear"
and others in various states of disrepair
Pictures here: community.webshots.com/user/superdave5599

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