80% WVO & 20% Kerosene
 

One user so far is using this mixture on a 300sd with NO modifications ;
I am looking for any techie input on how this can effect fuel lines; IP; etc; whatever...on my '85 300D-T...

(The cost of this runs about $2.00 per 10 gallons, so alot better than 2.55 gallon of diesel; & a good start considering modifications seem to run $700. and up just for parts. Not that I'm against that, just not ready to spring for it yet....and they seem overpriced for what you get.)

So aside from mspee, anyone knowledgable on this combo???
I am so not into 2.55 a gallon.....

Also curious, and will be watching this thread.... :D 2.55 a gallon here for diesel too.... :rolleyes: There's a station that has B20 for a bit less (I think in the 2.30's) on the north side of GR, I'm going to fill up with it on Wednesday......

Search for blends, lots to read already.

Yeah, nothing there on this topic....if so show me....

Check out this web site. http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/ubb.x They have a forum on WVO/SVO and there has been alot of talk of blending there. I haven't mixed anything with my VO except for diesel in the winter. Other than that I can't tell you anything "technical" about mixing but there may be someone on this website that can and some of them are members here also.

Help from a techie on mixing wvo & kero...
 

any inoput from my original post here..

So what if I start running 50% WVO/50% diesel fuel with a little diesel additve thrown in for good measure? This will not harm anything if I have no mods?

Yeah, if I were to filter wvo I got from a local source.....and filtered it extremely well, how much can I blend in before it'd cause a problem? 30%? 50%? I'd stop doing this as soon as it got cold out though....I'm assuming it'd cause many problems then if I was just running it in my regular tank...

For your purposes the only difference between diesel and kerosene is the road taxes paid. ULSD (ultra low sulpher diesel) and kerosene are nearly the same product.

I clog more filters on blends and run slightly less power. The only modification I have made to my car is to add an electric fuel pump back at the outlet from the fuel tank. I think a fuel heater would help keep from clogging filters. I have been running various blends for over a year and have seen no evidence of damage to my car as a result.

Search and read. Everything you are likely to ask has likely been posted multiple times.

my 2¢
 

Hi all,

Kero is $2.50 a gallon (plus sales tax here), so at a 80/20 mix 10 gallons of "Fuel" costs $5.00


Aside from clogging fuel filters a little faster, I've adjusted the idle speed. I was driving with 2 feet until I increased the idle.

In Ohio, we have emission testing. 2 years ago on dino, my car blew a 0.40 with 20.00 being the max. A few weeks ago on 80/20 my car blew 0.00!

I've been nothing but 80/20 for about 2 and a half months now. So I doubt if there is much of any diesel in the tank at all.

The best thing to do if you want to drive green, is simple add some WVO to the existing diesel in your vehicle and see how she responds.

If you notice a decrease in idle speed, or harder starting (both when cold) then you know you've reached the point of viscosity that is starting to effect performance. At this point, you can either 'thin' out the WVO or make idle adjustments.

My 300SD is quickly approaching 348K miles, so WVO seems to work good on older engines. After adjusting the idle, the car acts like it did prior to WVO at startup. (I have to depress the accelorator peddle a tad at start.)

Alot has to do with ambient temperatures (atleast at startup). With higher ambients, you can get away with a thicker WVO/Kero blend. Remember, how viscous diesel gets when it's 20 degrees outside? Well your IP was designed to deal with this viscosity.

I do believe the vehicle would perform better if I added a fuel heater, that only makes sense, but I don't have a fuel heater so I won't be adding one anytime soon.

I have noticed, and I'm not sure of the cause, my fuel gauge seems to stick. I'm wondering if a little wax (or lard) built up on the fuel sending unit. I treat 1/4 tank like empty, to avoid running out of fuel. Now this very well could be crap floating around in my tank, and when the fuel level is low, the concentration of crap is higher, clogging the screen in the fuel tank. I don't know yet.

But, nonetheless, I'm enjoying driving the car like I stole it, and not worrying about fuel costs. I race everyone off the line, leaving a trail of french fry aroma.

www.benzbonz.biz

Marty

when you mix diesel and veg oil together a wax will drop out of the diesel. A good bit of wax to. I've seen it FIRST HAND.

You need to mix first and then settle. Then use the blend above the settled wax.

That being said, another mix being seen more often now is 80 veg, 20 reg. gas, and a full dose of diesel cetane booste. No wax settles out with this mix.

second opinion on wax separation
 

Yes,
Good call on the wax dropping out. When I had really nasty oils I'd put a little diesel 2 in and the milky goo would settle out to the bottom of my cubbies within a day while just leaving them would leave the goo in suspension. Either way, you don't want this stuff in your system or you'll be burning through filters.

I spoke with my uncle who is a biochemist at Cal Berkeley and he argued to me (a lowly engineer) that it was probably changing the water solubility of the fats that made water (commonly found in WVO) stick to the goo and tow it down for fast settling. Okay, whatever, the bottom line is on the greasecar website you'll find a lot of people complaining how they were doing great blending filtered WVO and D2 and one day their car started stammering under high load (clogged filter).

There is a huge debate over whether IDI engines like MBZs can be driven with cold veggie. I've tried many experiments on my old VW rabbit with electrical heaters and found if I boosted my fuel temp to 160F or more the car would make more power and smoke less at WOT. Is that enough to get you to put a simple heat exchanger or heated filter in?

I've run some simple heat flow calculations and you get some really good heating through the injectors themselves. It is just common sense, they are very small tubes, the oil is in them a few milliseconds and they are a few hundered degrees. You hit thermoequilibrium quite fast and the oil will be close to the injector temp at injection.

Then there is the question of the lousey startup you get and all that stumbling. Is that bad for the car? I don't know. I like this german website - it has some stuff in english. It is a real eye opener. Remember, he uses virgin oil.

http://www.rerorust.de/

I use a blend of clear K1 kero 50/50 WVO right now out of convenience. My oil is settle in a solar oven at 120F for 3 weeks before I filter. This gets rid of alot of the fat problems. I let the oil cool in the garage a night then I run it through the filters.

After that, I blend. I've seen no separation of wax if I do it this way. As I said, I used the D2 to clean up nasty oil before I learned how to prep it with heat, time and pickiness (for clean oil).

A friend of mine in Berkeley started blending oil after I refused to convert her car for a cheap price. I warned her that the bare minimum mod she/you need to do is put in 2 tanks and two filters and a switch valve wired to the dash for the fateful day on the interstate you feel that stammering. I've done it many times and it is uneventful if you can quickly switch systems on the fly. The engine recovers fast.

Blending the Kero was done for selfish reasons. I found a stash 150 gallons that I got for $0.20/gallon. I noticed if I blended 50/50 I didn't need to switch over to diesel to get a clean start in the morning. My fuel filters also last longer on the veggie circuit (maybe the kero is dissolving wax?). I'm running out of kero and I'm looking forward to getting back to pure oil simply because it stinks when I blend it and I'm afraid it'll make me sick when I get old.

Food for thought, now go make your decision and have a nice drive. Any of this may be all wrong. We'll know when we do compression, leakdown and injector pop/spray, IP pressure tests when our cars bust.

Cheers,
Yoko Kobayashi

Blending
 

Why stop blending in the winter that is when you should blend.

I run straight in the summer and start blending when the temp gets down below 30 F the lower the temp the greater the blend and I have never had to blen greater than 50/50 I also add a little power service when below 15F just to help. It also depends on the oil you use mine stays liquid down to about 25F before it even starts to cloud up. Then blended is better for winter as it gives enough diesel to start and warm the car without hurting anything. It has also been down to -1 here today and going lower with no problems so far.

Austin,

Stick with the Rug/Wvo blend. Add some heat to the system & lower the mix ratio to 10% or 15% Rug/WVO. Gasoline is a better solvent than Kero. Kero will still do a good job of cutting the WVO . Either Rug or Kero will not hurt your fuel system. Bottom line Rug works better & is much more easy to find.

Matt;

Whatz up. This thread was from July last year. Before I started using WVO at all.

I have been running WVO like 85- 90% with D & or RUG. Ever since I added that facet pump I have been smooth sailin'.

I don't think I need any heat in So. Florida, Even on the coldest night in the hi 30's I start right up on straight WVO. It seems to run better sometimes on 100%WVO vs a blend sometimes.