Hey,

My local Holiday station recently put up a sign saying their diesel is "Gold Diesel" and to see http://www.premiumdiesel.com. Anyone else have this brand of fuel available at their local station? Wonder if anyone has seen any benefits from it.

I have noticed before I get better milage when using fuel from Holiday then from SuperAmerica...

Thanks.

-m

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Now:
2018 Tesla Model X
1999 S500 Grand Edition 164k
1992 300D 2.5 Turbo 287k
2005 E320 4MATIC wagon
1991 Alfa Romeo 164L 99k (sleeping for a while)

Then: 96 Lincoln TC, 93 Lincoln TC, 87 560 SEL, 87 300 SDL, 80 300D, 89 560 SEC

In Canada Sunoco sells a "Gold Diesel" and its benefit is that it has a low sulphur content.

__________________
1991 M-B 560SEL Arctic White/Grey 99,000 Miles
1987 M-B 300SDL Ivory/Palomino 229,000 Miles (sold but never forgotten)
2006 Volvo XC70 Blue/Beige
1999 Porsche Boxster Arena Red/Savanna Beige
1986 Porsche 928S Goldweiss/Brown

Dervman,

Low sulphur fuel isn't a benefit for Injection pumps (IP). It may be good for commonrail injection systems, but IP need the sulphur for lubrication.

P E H

Our mid '80's and earlier MB diesels were designed for 50+ cetane fuel with high sulphur content of 1300 to 1500 PPM. Sulphur was used as a lub for injectors & pumps, the sulphur was replaced with other chemicals for lubing pumps. The reason for removing the sulphur was stopping all the bulching black smoke, in other words to reduce air polution.

All US diesel fuel is low sulphur 400 PPM to 500 PPM and has been for amost 20 years, next step in '06 will be to drop to 5 PPM to 15 PPM which is lower then current Euro standard of 50PPM.

Main problem these days with US diesel is our fuel is generally 40 to 42 cetane and is very dirty by European standard's. Remember your MB was designed for 50 cetane fuel, which was common here in the early eighties and before. It really will make a noticable difference in fuel eccomony and power (speed) when running 50+ cetane diesel. Lucky me, I have access to 50+ cetane fuel. And it does make a noticable difference even in the old 240D, as well as the VW TDI.

The stock filter on the MB is 5 micron nominal and 20 micron absolute and the injection pump/injectors suffer most damage at partical size of 3 to 7 micron in size. My next mod will be a 2 micron Cat Fuel filter as one the VW.

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'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

Old Navy,

I don't agree that sulphur causes the black smoke from Diesels. Black smoke is from incompletely burned carbon from the hydrocarbon composition of Diesel fuel.

The sulphur is removed so it doesn't burn and turn into sulphur dioxide which causes acid rain.

P E H

Yes, that's true. However it is also a particulate producer and does cause the dirty burning which produces the black smoke. I guess you didn't notice that after the US went to Low Sulphur Diesel (LSD ) the amount of smoke you used to see coming out of big rig truck stacks almost went away. They did have some problem's with IP's failing, but lube formula improvers ended that problem.

If you go buy some of the high sulphur off road (farm use) fuel that's still available you will not believe how much smoke you will start making. Been there done that with relative's farm diesel of the high sulphur type. Man did it ever make a smokey VW TDI. I also have a friend who run the same stuff in his TDI, untill it clogged intake in only about 20,000 miles. That broke him of that nasty habbit.

__________________
'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

Old Navy,

I did notice that the reduced smoking of the big rigs was at the time their engines became computer controlled which allowed the fuel/air ratio and injection timing to be almost perfect for complete combustion.

That's what reduced the smoking, not the sulphur reduction in the fuel.

P E H

It is the computer (ECM) on the class 8 engines that has eliminated the excessive black smoke. This way the engine gets fueled just the right amount according to load/boost conditions.

That's part of it, but it would not have happened without sulphur reduction. The sulphur is what causes the intake's to clog up so bad in modern EGR & CCV equipted diesels. Early MB diesels car's had a problem with the oil & soot, and still have some problems with this clogging. This is mainly a problem in the turbo cars, with it's extra heavy CCV oil flow compaired to NA diesels like the 240D. Also with the 240D it makes use of a large swirl effect CCV device to help remove the oil from air flow, and return it to the oin pan. I don't know what a 300 turbo uses, haven't even looked.

__________________
'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.

Maybe they are refering to the price..........

William Rogers.........

This is the link to Sunoco Canada's info on their "Diesel Gold"

Sunoco Diesel Gold

Its mostly Sales-pitch BS, but further digging found a mention that "Diesel Gold" has a minimum Cetane rating of 45, which is a bit higher than the US average. Its Sulphur content is 424PPM which is towards the lower end of the norm in North America.

At the pumps it costs about 10% more than their regular Diesel fuel.

Andy

__________________
1991 M-B 560SEL Arctic White/Grey 99,000 Miles
1987 M-B 300SDL Ivory/Palomino 229,000 Miles (sold but never forgotten)
2006 Volvo XC70 Blue/Beige
1999 Porsche Boxster Arena Red/Savanna Beige
1986 Porsche 928S Goldweiss/Brown

oldnavy,

My '79 and '80 300SDs have no oil separator that I can see. These engines do not have EGR valves. The pipe that pulls the blowby gasses out of the engine, coming from the top of the valve cover, tees into 2 pipes. One goes into the air stream just in front of the turbo and the other goes into the bottom center of the air cleaner, into the air that has gone thru the air filter.

After these blowby gasses go thru the turbo, they go into the intake manifold and into the engine where they are burned. I have never heard of a 617 engine having a problem with the intake manifold getting coated on the inside from these blowby gasses like the intake manifold on the 603 engines does. It is only the blowby gasses going into my intake manifold, not the exhaust gasses like on the later EGR engines.

Why does the blowby pipe tee into 2 pipes, I have no idea. Maybe someone can tell me.

P E H

P.E. maybe you don't have the problem in the non intercooled turbo's that the intercooled turbo's are having. Someone here has posted pictures of the clogging of EGR valve and intaked from a MB, but I believe it was one of the newer cars.

I have seen as much as 1/4 qt of oil run out of a VW TDI intercooler because of the CCV system, I have heard some of the new trucks are having soot and oil mix problems as well.

I do know that when the sulphur is reduced to 1/10th what it is now, these diesels will be running much cleaner, and without as much of the clogging problems caused by EGR soot and oil mixing in the intake. But you can get this effect by running B-100 instead of dino fuel.

__________________
'10 Chrysler T&C Stow-N-Go White. Grandpa's ride.

'13 Chrysler 200 Touring Candy Red. Grandma's ride.

Age and cunning will always over come youth and vigor.