Biodiesel, or SVO?

[Fergie]

Biodiesel around here is the same price as regular diesel, so the obvious cost savings arent there, but I am curious as to whether of any of you oilburners have ran SVO(straight veggie oil).

I've done a bit of reading on it, but would like to hear your thoughts/ experiences with it.

Thanks

 

[Gerr]

In my Dad's dodge we did the bio on a long trip and the mpg went up about 2 mpg.
then he considered doin the vegie thing. He talked to a couple guys local to us that do it and they get less milage than he does with basicly idenical trucks and they still have to use diesel to warm up the engine and in general when its cold out side. the benifit they were sure to point out is they own the local mexican food place in town so thier oil was gona cost them to dispose of if they didnt find a way to use it. so I guess its a good thing if you have oil to dispose of or if you can figure out how to make it perform more like diesel in the cold.

 

[87manche]

straight oil will never act like diesel in the cold.
That's why there's processing WVO into biodiesel, it removes all the stuff that causes it to gel at 50*.
I know a guy that runs two tanks in an old F250 diesel.
He starts and runs on diesel, the second tank for the WVO is heated with electric elements.
said he drives 10 miles on the diesel, by that time the WVO is heated, he flips a valve, feeds it WVO. Doesn't notice the difference, then when he's about 10 miles from work he switches it back to diesel, so it doesn't gell in his fuel system.
He gets the oil for free. so he figures he's saving money.

 

[75SV1]

I've been looking into this for a few years. I bought an '81 Mercedes 240D in November. I have talked to a person who does both locally. His recomendation was on how far you drive. If say 10 to 20 minutes, your engine wouldn't heat up enough to use waste vegtable oil (WVO). So making your own biodiesel would be the way to go. If longer say and hour then WVO make sense.
You also have to figure out where your going to spend the money. Basically both have to be collected ,then filtered. Then do you spend the money on a WVO conversion or the setup for biodiesel. Plus biodiesel cost about $0.50 to $1 per gallon in chemicals. I think lye and alcohol and maybe a few other chemicals. Some recover thier alcohol. You might look around your area for a Co-op for biodiesel. Basically a small group that wants to share resources and time to produce batches on a monthly basis.
I've look at the kits for WVO. Some are about $800 and others can go about $1500-$2500. Depends on vehicle, type of conversion and quality. You have to heat the WVO oil to about 160F for it to burn correctly. If not then it places a strain on the Injection Pump (IP) and can coke the injectors. Also, you need a loop to purge the WVO from the IP before shutting it down. There are plans for a DIY type. Suppose to be a lot cheaper.
Tom

 

[Fergie]

Great info there 75.

After more reading, biodiesel isnt the cost saving change I thought it would be, but I still like the idea of a diesel WJ, so I may go ahead with my swap.

 

[75SV1]

I'm not an expert on the stuff. Still, what type of motor are you planning to swap in? Some motor take to WVO better than others. I wouldn't right off making biodiesel. Just research it a bit. Here's a website:
http://www.biodieselnow.com/default.aspx
There are others. Try the Frybrid or Frybird website for WVO. Again there are other websites and boards. Figure out how much driving you do a month and what prices are at the pump. I think the biodiesel setup can be a bit cheaper than WVO initially. The two people I know of that run it around here use a cheap homemade setup. Basically a heater, a port switch ( I think one uses some Ford part) and a small 5 gal tank.
Tom

 

[Rob Mayercik]

Something else to consider:

SVO/WVO is much thicker than diesel/biodiesel. It's a lot more work to pump and inject, and could shorten the life of your fuel pump/injectors.

For example, my '02 TDI can be run on SVO/WVO, but it's hard on the fuel pump and injectors because of the viscosity. Also, as injector pressures get higher (the VW PD TDI runs the injectors at something like 26,000 PSI), it's going to make the veggie system harder to adapt.

I'd say just stick with diesel/biodiesel. Even if you run dino diesel, you'd still be going a lot farther per tank than on gasoline.

Rob

 

[87manche]

also, you might want to consider an appleseed style reactor.
Much cheaper than buying the Bio-Diesel equipment retail.
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/appleseedprocessor/
I had seriously considered this route when I had stumbled upon a diesel rabbit caddy.