When Brian from GotEngines.com asked me what I thought about vegetable-oil fuels, I replied “Vege-Fuels are a joke to me”. There are many reasons I feel this way. An expensive changeover with a limited supply of vegetable oils. The one positive thing I have to say is that vegetable fueled cars exhaust smells like McDonalds French Fries. I don’t eat that crap, but it sure smells good. I hope breathing the exhaust is not going to make me an overweight heart attack waiting to happen!
No way i can list the reasons for my opinion here, so lets get started on the subject.
A friend and customer of mine from the days I owned a repair shop (1981 to 2006, I sold it) came driving up one day, came in the office and said “hey man, get a load of this”. I went out to find he bought a brand new, the biggest Ford F-450 duallie with the 6 liter diesel and 4R100 transmission.
O.K. I’m not too hot on the 6 liter Ford engine, or Ford in particular, but that is my personal issue..Anyway, immediately, I noticed a familiar fragrance in the air, I commented that this smells like McDonalds out here. He laughed at me and told me he bought a vegetable oil conversion kit and had it installed the day he picked his new Ford truck up.
The kit included everything needed for the conversion. Realistically speaking, from a mechanical point of view, it was a well made kit and installed beautifully. He had a giant fuel tank put in the bed of the truck. It is important to advise you that you still need diesel fuel to get the engine started since vege-fuels are thicker and make diesel engine hard to start or they won’t start…So the stock tank has to be left in place. That is why you need a vege-fuel tank too.
Unless you go to the grocery store and buy new vegetable oil, any used vege-oil needs to be strained first. It may have piece of a french fry or onion ring in it! Of course most folks go by the fast food joints to recycle their used vegetable oil, but that obviously is a limited source of vegetable oil.
I can go on and I will continue this GotEngines.com Blog over the next few days. Subscribe for free and stay tuned. Enjoy.
[...] is fuel made from renewable resources such as vegetable oils or animal fats. Called “Grease Cars“, here is a brief description on how a diesel engine [...]
[...] The mix would be computer controlled and since there would be less energy loss through heat transfer, improved combustion would cause an increase in power with less emissions. Not exactly a “Grease Car”. [...]
Thanks very much, I hope you become a subscriber, I try to touch on the unusual as often as possible.
Sanny