Diesel Car on Veg Oil
Turbo Mini Forums

Jack Jones

this has made me think about running the audi on this stuff. I'll need to look into it

I considered it Rob on my old one, but with an injection pump costing about £1800 I decided against it.

thats my worry - the pump hasn't given me any issues yet and, with the mileage on it now, I don't really want to temp fate (having said that my local guy recons I'd be closer to £800 for a replacement pump).

Its just that I now have a circa £600/month fuel bill and any saving I could make would be a benefit at the moment.

maybe a cheep disposable motor is what i want

an old 405/406 estate with a 1.9td 90bhp engine would be pretty cheap to run like this

I was thinking of an old passat -keep it in the VAG family

I was thinking of this the other day, get something like a Bora TDI 90, then "Bluemotion" it yourself- skinny low rolling resistance tyres, undertray, lose some weight out of it etc.

The bluemotion thing definately works my golf see's over 60mpg on a regular basis where as the non bluemotions we have are low to mid 50's

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

if I could get even 40mpg i'd be a lot happier - works out on the back of the fag packet at a tank a month saving over what i get now

Old Isuzu engined vauxhalls are supposed to be pretty bomb proof on veggie oil.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

that would mean driving a vauxhall though!

I did it for a short while (Merc W125 250)... But decided it's not worth it for the few pennys saved. As a minimum conversion I drove a SVO/diesel mix. This winter cold start were OK with ~50% diesel.

But: if you get SVO for free, it's mostly unfiltered or not ultra fine filtered, = needs time & appartures to filter. The stuff from the discounter is expensive (0,99€). Long story short: I saved about 6-7€ per fill, but it cost me a lot more time to fill, get the stuff - and then the smell... So after all I decided - for myself - it's not worth the hassle. Especially since it's not exactely legal over here...

In my opinion, cheap motoring means buy a high MPG petrol car and convert it to run on gas (LPG).

Considering a similar milage I would save at least 30% more if the car ran on LPG. :)

My calculations:
- diesel: 1,33/l
- super market SVO: 0,99/l

= 1,16€/l @ 50:50.
= 1,05€/l @ 80:20 (recommended without other mods)

- Full tank of diesel @ 1,33: 93,10€.
- 50:50 mix: 81,20€
- 80:20 mix: 73,5€

So between 11,90 and 19,60€, depending on the weather and availability. I calculated 0,99€ per liter SVO, as that's the easyest to get (Supermarket, no contamination). Bottles from 1l to 10l are available, which means a lot of waste is produced. The cheapest 10l container ended up with 1,07€/l.

And now: a similar sized tank (70l) of LPG would save me 47,60€ @ 0,68€/l per fill.

As amazing "up to almost 20€ saving" may sound - it's a lot of hassle and time involved.

I don't know the UK prices, but calculate for yourself.


I'd say: give it a try if your injection pump can handle it and see for yourself if it pays out for you. :) Most BOSCH inline-pumps are OK to use.

Bit about runing SVO:

Idealy the injection system resp. injection pump & injectors have to be adapted to run with SVO (even with a 20% diesel content!). Which means:

- higher injector opening pressure

Which leads to:
- more advance
- more fuel/longer duration
(higher OP = less fuel in the same time)

This again makes it a bit troublesome if runing on 100% diesel (hotter runingt).

The diesel keeps the SVO more liquid, which makes it easyer for the injection pump. I don't know about others, but my Merc allready got a fuel heater. This made SVO only a problem untill the engine got warmer. Hence I had to run a higher diesel content with lower temperatures.

The two-tank solution is a bit better in this regard.

But in an ideal world, both ways of runing SVO would benefit from a larger capacity heat exchanger and an electric pre-heater (alloy block with 2-3 glow plugs) for cold conditions. There are some cheap kits about, have a look.

Hope that helps a bit. :)

Cheers,
Jan

Edited by Asphalt on 19th Jan, 2011.

[X] nail here for new monitor

just been looking into this a bit more and running a second car is out of the question. Insurance quote for a mk3 golf diesel was nearly £500 for the year as i'd keep the NCB on the audi.

there would need to be a fair bit of saving to make it worth while

Rob ring around, I got the Shogun insured for £350 fully comp as they mirrored the NCB off my main policy which is still running on my Audi.

I'll maybe try that.

did a few more calcs and it might not be so bad. if i'm using the audi less my servicing and repair costs on that are going to drop significantly too I suppose

http://www.hydrogenhybrids.uk.com/index.html

interesting reading - i'm no tecie - does anyone have an opinion on this system?

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.

Dennis has said it.

I cant see how hydrogen as a fuel will ever work, because there is so much energy required to split the water molecule I cant see the overall efficiency of burning hydrogen as an improvement unless the electrical power to do it comes from wind, wave or tidal energy systems.

And that's the point: hydrogen is no energy source. It's just a carrier (the way we can use it that is).

So instead of putting the electricity into the car, they use it to mke hydrogen, pu the hydrogen in the car and the car converts hydrogen back into electric energy... Sounds like a stupid detour to me...

On the other hand; it might be not as bad in regards of weight & space that's required for conventinal batterys. And I guess in case of emergency a hydrogen tank with emergency valve might pose a far lesser risk than a huge amount of explosive batterys full of lightly burning stuff!?

But yes - hydrogen is only as green as you can make it. :)

[X] nail here for new monitor

thanks guys - I had my concerns it was a bit hyped up to be true

Nuclear powered cars are the way foward!!!

1/4 Mile 14.3secs 96Mph Terminal 10psi of boost.


Fibreglass Parts? - http://www.tdkracing.co.uk/
Split Rims? - http://www.force-racing.co.uk/

[X] nail here for new monitor

I think huge fuel economy needs a specific vehicle.

That is what I did, I go to work (20 kms) with a Honda Helix / Fusion / Spazio or whatever you want to call it and standard it returns 3,2 liters for 100 kms which is two times better than what my Megane DCi does (fair amount of town / congestion).

On the plus side it allows me not to lose much time when there is a traffic congestion (more often than not)

Anyway, despite I bought it for only 400€, I am only gonna see a money saving in 10000 kms or so ...

Best bet would be a bicycle but it is quite a ride and requires a shower once at work ...

Rusty by nature

Thanks for all the posts, after reading them i have gone for it. I am running a 20% fresh veg oil - 80% diesel at the moment while the weather is cold. Will change the ratio once it warms up.

I have read that this is quite safe on the XUD engine with a bosch fuel pump (which i have).

This should save me a fair amount as i do about 25,000 miles to and from work a year. Just need it to warm up now, so that i can start to save more, or look into the used oil route.

So far i haven't noticed anything different with how it drives, it even seems a bit quicker.