Playing with SVO in Fiery

[sae70]

Inspired by spending a weekend away with Ben running SVO in his 3.0Ltr 70 series and the fact that I was in Tesco looking at 10Ltrs of Sunflower oil for £10 I decided to pick up 5Ltrs of Veg Oil (Rapeseed) for about £1.10Ltr Why not the £1Ltr Sunflower Oil I hear you ask, well I wasn't sure that it would be the right thing to use, but I knew that Veg Oil would work and had read on Wiki that the best to use is Rapeseed, so Rapeseed it was.

I waited till my fuel light came on and then waited some more, so there was as little fuel in the truck as I dare get away with and then mixed the 5Ltrs of Veg Oil I'd bought with 5Ltrs of Diesel and popped it into the truck

I first poured 3Ltrs of Veg Oil into a large jug that I had and then poured 2Ltrs of Diesel into the remaining Veg oil, replaced the cap shook for 30 seconds and poured into truck. Repeated in 50/50 quantities till all the Veg Oil was gone

Started truck and left her running for 15min. It was soon clear that she was running on the Veg Oil due to the fresh fried chip smell

I've not noticed any difference in her running or performance thus far and am very impressed that it was just so easy really without any real special equipment

 

[Ben]

I almost didnt get to North Wales yesterday.

Running 80% veg to 20% diesel, is fine in the middle of the day when its warm, but at 6am it was really struggling.

Im going to fit an inline heater, and im also tempted to twin tank it.

Im also toying with the idea of trying a bit of acetone in the mix.

http://pesn.com/2005/03/17/6900069_Acetone/

 

[adrianr]

acetone you only need about 100 mls per 50 litres of fuel so it wont really help at all.

in the cold its better to thin the veg with unleaded. 3.5 l ulp and 16.5 l veg.

when it get much colder you can got to i would think about 25% max ulp but it would need to be very cold.

inline heater next for me as well.

 

[fesuvious]

I've been running it for a while (4.2 12valve).
Currently in the tank there is 30litres of Tescos finest, and 40 litres of veg oil.

That is the maximum ratio I'll run on but never have any problems.

CostCo - 89p per litre for the veg oil. Across my seventy litres the saving is £22.....well, well, worth it

The smell, well, its bad on mine because I need to wind the fuel pump back a bit (previous owner) so if anyone knows where there is an online guide to tuning the fuel pump.......

 

[fesuvious]

Worth noting;
If you use 'summer Diesel' with the mix - generally its only rated down to minus 4 before waxing can occur.

Frim late Sept - early Oct garages tend to start using the winter mix which is rated much much lower.

 

[ModelMakerMan]

Worth noting;
If you use 'summer Diesel' with the mix - generally its only rated down to minus 4 before waxing can occur.

Frim late Sept - early Oct garages tend to start using the winter mix which is rated much much lower.

Except Morrisons who dont seem to winterise their fuel EVER!

 

[Graham]

Worth noting;
If you use 'summer Diesel' with the mix - generally its only rated down to minus 4 before waxing can occur.

Frim late Sept - early Oct garages tend to start using the winter mix which is rated much much lower.

.
Are you sure about this?
I believe UK has not changed from summer / winter fuel for some thing like 15 years?

Gra.

 

[nathanrobo]

I almost didnt get to North Wales yesterday.

Running 80% veg to 20% diesel, is fine in the middle of the day when its warm, but at 6am it was really struggling.

Im going to fit an inline heater, and im also tempted to twin tank it.

Im also toying with the idea of trying a bit of acetone in the mix.

http://pesn.com/2005/03/17/6900069_Acetone/

Mate
Acetone definitely improves bio. It breaks the surface tension and improves the spray pattern. Also if you can get 2EHN (bioboost 1000 or vegie boost), you'll improve cetane and it should give a small improvement to cold starting.

 

[nathanrobo]

acetone you only need about 100 mls per 50 litres of fuel so it wont really help at all.

in the cold its better to thin the veg with unleaded. 3.5 l ulp and 16.5 l veg.

when it get much colder you can got to i would think about 25% max ulp but it would need to be very cold.

inline heater next for me as well.

some injection systems will get an airlock with RUG. Not sure about the 12V 4.2 though.

 

[sae70]

I've been accumulating veg oil from Tesco each time I go in for something I pick up 2 or 4 bottles, it works out to be £1 per liter. Depending upon how I mix it with diesel and the price of Derv I can save between £30 to £45 per tank, Derv near to me is between £1.42 and £1.47.

I've been mixing it 50% Veg and 50% Derv without any drama, but am considering a 75% Veg and 25% Derv for my next trip. Do you Veg oil gurus think that this is a doable mix?

I only fill the tank for my journey up to Wales 245miles or Lincomb 200miles then run on straight Derv from then on and I'm not running it all the time. I just use it to have a little saving for the blast up to somewhere, better £30 in my pocket than someone else.

Here's my latest lot 90Ltrs, that's a full tank at 100% Veg

 

[Ben]

Don't do it!!!!

Its far too cold for 75% veg oil.

If you really must try it, just put say 10 litres in and have a can of diesel handy or be close to a fuel station. You will find if its too cold/too much veg oil in it will run really sluggish and lack power. There has been a few times where I've tried putting too much veg oil in when its cold and found the truck getting slower and slower until the point where I'm struggling to do 20mph on a 60mph road.

In the UK in winter my 1KZT engine didnt like anything more than 50/50.

 

[Chris Green90]

I have today put in 40l Veg and 30l Derv. Just done a motorway run to Leeds and back at between 1 and 3 degrees and all was well (120m round trip). I put it in to do a laning trip on Sunday but happened to have to run up to Leeds today for some flooring for my dad.

 

[sae70]

Cheers for the feed back guys its much appreciated Sounds like 50/50 it is then till the weather improves a little. I did notice you speaking of a trip up to Wales earlier on in this thread Ben where you were running 80% Veg in September and finding the truck on the cusp of stopping as the journey went on into the evening and the temperature started to drop. Also earlier on in this thread fesuviouse talks of running 60% all year round, so may push it towards this as a mix.

 

[jbecks]

Any risk to running on veg oil? I might do the same

 

[jbecks]

Is there any dramas with just pouring the veg oil straight into the tank? I don't have the capability to mix enough diesel outside and then pour it in

 

[karl webster]

I have pump litre after litre straight I to the tank. I have done thousands of miles on WVO (waste veg oil)

Does it do harm?? Who knows. Where it does harm is when the oil is cold and it doesn't burn the same when being used in the engine. If you start doing it just watch your engine oil level to make sure it isn't rising with cooking oil.

In my opinion the best way to run cooking oil is with a twin tank system with a heater for the oil.

 

[Towpack]

Running on veg oil is not the same as running on bio diesel produced from veg oil. The refining process takes out the glycerine. A build up of deposits in the combustion chamber can result from using veg oil. I guess everybody has their own ideas in this but, personally, I wouldn't buy a vehicle if I knew it had been run long term on straight, unrefined veg oil. JMO

 

[Vegoil Jo]

I have to agree with Karl. A two-tank system is your safest bet for veg oil motoring.

I've been running my LC4 on veg oil for years now without any troubles. It's cheaper, less polluting and free if you can get a good supplier.

Check out my website www.vegoilcar.co.uk

 

[dave smith]

I was running my fourtrak on 100% veg in December to Feb no probs If it got cold and hard to start I used a tenners worth of petrol and topped up with oil no heater needed. I was paying 65p per litre at the local asian market (sunflower) then found a supplier of waste rapeseed oil filtered and de watered for 30p per litre bargain. The Hilux has been on veg for two years with no issues.