K5dreamer
1/2 ton status
original balzer - no need to apologize for your "rant", its first hand information very relivent to the conversation at hand. not nearly enough people realize that ULSD has many problems associated with it, that are arguably on par with those presented by biodiesel.
An update for today, i filled up the tank with B20 biodiesel from PAPCO lubricants. about 8 cents more per gallon than ULSD. Ive put about 50 miles on the truck since then, and dont have any solid numbers yet. Ill be clocking the fuel mileage with a mix of city and highway driving from here to home. about 200 miles. its a 27gal tank, i put 17.171 gallons of B20 in, so im looking at a tank of about 12.6% biodiesel. Obviously im not expecting a huge difference in performance or numbers here. but its only my first tank, so it is what it is.
Initial impression - i did notice for the first ten miles or so, the truck smoked more than it normally does under throttle (acceleration), but that has gone away, just to make sure i did a full throttle run from a 35mph roll, and saw no smoke. which is normal for my truck. i do have the biodiesel smell from the exhaust, which is much more enjoyable than the petrodiesel smell.
Seat of the pants - completely non-scientific, but i figure id throw it in for fun, just to see who it upsets
I may have to agree with 4by4bygod on the lower energy content of the fuel, while i have no quarter mile slips, or dyno numbers, the truck does feel a tick slower than it did before, but not much. although i was trying to pull up next to a hot blond in a VW beetle at the time so maybe that added to the feeling
also, within the first five miles of running, the engine began to run much much smoother. again, this may be more perception than reality, and i am admitadly biased towards wanting to see good things from biodiesel, but the truck is far more quiet than it was before, at idle, or in third gear around 45mph, you can hardley hear the engine running, there were a few times that it was so smooth and quiet i thought maybe it had stalled from a plugged fuel line or filter as i was coming to a stop at a light.
another odd thing, that i really dont know if i can contribute to the biodiesel, or just something that has started happening at the same time, is that the tranny used to never shift into third gear before 45mph, today after the fill up, it has consistantly been shifting into third at 40mph. I have no explenation for this, and it dosnt make a whole lot of sense that the biodiesel caused it, but i thought id throw it up there just in case because it started happening after the biodiesel fuel up.
when i know more or run into a problem, ill update. but for right now, at a very minimal seat of the pants loss of acceleration, the truck seems to really like the blend and seems to be running much smoother.
An update for today, i filled up the tank with B20 biodiesel from PAPCO lubricants. about 8 cents more per gallon than ULSD. Ive put about 50 miles on the truck since then, and dont have any solid numbers yet. Ill be clocking the fuel mileage with a mix of city and highway driving from here to home. about 200 miles. its a 27gal tank, i put 17.171 gallons of B20 in, so im looking at a tank of about 12.6% biodiesel. Obviously im not expecting a huge difference in performance or numbers here. but its only my first tank, so it is what it is.
Initial impression - i did notice for the first ten miles or so, the truck smoked more than it normally does under throttle (acceleration), but that has gone away, just to make sure i did a full throttle run from a 35mph roll, and saw no smoke. which is normal for my truck. i do have the biodiesel smell from the exhaust, which is much more enjoyable than the petrodiesel smell.
Seat of the pants - completely non-scientific, but i figure id throw it in for fun, just to see who it upsets
I may have to agree with 4by4bygod on the lower energy content of the fuel, while i have no quarter mile slips, or dyno numbers, the truck does feel a tick slower than it did before, but not much. although i was trying to pull up next to a hot blond in a VW beetle at the time so maybe that added to the feeling also, within the first five miles of running, the engine began to run much much smoother. again, this may be more perception than reality, and i am admitadly biased towards wanting to see good things from biodiesel, but the truck is far more quiet than it was before, at idle, or in third gear around 45mph, you can hardley hear the engine running, there were a few times that it was so smooth and quiet i thought maybe it had stalled from a plugged fuel line or filter as i was coming to a stop at a light.
another odd thing, that i really dont know if i can contribute to the biodiesel, or just something that has started happening at the same time, is that the tranny used to never shift into third gear before 45mph, today after the fill up, it has consistantly been shifting into third at 40mph. I have no explenation for this, and it dosnt make a whole lot of sense that the biodiesel caused it, but i thought id throw it up there just in case because it started happening after the biodiesel fuel up.
when i know more or run into a problem, ill update. but for right now, at a very minimal seat of the pants loss of acceleration, the truck seems to really like the blend and seems to be running much smoother.
