Diesels - emissions and alternative fuels

[Emmettology 101]

Hello all!

A friend and I have been disscussing diesel emissions and alternative fuels.

First with emissions. How much pollution does your normal light duty diesel p/u put out compared to a similarly equipped gas truck?

Also, on alternative fuels.... There was a guy at last years Summit Racing Truckfest that had a Unimog that ran on used cooking oil. What does one need to do to a diesel equiped vehicle to run this type of fuel?

Anyone have any good websites or articles they can share?

I am not trying to put down diesels or start arguments. My friend almost bought a TDI Jetta and for my next truck I would liek a diesel equippe Dodge. While we were talking about these vehicles, we were wondering about these topics...

Thanks!

 

[BlueBlazer]

If they are both running correctly, diesels generally will have much higher NOx, higher particulates, but much lower HC and CO.

You can find many discussions on the web about emissions and what affects it like timing, EGR, DI vs. IDI, etc.

A lot of guys I work with check this site out a lot, Dieselnet forums

 

[Pookster]

ahh, used cooking oil. im running that now!

Basically, there is one really important factor (that we know about)- and that is to provide the same qualities as standard diesel fuel (clean fuel, no water), but two other variables come into play- viscosity, and ph.

The main concern of most used frying oil is that they may be acidic- a simple PH test will tell you if its ok.

The other is viscosity- The colder the weather, the more viscious the oil will be- to the point of being solid. Most waste vegetable oil (WVO) will solidify at around 40-50 degrees, well above the normal range compared to #2 diesel. Some users "cut" the WVO with kerosene. The right way to do it would be a two tank system- One running diesel, and one running WVO-. The two tank system is designed to bring the engine up to operating temps, and also to heat up the WVO. There are many methods of heating the WVO, from piping coolant hosing and element into the WVO tank, electric plate heaters, inline heaters, fuel filter heaters, just to name a few.

THeres an emissions difference- Under full throttle, I get almost no black smoke- whereas with diesel, I would get the puff of black smoke.

I dunno if you can compare gas with diesel- Gas puts out more polutants per mile, but diesel puts out more per gallon. When you estimate the acutal pollution put out by say, two identical vehicles but with different engines, the gas engine puts out more during the same amount of miles traveled.

currently, the "emissions" people rate it by the amount of particulates per mile. So even a VW golf diesel which gets 50 mpg , has more "Emissions" than a H2, which gets 11-12.

www.greasecar.com
www.greasel.com
www.journeytoforever.com

Dodge trucks that are direct injection are not as suited to running WVO, and some other issues. Your best choices are IDI engines.

 

[jarheadk5]

Your link to JourneyToForever.com is dead.

 

[Pookster]

my bad, its journeytoforever.org!