Running an Yanmar L100 engine on SVO.

[Sserpent]

Hi Guys.

First off, please note that I'm not making any claims, nor am I claiming that this was particularly scientific or thorough and it definitely didn't study any long term effects on the engine. It's just a very rough write up on my experiments with running a Yanmar L100 on vegetable oil.

One of the main things I wanted to do with my diesel motorcycle was run it on SVO, and reading the 'Riding on Salad Oil' article (http://www.altmann.haan.de/riding_on_sa ... efault.htm) that seemed straight forward as the author did not specify anything special to do.
So soon after getting my Yanmar L100 I tried running it on SVO.
This was during November/December in the South East of England so ambient temperature was less than 10C.
It did not like it too much. Starting it with the pull start was never going to work, but it started with the starter motor, but only after several seconds of cranking. And even then it wasn't very happy, making lots of noise and smoke and would not idle.
So I tried warming the vegetable oil up before it goes into the engine and that worked a treat.

I sheathed 2 meters of 20 SWG Nichrome wire with fibreglass sleeving and wrapped it around the metal high pressure fuel line that runs between the fuel pump and the injector.
This gave me around 3.5A current draw at 12V which heats the wire to around 200C according to some document I found somewhere on the web. (http://www.wiretron.com/nicrdat.html)
I don't really know how hot it got, but it got pretty hot.
A lot can be done to improve the heat transfer from the wire to the fuel line over my setup.
I'm sure a better sleeving can be used that conducts heat better. Please note that the sleeving needs to be an electrical insulator to prevent the wire from shorting out on the metal fuel line.
I didn't try to limit the heat loss to the air.
The engine cooling fan blew air over the fuel line and therefore cooling it.

Heating the oil in this fashion made the engine start almost immediately with the starter motor, although I still could not start it with the pull start.
The engine ran a lot quieter with A LOT less smoke than it did running on unheated oil, but it still made more smoke than diesel. The noise level seemed to be about the same though.
I never ran it long enough for the engine to warm up properly, but suspect that with the engine warm it will smoke even less.

Below is a picture showing the heating wire wrapped around the fuel line.

Sadly, I'm now selling my entire project as I'm moving soon and it can't come with me:
https://www.dieselbikeforum.com/view ... 01&start=0

Regards
Neil

[travelcrazy]

Nice idea!

What do you think of the 2 tank system to heat the engine and then switch to SVO?

When the injector tube is isolated from the outside air and the engine is nice and warm. Would that be enough to preheat the SVO?

I'm thinking to put a small 2 liter diesel system on the bike and fill the normal tank with SVO.

Guus

[Sserpent]

I don't have any experience of a two tank system and all I know of them is what I've read. Personally I would rather just run diesel than bother with a two tank system. It sounds like too much of a faf to me. Hence my experiments with heating the oil.
I think the electrical solution is neater, providing it works in the long run.
You'll need a bigger battery to make sure you've got enough juice to heat the wire and start the engine.
I figured you could probably reduce the current to the wire once the engine is warm. It's probably not a good idea to turn the wire off completely as the thinner the oil the better, but reducing the current will place less load on your charging system.
It would be simple enough to stick a temperature sensor to engine somewhere, a bimetallic switch would be ideal, that activates a PWM circuit once the engine is at a decent temperature. PWM circuits are easy to come by.
The nice thing with this system is that it should not matter if you're running neat oil, neat diesel or any mixture of the two. A diesel/oil mixture won't mind being heated and you can switch the heating off completely if you're just running diesel. So if you running low on oil and can only find diesel, just fill up with diesel and ride around on that until you can find some oil again.
Of course, as all I've done so far is run the engine on oil under no load, it will depend on whether or not running it on oil in this way actually works in the real world, but I see no reason why it shouldn't. There are some car systems that rely on preheating the oil and the little engine was so much happier with the heated oil that I'm quite confident it'll work fine. One day I'll find out for myself.

[coachgeo]

While oil temp to reduce its viscosity is important.... their is another huge factor. the Temp of the engine. Cold cylinder walls, pistons, rings etc. coke from unburned fuel. Even diesel. More so with a fuel it is not exactly designed for such as WVO/SVO.

This is why these engines coke up easy if you do not do something to warm the engine first. Hence the two tank system. It warms not only the fuel; lowering viscocity, but also heats up the engine first.

Some (actually just one) has had long term success (100,00+ Canada miles; including winter, if I recall right) with preheating the engine with a plug in engine coolant heater; Summer and Winter, and fueling immediately with a Veg. Blend. (One tanker as they call it) A rather high concentrate of Veg. too. 80+% if I recall right.

Another thing to search is the Peter Schure Blend. Veg+Isopropyl. Interesting stuff.

[greasecat]

i've so far been successful running two cars on wvo and bio-diesel.

i do not recommend running a mix of svo and diesel unless the vo's % is quite low (5%). which would help lubricate the fuel (at least in the us) with the low sulfer diesel currently on the market. vo's vicsosity is close to diesel at @140' f. vo reacts to certain metals that cause polymerization which will clog filters and your lies etc. plastics and stainless steel,aluminum reduce the polymerization, also keep as much air and moisture out of the oil.
but i would definitely not start and stop on vo. always run vo when the engine and oil is hot.
as good source for running wvo and vo in diesel engine could be found at frybrid.com.
if you have space and willing to deal with some chemicals bio-diesel is what i recommend. if you successfully get 100+ mpg gallon a batch or 25 gallons should last a good season of riding. bio-diesel is sensative to colder temps as diesel so blending with diesel fuel might be needed in colder season.
vo is a good detergent so take precautions when first introduced to your ride. carry a extra filter.
naturalrubber are sensative to vo and bio-diesel. use synthetic (viton) fuel lines.