1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

[oztec2007]

Hi all
Does anyone know the ideal temperature for veg oil as it enters the IP to get the best performance out of it.
ie I experimented with heating both veg oil and diesel separately.
I found that heating the diesel gave much less power and performance.

I wander if the veg oil is too hot ?

it is presently set at what ever the engine coolant is.

cheers
Mark

[Tim-HJ61]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Can you give us some more clarity in your information?

It sounds like you heated the diesel and found you had less power.

But then you say you wonder if the vege is too hot.
Did you lose power on vege as well??

FWIW, I get 80°C oil temp out of the heat exchanger and in spring, winter, autumn ambient temperatures my power remains the same on vege. As the ambient temperature rises to over around 30°C, I lose a bit of power on vege and notice the engine idles 200rpm slower. I believe this is caused by a slightly worn pump and the higher temperatures are causing internal expansion inside the pump, losing pressures in the wrong places.

I have turned OFF the heat exchanger and added 10% ULP to ensure good flow and spraying at the injectors. I always purge every stop with diesel to ensure no glugging of the DI injectors. This way I have maintained my engine power in high ambient temperatures.


I understand vege is the same viscosity as diesel at around 180°C, similar to cooking temperature. However, we don't push this temp into the IP as we don't need to. If you are finding you are losing power on vege when heated to coolant temperature, and it is not losing power when the HE is turned off, I suspect you may have the same problem as me.

Be careful running cold oil and\or not purging with a 1HDT - it's a direct injection motor.

Tim

[oztec2007]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Hi Tim
yes it is the diesel that I experimented with temporarily heating it the same way as the veg was heated just to see what happened.
It was apparent immediately that the engine performance was very poor. The worst it's ever been. At low revs it took ages to accelerate until you were above 1400.
Ive recently had my IP rebuilt and tested so it is not likely to be faulty.

I have poor performance on veg under 1400 but not to that extent.

These heat waves don't help.

being an auto you can't slip the clutch to gain revs from a stand still. I have fitted a temp guage today to the IP and a vac/boost guage to monitor things. I've also fitted a ball valve to the heater cooland to the HE to turn it down a bit.

I only put 100 of white spirits to 100 litre tank veg.

See what happens

Mark

[Socrates]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Temperature variation doesn't seem to matter to me. Once I'm up to ambient I could be anywhere from 50 degrees to 90 (once over 100!) and no diff.

[Nuddy]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Temperature variation doesn't seem to matter to me. Once I'm up to ambient I could be anywhere from 50 degrees to 90 (once over 100!) and no diff.

Me too. In winter my coolant never gets over 60oC and one hot day in December when towing it got up to 124oC. No difference in power from one extreme to the other or in the middle.
If I had a DI fuel system I would make sure it never got below 70oC but with my IDI I am happy to run veg from 20oC.

[Socrates]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

All said about temperature - after everthing I've read I'm still scared to run on too low a temperature in fear of the nasties that could apparently happen.

BUT - if one's engine is happy and blowing no noticeable smoke then surely it shouldn't be a problem.

Nuddy - I too had my fuel temp go over 100 degrees C (220 F). Not quite as much as yours but still I panicked and stopped in fear of melting something or deep frying my fuel line. We were going up Mt Dromedary in hot weather. I turened off the glow plugs - didn't need 'em. Still, no difference in performance.

[cgoodwin]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Me too. In winter my coolant never gets over 60oC and one hot day in December when towing it got up to 124oC.

Not good that. Diesel motors are designed to be run at operating temp which is about 80C, they do nto function properly below that temp becasue the rings do not properly seat. Manuals will always have a notation about not "Loading" the motor until it is at operating temp and if you do engine lube oil analysis I think you will find quite a bit of fuel in your oil which means that it is also on the rings and in the ring lands.

Your engine should produce heat when running, at an idle there shoudl not be enough to get to temp, but once driving the temp should come up rapidly to 80-90 C, at that point the thermostat should begin to open allowing coolant to flow through the radiator and be cooled, if the coolant temp drops below 80-90 C the thermostat will close and again coolant will not be flowing through the radiator and the engine temp will come up. On the motor, usually on the water pump, is the fan, the fan is mounted to a fan clutch which is in turn bolted to the pump. When the motor is cold you can reach in and spin that fan by hand becasue the clutch is not engaged so the fan is not being driven directly by the pulley on the water pump. If you get the motor hot and turn it off then try to spin the fan, it will be difficult to spin because the clutch is now engaged locking the fan to the pulley on the pump. This is done so that when the engine is cold you are not blowing cooling air over the motor you are trying to bring up to temp, but when the motoris hot, you are forcing air through the rad and over the engine cooling things down.

I would strongly advise you to replace your thermostat ASAP and get your running temps to at least 80C. Here in the great white north we can get diesels to run at 80C all winter, even when ambient is -40F. Replace the thermostat & install a radiator "bib". It is very important to the proper running of a diesel and to proper combustion to have an adequately heated engine. Remember these are compression ignition engines and the heat for ignition is generated by compressing air. Glow plugs, preheaters, etc are all there just to help get that air temp up because the engine is cold.

Heating Diesel:

DO NOT DO IT. Diesel is a piss poor lubricant, that is why IP's move 60 gallons of fuel an hour but only burn two, they are lubricated by fuel and the fuel is such a poor lubricant that they keep it moving at a good clip. Heating diesel also causes it to loose some of its stored energy, I can't remember the formula right now but it is something like a 3% reduction in BTU for every 10F over 90F. This is part of the reason many newer vehicles have fuel coolers on the return line. Many of the newer Bosch and Standadyne systems have a fuel temp sensor on the return line, if the fuel temp exceeds 140F +/- the computer puts the engine into "limp" mode in an attempt to reduce the heat before the IP melts itself. When converting these engines I am careful to locate the fuel temp sensor on the diesel return line only so it does not freak out when the returning VO is at 80C+

Optimum VO temp:

In you look at this post on my forum you will find several interesting things. The first is several graphs we put together showing the relation of temp to viscosity in various oils, the most striking thing is that regardless of the oils viscosity at ambient temps, once heated to around 80C all the oils had the same viscosity and that viscosity did not drop much more all the way to 140C.

The next interesting thing is a study from India (Investigations on the performance and exhaust emissions of a diesel engine using preheated waste frying oil as fuel :M. Pugazhvadivua,(a), K. Jeyachandran(b)) where they measured an engines power and emissions output on dieselat ambient and on VO at 30C, 75C and 135C. What the study shows is that the completeness of combustion as reflected through the emissions and power shows a HUGE increase between the VO at 30C and the VO at 75C and only a small difference between the VO at 75C and the VO at 135C. WHat this means is that while there are some gains in efficiency to be had by heating the VO to 135C, the majority of the gains can be had in the 75C to 80C range - which just so happens to be our lowest acceptable coolant temp for a diesel engine!

[Socrates]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?


My appologies. I thought Nuddy was talking about fuel (WVO) temperature, not coolant. That's a different story.

[Nuddy]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

My appologies. I thought Nuddy was talking about fuel (WVO) temperature, not coolant. That's a different story.

In my case coolant temp = WVO temp except at cold start. When I got to 124oC I wasn't worried about the fuel temp but was very worried about coolant so I pulled over and let it idle while the electric fan brought it down to 90oC.
My thermostat opens at 60oC and the 'middle' position on my OEM temp gauge corresponds to 65oC. I have discussed this on the Patrol forum and it seems that they all run at about this temp and this is what Nissan intends.
Even turning the fan off doesn't get it any hotter under normal operation
If I want it to run hotter I would have to buy an aftermarket 'hot' thermostat.
If Nissan reckons 60oC is hot enough that's good enough for me.
15,000 km on WVO in this one so far, not done a winter yet (in this one) perhaps I'll get that aftermarket thermostat for the coming winter.

[oztec2007]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Hi guys
Thanks for your comments

Iv'e kept my eye on the new gadgets I put on the other day, the temp sensor and vac boost guage I put on the fuel line going into my IP and played around with the ball valve now on my HE coolant.

Performance on veg doesn't vary much and seems to run better on the highway when it's hotter i.e. around 80 deg C.

I have found that the best time for performance is not long after starting it the next day on diesel. Later in the day when you have to switch back to diesel from veg for one reason or another i.e. maccas drive thru or RBT's etc it runs very poor at low revs again.
It is as though it just doesn't want to inject enough of a charge into the cylinders at low revs.
i.e. accelerator position flat to the floor is lost in translation somewhere.

I wish I understood the inner workings a bit better of my IP as I think the govenor inside may be overregulating in this range probably due to physical changes of the mechanics inside due to increased heat.

I am hoping there is an adjustment somewhere to compensate for this.
i.e. crank it up a bit at preboost levels.

I don't want to go adjusting the wrong thing on my Denso IP.

They seem to be very expensive if you get it wrong.

Hoping somebody has already done it and got it right.

cheers
Mark

[Tim-HJ61]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Hi,

You have a direct injection turbo diesel.
So do I. We need to take specific care of our injectors by effective purging to ensue long engine life.

Sadly yours goes faster than mine, especially if you crank it up to 22psi boost, add gas, intercooler and foot to the floor like BrianW's successful conversion.

My engine runs slower at idle, and less power through the whole range, in high ambient temperatures. To fix this during summer, I turned off my oil heater, and thinned my oil with a 10% ULP blend. Thereby keeping the oil viscous enough to flow properly, but not adding heat to a hot IP. Works fine for me. I suspect my IP is wearing. I have an inline pump. You do not. Might be different for you.

You also have an auto, like my mate Brian's. He recently had his IP done up and the mob that did it sent him back a manual IP, with some part that adjusts the idle up when stationary in gear. Really runs rough and slow at less than normal set idle speed. Takes off like a stingray when throttle applied, so there is no problem with the IP or engine, it is simply idling too slow.

Why don't you try increasing the idle speed a tad and see if that makes a difference?

Tim

[oztec2007]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Thanks Dave and Tim I’ll try to answer directly.
It is something that has been happening to a slightly lesser degree for a few years before converting.
I have always had to go back onto diesel in a drive thru so as not to smoke the place out by the the time I get served.
It has a walbro lift pump and at highway cruising,can have up to 6 pounds positive at the IP when on veg and runs normally at minus 2 or 3 pounds on diesel using clear hoses with new T bolt hose clamps. ie no air.
There is no screen filter under that bolt connecting the fuel line to the IP. I did have trouble with screen filters upstream in the early days and they have been removed.
I’ve eliminated the cable as the problem and the idle is adjusted up a bit at 800 RPM. Doesn’t seem the change much hot or cold weather.

I have improved the purging a few months ago by separating the send and return switching and adding a second turbo timer to delay switching back return line so as not to contaminate the diesel.
I haven't tried the ULP but I am using white spirits to keep it a bit happier.

I don’t have any add ons but it would be good. It was pretty well stock standard before going veg.
I wish mine went faster than yours Tim.
Thanks
Mark

[Nuddy]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Both my Patrol and my son's hilux blow a bit of smoke (lots in the case of the hilux). Both need new injectors or injector overhaul. However both blow much more smoke on diesel than on veg. I don't use the drive through but if I did I would have to make sure I was on veg to avoid 'smoking them out'.
It seems very odd that you have more smoke on veg than on diesel. I can't imagine what would cause that.

[Nuddy]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

I can understand that B100 would be less smokey. We have never had bio in the hilux, only use dino for startup/purge. Perhaps it is to do with heating the fuel. Warming up on dino we have lots of black smoke. When we switch to (heated) veg we get much less smoke and the smoke is more blue than black but still too much smoke, we need to do something for the injectors.
With the patrol, also never had any bio, currently using 5% ULP in veg for startup/purge (yes I am ignoring my petrol in IP phobia) but I switch to veg 1 minute after cold start. No smoke at idle on either fuel but haven't checked on dino. Smoke comes on full throttle from low revs and seems to be less when hot.

[Jeffrey S. Brooks]

Re: 1HDT what is the ideal veg oil temparature?

Hello Nuddy, there are a lot of people on the various bio-fuels forums who are using various concentrations of unleaded from 3% to 30% and none of them have reported finding any evidence that doing so has damaged their IP or any other component, so it seems reasonable to say that blending at least small percentage of unleaded into VO causes no harm to a diesel engine.