Alternative Fules?

is anyone running an alternative fuel?
With gas prices going up and up and my pay not going anywhere I have been looking at alternatives for my daily driver and it got me thinking. Is anyone running a Diesel in their car or an ethonal additive?

There is some guy selling a destilary for making home made ethanol (and moon shine if you felt like it) that you could supplement into your fuel system of your 1990 and up car (he claims 20% additive is already built into the cars current motor set up).

I have even heard of some guy that has a diesel that runs off of disgarded cooking grease.

any info would be great.

 

I'm all for alternative fuels. A guy on the V8Buick board was just discussing how to run E85 in older cars the other day. My uncle has been running it in his late 80's blazer for a couple weeks but I haven't talked to him to see what you need to do to convert it. Only thing is I wonder if the cost to make it would be prohibitive compared to what you buy. Also depending on where you set up your operation it might not be liked by certain governmental agencies like ATF or EPA.

 

my roomate is ate up with biodiesel. sound like a good idea but i hate the rattling of a diesel.

 

There was a thread about E85 three or four months ago- you might want to check it out. E85 is hell on valve guides, stems and seats, and has less energy than gas... do your research first if you're going to start running it in your rod or custom.

 

A lot of cars built today will run on E85.. It's basically a jetting change and timing. I wish there were a station around here that sold it, I'd run at least one vehicle on it. There was a thread a while back about it...

 

???????? roomate????

what's the wife think of that?

 

What is E85?

I am a pretty knowledgeable guy and I have never herd of it.
Of course I am from texas and the oil conspiritors have probably supressed the information

 

85% ethanol 15% gasoline

http://www.e85fuel.com/

 

Oh! Kool....

What about these guys I see running Propane?

That seems kinda cool.

What is involved in that?

 

Propane was run in some US cars in ww2 years. ive seen some strombergs set up for that.

 

How about a change in gear ratio, and maybe an overdrive transmission? Hell, even changing the diameter of your tires to affect RPM will make a difference. Being a dog off the line's no fun, but until this whole thing blows over (and it will, just like it has in the past when everyone was buying Datsuns and selling their Caddy, only to be stuck with a 1 year old Datsun when the prices came back to reasonable again), bringing your RPM down on a consistant basis is a pretty sound move.
Super-tune your carb and timing, too.
Hell, for those of us who plugged off the heat risers in our intake, open them back up, too!
If you've got a truck, put a bed cover on it (I know first hand that this works to increase MPG, while dropping the tailgate doesn't do much. The air current reversion that causes drag is swirling right behind the cab, which is a bigger problem then damming up behind the tail gate).
Get a K&N Air filter, and keep that sucker clean.

Lot of little things we can do. They even harp about making sure you're running the proper air pressure in your tires, to reduce the wider contact patch/drag that a low tire creates.

Yeah, the gas prices suck--it's up about .30 cents a gallon here (Atlanta)
But if it takes 20 gallons to fill your tank, that's only an extra 6 bucks. One less trip to McDonalds a week covers it. One brown-bag lunch from home. One less pack of smokes (I think--how much are smokes these days? Never picked up the habit, so only know what people say).

And still we don't think twice about paying $1.39 for a 20oz. bottle of soda, or $1.69 for a bottle of water. Water that is free out of every faucet in the country.

I'm not all that miffed about it yet. It's costing me about $10 a week more than before. Yeah, that's $520 a year, but people pay more than that for cable TV.
And TV is FREE with an antenea.

-Brad

 

I was reading about biodiesel the other day. Actually they are using it in europe right now because they are already using the ultra low sulfur diesel and they found that the biodiesel gives the injectors the lubrication that the sulfur gave, but now can't because no sulfur in the fuel. As the US will be coming to the states next year, i think that we will see more biodiesel. It seems like good stuff, only problem is that it eats up natural rubber fuel lines...that is if you are running quite a bit of it through your engine. But guys are making this stuff in their kitchens, go to McDonalds or Wendy's and get the old french fry oil. Pretty crazy and it sounds awesome. There are some stations in the states that are selling a biodiesel blend, and it is expensive.

Also...not all diesels rattle.

 

Call me stupid, but what is Bio diesal?

 

Hell yeah. I have probably the dirtiest engine with no squish whatsoever, but I can still knock down 20mpg on the freeway. Iron heads, iron intake, iron exhaust manifolds and a cobbled together exhaust.

I'd like to see a methanol hotrod though. High compression and all to take advantage of the fuel.

 

Bio Diesel is diesel made from renewable oils, such as sunflower, rape, palm, coconut, animal fat and, well you get the idea. Basically the oil is chemically cracked to make biodiesel, the by product being glycerine which can be made into soap.

There's another way which is to modify the vehicle to run the oil, glycerine and all. Basically just warming it up to flow like ordinary diesel.

I've run the daily mini truck on both, for a year or so. One pretty cool trick if you run out of fuel, is to mix up some cheapo vegetable oil with a little paraffin, and just throw it in. It'll get you home... but only in your diesel!

 

The newspaper here in Reading, PA ran a story a few months ago about a local farmer who makes biodiesel in his barn with used McDonalds cooking oil and a few other ingredients for his tractors. Cheap and and relatively clean fuel.

Since diesel and home heating oil are essentially the same, you can also heat your house with it. However, the feds take exception to running fuels in your car on the road without their excise tax "markup" included! So home-brewers beware.

Biodiesel factories are in the offing in a few states right now. Biodiesel recycles something we have in abundance - vegetable oil. It can be profitable to produce and sell commercially on its own - unlike ethanol which requires huge tax dollar incentives to produce and sell at a loss...

One more thing - running biosiesel make your exhaust fumes smell like french fries! Good or bad? You decide.

Your "Alternative Fool,"

 

There's an E85 plant near Monroe, WI that's not happy with the distribution they're getting from the oil companies. Now they're talking about selling it at the plant for $1.50 a gallon.

http://www.badgerstateethanol.com/industry_news.htm

 

So you're saying it's subsidized just like the petroleum based fuels we buy....

 

My daily driver's an '84 mercedes diesel. It's got at least 300,000 miles on it (odometer is broken) and still runs like a champ. The cheapest fuel you can run is recycled frying oil from a restaurant. you need to filter it super well and then heat it to evaporate any water. I'm way too lazy for this but in our warm Cali climate, I tried a mix of 50% diesel#2 and 50% veg oil (I work in a restaurant an can get the stuff cheap). Not only did it run well, but it helps lubricate the injection pump. Bio diesel is cool but way too expensive. There are plenty of sites that show how to make Bio diesel. Making your own fuel would almost have to be your hobby, I'd rathe build my hot rod.

 

Don't forget that there are price increases on literally everything that gets trucked around... that's gonna cost you too.