I am reposting this post from July 26, 2006…

For a long time I have wanted to determine definitively how much cleaner svo (straight vegetable oil) burns compared to diesel and compared to gasoline. In a post on the lovecraftbiofuels website forum, Stephen Blackburn posts the results from having his car smogged. Remember, in California diesel vehicles are exempt from smog inspections (brilliant idea, eh?).

The results are impressive and confirm what many of us have believed all along, namely that using vegetable oil as a fuel reduces dangerous emissions significantly, even compared to many late model gasoline powered cars.

Here are the highlights:

1. HC (Hydrocarbons) – 8 ppm (parts per million)
   • new cars are allowed 40 ppm
2. CO% (Carbon Monoxide per gallon of fuel burned): 0.03%
   • new cars are allowed 0.9%
3. CO2% (Carbon Dioxide per gal. fuel burned) 14.3
   • Average is 14-15%. NOTE: the carbon removed from the air while growing the plants is greater than that released when it is burned. Therefore, airborne carbon is reduced with svo as a fuel.

Read the post for more details. One of these days I’ll get my car smogged to see how it rates on these emission measures. If anyone else out there has had their vegcar smogged, please send me the results.

I recently met a couple who moved into town. They saw my car’s “Runs on Used Cooking Oil” stickers and knocked on the door to say hello. They have a 240D (circa 1984, I think) with a two-tank Greasecar conversion.

Here are a couple of photos.

Greasecar Secondary Tank

Greasecar Conversion

The conversion looks good. Sorry for the lousy photo I took.

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–DanR

Arctic Vegwerks has answers this question thoroughly here. And the winner is…

1. 1994-1998.5 Dodge Cummins 5.9l 2nd gen 12 valve
2. 1989-1993 Dodge Cummins 5.9l 1st gen 12 valve
3. 1983-1994 Ford International 6.9/7.3l pre-Powerstroke

The following email is from reader DG.

Hi i am buying a 85mb 300sd tomorrow just to use as a veg car, my question is if i live in n.c. where we don’t have long extremely cold winters, is a conversion needed or can i just increase the petrodiesl during winter? and if so where do i find a list of parts needed to do it myself instead of paying top dollar for a “kit”. thanks gas prices are nearly killing my small family in an already hard economic time for us, we are barely getting by now! i work in a restaurant so this would be a lifesaver for me!! thanks

I would strongly advise against putting vegetable oil in your fuel tank without installing at least a filter and better would be a heater/filter. There are two reasons for this:

1. When you put wvo (waste veg oil) in your tank it actually loosens particles of debris from the inside of your tank and fuel lines. These will end up in your injectors unless you have a filter installed to catch them.
2. Even if your weather isn’t too cold, vegetable oil burns a lot better if it is heated up. You may have noticed when cooking with veg oil that when it is heated it becomes less viscous (more watery).

I would advise doing the conversion yourself. You can do a single-tank conversion (no additional fuel tank). I would recommend buying the parts from Lovecraft Biofuels. I, and several friends, got the parts from this company and they have worked very well. It is a simple installation taking only about 4 hours for a beginner. I have step-by-step instructions on how we did it right here on the blog. The kit sells for $595.

If that is too steep, you can buy a Davco 234 filter/heater, hoses and other parts from your local auto parts store and do it that way. The Davco will cost you around $250 I think plus $16 each for the Fleetguard filter inserts.

If that is too steep, I saw a conversion recently that was really simple. They tapped into the coolant line and ran the coolant through a coiled copper tube. The coil surrounded a stock filter (truck filter I think) and that was it.

Basically, you are trying to heat the oil and filter it before it gets into the injectors.

Here is a video from our first conversion back in June of 2006. It was a single-tank conversion of a 1985 300SD. We did the conversion in the workshop of our friend Berry who passed away last year. We miss him dearly.

We documented this conversion here so you can follow the process step-by-step.

I received the following email today from a vegcar.net reader.

I’ve used your guide to changing filters for a year now, Thank you! I have a question. I am trying to figure out what number the filter is from Fleetguard so I can purchase them in greater number.

I was happy to hear that he has been using our step-by-step filter change guide to change the filter in his Davco 234 heat exchanger. The filter that goes in the Davco is a Fleetguard FS19761 filter (2 microns). I just bought a case of 6 from the Kenworth Dealer in Fresno, CA for $92 including tax.

A Vegcar.net reader sent in this link to a new blog documenting the conversion of a Volkswagon Beetle TDI. They are using a kit from Frybrid. Good luck guys!

Documentary filmmaker Trish Dalton has made a spot about how, “Students at The Automotive High School in Brooklyn convert a diesel car into one that runs on grease from their cafeteria.”

heck out her site here.

I get emails from time to time from people asking where they can buy filtered wvo for their vegcar. Today we got our second delivery from a company out of San Luis Obispo, CA called Sphere Energy. The owner, 23 year old Ian Hoover, is a very bright mechanical engineer who is devoted to alternative fuels an wvo in particular. I have a short video interview I made today that I will post to the blog soon.

He separates the oil after heating and filtering it. The “sludge” is picked up by another renderer. The creamy stuff is sold to a biodiesel plant and the “amber” is sold to vegcar drivers like me. We purchased three 330 gallon “totes” filled with 5 micron filtered wvo for $1.75/gallon (delivered 200 miles!).

I recommend Ian highly. I have already run 165 gallons of his oil through my car (a previous test order). The oil performed perfectly, even through the 20 degree winter weather.