WVO Blog

With such a short time frame, I took the “Shock and Awe”approach and broke out the nastiest picture I could find: A greased TDI that had severe coking and led to engine failure. I followed that up with test report after test report of failed engines due to Vegetable oil. Severe Engine Damage, carbon buildup, rings sticking, lubrication oil contamination and catastrophic engine failure. I rounded off my opening tirade with pictures of a severely coked and scoured piston and a pile polymerized engine oil that looked like Jello.

Now you may be wondering, as my audience was, why was I being so negative? Don’t I believe in and, in fact, promote the use of WVO as fuel? Yes, but allow me to give you a peek into the mind of an engineer; every thing breaks and at some point, the engine in your vehicle will fail. The use of WVO as fuel in place of Diesel will probably lead to that failure sooner than later. I believe that everyone considering the use of WVO as an alternate fuel needs to clearly understand the risks and evaluate their  motivations. WVO is NOTa direct replacement for Diesel; professional WVO conversions are neither cheap nor simple but are designed to reduce if not eliminate the risks associated with WVO. Many people with early Mercedes have found that minimal or no conversion is necessary to run on WVO. In this case, return on investment for the whole vehicle could be made inside of 30,000 miles of driving on WVO. Owners of newer vehicles require a much longer payback and carry a higher risk in the value of the vehicle over the value of the fuel.

My conclusion is to acknowledge, without prejudice, what you will find in any alternate fuel forum; different people, in different places with different motivations. I am, and this site is, open to cater to the whole spectrum. I believe it is somewhat self regulating as most “shoe string” conversion will be for the inexpensive vehicles and the comprehensive and automated systems will be developed for the more expensive vehicles. As an engineer,I will always be drawn to the failures as that is where improvements can be made.

Leon

Comment (1)

The problem was and still is good information:

I am a mechanical engineer with 10 years of product development experience for North American Truck Manufacturers and it took me forever pouring through countless forums and websites trying to piece together good information and a robust design for a conversion. I am not saying that there is not good information out there but to quote Cynthia Shelton of the now defunct National VegOil Board:

“The VegOil industry is a fragmented collection of fiefdoms that wage war with one another over the internet. At best the participants are brilliant innovators, articulate, charismatic, intelligent, and excited about the future and their role in it. At worst they are poor businessmen, unclear about the basics of customer service and responsibility to each other to build a strong industry before the professionals come in to take it over at a federal level.”

Sounds kinda harsh but, there is a lot of information out there and not all is good. I know you probably can just put it in and go....but I wouldn't.

So you want to build your own kit?

Someone has probably already done it. It couldn’t be that hard, right? I have seen pictures, I know this guy that did it....

Enter WVOdesigns.com:

This site, forum, and file exchange center is set up to be built by the WVO community, for the WVO community. Engineering is not about being smart or even being able to invent. Engineering is about being able to document a product so that it can be repeated and improved. Iteration is where a refined design comes from; no one ever gets it right the first time. If you have a design of a kit or even a part of a kit, add it to the Design Forum. If you found a wicked source for jic hose or filter elements, post it on the Forum. I don’t think it will take all that much work to create the resource that I was desperately looking for when I set out to do my kit. I will start the site off with the design of my 2001 F350 and make some special requests to the people who designed kits I have found on the web. The rest is up to the WVO community and I wish it luck.

Leon Griffin, WVOdesigns.com

Comment (0)