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Running Your Car On Waste Vegetable Oil or WVO

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Your diesel can actually run on waste vegetable oil (WVO)

 

During the summer of 06 gas prices started to climb so high that I felt the need to investigate an alternative fuel vehicle. I was pouring $100 worth of fuel in to my truck at each fill up and the money was going overseas to governments that are hostile to the U.S. I did some research and found that you can run any diesel car on waste vegetable oil. I then converted my Dodge Diesel 2500 4x4 truck and have not had any issues with the new fuel.

Important Links! 

  • Themaliburealestateblog.com
    My Malibu Real Estate Blog and another way to get a hold of me for questions about veg conversions and real estate
  • Plantdrive.com
    The place to get all the items you need to convert a car
  • Frybrid Forum
    This site has a great forum to help you understand the "How To" aspect of running on veg, filtration, etc.
  • Aerotanks.com
    Where to get custom fuel tanks to hold the vegetable oil
  • Biodiesel and WVO Forums
    Numerous forums to learn what's going on.
  • Greasecar Forums
    Numerous forums to learn what's going on.
  • Journey To Forever
    Great info about alternative everything
  • Roverhybrids.com
    Hands down the coolest conversions around. Call Shane and get a vintage restored Land Rover Defender and throw a Cummins Diesel in it. Then convert it to veg power!

My Dodge 2500 4x4 Cummins Turbo Diesel 

The Dodge is an excellent candidate for a wvo (waste vegetable oil) conversion. I choose this engine over the Ford because the engine is configured as a straight 6 vs the Ford's V8. My 6 cylinder has about 40% less moving parts due to it's simple design which means there are less parts to worry about breaking as the engine ages. I also went with the Dodge system from PlantDrive.com where many of the parts that are mentioned can be purchased. Ted at VegAuto did the installation in Los Angeles.
The conversion really isn't a conversion at all. My car is more like a Flex Fuel vehicle as it runs on both Veggie and Diesel or even Biodiesel. A second tank was added to the bed that holds 45 gallons of veggie fuel. A heated fuel pick up sucks up oil and starts to warm it up. From there it goes through a Racor/ Vormax filter and all the micro bits of french frys are filtered down to 2 microns. After filtering it hits a FPHE (flat plate heat exchanger) and then gets a blast of electric heat from a Vegtherm. The oil is now being delivered to the injectors at 180 degrees and the engine loves it! How do you switch? A simple switching valve takes care of that. I start the car on diesel coming from the stock tank. When the car warms up and flip a switch on the dash and the valve now directs the flow of fuel to come from the veggie tank. At the end of the night, about two miles from home, I switch back to diesel and purge the oil out of the lines. That way my car can start in the cold morning without thick cold veggie stuck in the lines.
Now it's not so simple as to just get dirty veggie oil from a restaurant and dump it in the the truck. I bring it home in the original 5 gallons totes and filter it down to 1 micron using a system from www.Fryer-To-Fuel.com. It is very important to filter and de-water the oil before you use it. The cleaner the oil is before use, the longer your on board filters will last.

About Biodiesel and WVO 

The two are different!

There is always a ton of confusion when it comes to the two terms as many people mistakenly think that cars running on straight vegetable oil are using biodiesel. SVO or WVO is not Biodiesel. They are both Biofuels but very different from one another. Biodiesel, in simple terms, is chemically converted vegetable oil. The oil goes through a process by which glycerine is removed yielding a "thinned" fuel that is easy to spray through fuel injectors in unmodified diesel cars. This can be added directly to the stock tank of the car. WVO, or waste vegetable oil, is pure oil straight from the fryer. The oil is filtered and dewatered and then put in to the vehicle. This fuel is heated to a point that it's viscosity becomes similar to diesel, again, making it easy for the injectors to spray fuel in to the cylinders. Cars using this fuel generally have additional filters and heaters on board. This fuel is added to a secondary tank where are switching valve lets the driver start up on diesel then run on WVO once the car has warmed up.

Great Stuff on Amazon 

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Great Wvo Svo Stuff on eBay 

Tons of parts can be found on Ebay for the Do It Yourselfer.

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About MalibuRealEstate

That's me, Michael Gardner and my wife Heather. I've been living, working, and playing in Malibu for 20 years. Real Estate is my passion and love sharing this town with people that are new to the area. I graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in Horticulture and could probably tell you a few things about plants! When not selling real estate you can find in the water either surfing, fishing, or diving. I have a 2003 Dodge Truck that runs on waste vegetable oil.

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