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My Car Runs on Used Cooking Oil!!

Ziptar

Ziptar

Platinum Member
It all started in the Hot Deals Forum!!!....

I replied Basically oil schmoil.... I fill up at Resturants!!!!

A couple People asked me to post in OT so we could disuss it more.. so here it is.... I try to give as much info as possible in my first post...

I have converted my 2003 Jetta TDI to run on used cooking oil that I collect from resturants.

I have been working on this for over a year, reasearching, asking questions, etc.. I originally was going to buy a kit to do it but, in the end I wound up building my own.

in order to do this I need two things... Clean Fuel and Hot Fuel. Clean so nothing gets screwed up by a chicken bone getting sucked into the fuel system. Hot becuase at room temperature Vegoil is thicker than Diesel. Heating it to ~160 Degrees gets the viscosity down so it can be easily filtered and pumped to the injectors.

It's a pretty simple and straight forward system. I am using a 2 Micron Caterpilliar Bulldozer Fuel Filter, a 12 volt Fuel Heater called a Vegtherm from Neoteric Biofuels, a coolant fuel heat exchanger, eurospec 0.205mm Injector nozzles and a fuel return loop (return loop keeps fuel hot, makes for less work on the injection pump, and keeps clean fuel in the lines instead of sending back to the fuel tank).

I originally set out to build the smallest, cleanest, hassle free Vegoil System I could. I think I did it. I have it plumbed so that I can swicth back and forth from Veg to diesel by flipping two valves and unpluging the vegtherm. I have Gauges, Switches, and solenoid valves in the works to control everything but, that will come in a bit.

engine compartment:
The Engine

So Far I have about 10,0000 Miles on it. It's running great, a little quieter and not alot of smoke. So far it's starting fine, hopefully it stays that way when the weather gets cooler. but I am in Florida so I don't need to worry about it getting too cold. I get 45-50 MPG with muy car wether it's Diesel or VegOil

In keeping with simple and no muss no fuss, I have built a prefilter/storage/pump unit for the garage. It has a large stainless steel strainer inside and a goldenrod 10 micron filter. It is an electric pump and it takes all of about 5 minutes to fill my tank. All I do is pour my collected and settled oil through a strainer in the top of the drum, turn on the pump and I filter the oil and fill the car at the same time.

The Pre-Filter

So Far I am in the Conversion and Building the Pre-Filter about $800.00. I commute 1000 miles a week and use 25-30 gallons a week with diesel being $2.19 a gallon right now, I figure it will have paid for itself in about 3 more months..

If you want the full skinny on exactly what I did I pretty much kept a build log in This Thread on the SVO Forum @ Infopop

You may be asking yourself "Why would Ziptar do such a thing???"

Well....
1) I can...
2) I get used cooking FREE from resturants around town....

My Liscense Plate 😀
 
Has this idea been around a while? I'm pretty much blown away by this. I didn't think that used vegetable oil had enough combustion properties. Doesn't it also leave unwanted residue after being burned off?
 
Originally posted by: gotensan01
Has this idea been around a while? I'm pretty much blown away by this. I didn't think that used vegetable oil had enough combustion properties. Doesn't it also leave unwanted residue after being burned off?
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yeah, it also smells like what you were cooking it with.....
 
Awesome.. 😀

This is what I'm going to do. I wanna get a cheap 'Benz or VW diesel and do this...

 
Originally posted by: Gibson486
Originally posted by: gotensan01
Has this idea been around a while? I'm pretty much blown away by this. I didn't think that used vegetable oil had enough combustion properties. Doesn't it also leave unwanted residue after being burned off?
Click to expand...

yeah, it also smells like what you were cooking it with.....
Click to expand...

Yeah which is totally worse than the damage we are doing with our OIl addiction.....a car that smells like fries sounds win win
 
I've heard of it done to an older VW diesel. Pretty cool conversion. I'd be looking into it if I knew anyone who managed a fast food joint where I could get my hands on lots of free grease.
 
Did you do any research into making biodiesel? Most say it can be made for 40 - 90 cents a gallon. Advantage being you can run it in any diesel, no need for a separate tank and heaters. I have 2 merc sedans, a ram 2500 and a tractor that run on diesel, so it would be a pain to rig them all for veggie oil
 
Originally posted by: Cattlegod
where do you store the cooking oil?
i.e. in the car - how many miles can you go before you need a refill?
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The cooking oil gets pumped into the fuel tank just as if it was diesel. I go anywhere from 600 -700 miles on a tank, depending on my Highway speead and how aggressivley I accelerate.



Originally posted by: drnickriviera
Did you do any research into making biodiesel? Most say it can be made for 40 - 90 cents a gallon. Advantage being you can run it in any diesel, no need for a separate tank and heaters. I have 2 merc sedans, a ram 2500 and a tractor that run on diesel, so it would be a pain to rig them all for veggie oil
Click to expand...

Yes actually... Before going to WVO I had been making small batches of Bio-Diesel and had started building a lerger processor that could do 30-40 Gallons a week.

I live in a sub division and the home owners association got wind of my "Hobby"... They didn't like teh Idea of large quantities Methanol & Lye on my Cul-De-Sac. I guess I could sorta see their point. So I started looking into SVO instead... It's actually less work than making your own Bio-D.
 
My mom's boyfriend had been making biodiesel for his diesel jetta.

He was allowed to collect used oil from the Arby's close to the house, and he stored it in a couple 55gallong drums.

The first couple batches turned into gel, yep 55 gallons of gel. He said he got the wrong mixture of lye to oil. And surprisingly the manger of the Arby's let him dump the gel. He eventually got the mixture right and used it for a few months.

The car was wrecked by his half daughter a few months later, and that was the end of his diesel making.




 
Wow. How fast did you go with this thing so far? 😀 I want one. 😛 Considering I now have a lot of repairs on my car :'(
 
That is awesome. How long did it take you to complete this project? Makes we want to get an old Deisel car and convert it and use it as my commuter vehicle.
 
Is cooking oil high octane? 😕

Seriously though, isn't there too much variance depending on the oil the used and what they cooked in it? I'm surprised a car can run off that stuff. Doesn't it backfire and stall and stuff?
 
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