alternative fuels

[myusername]

while i was in the chat talking about it, i started to wonder how many of you guys use any kind of alternative fuels. i know there was a forum a long time ago about alternative fuels, but i'm not asking about what you think, i'm asking how many of you use something. i'm by no means a tree hugger or any of that, i do it to save some coin.

some of you may know, i have a 95 dodge with a 12v cummins diesel in it. i dont know if it really counts as an alternative fuel, but i burn waste motor oil collected from the local oil change place mixed with diesel as my fuel. if anyone is interested in my setup, let me know and i'll go further into details

 

[blasterdemon7]

There's a guy that buys the used cooking oil at my work that he refines into a fuel.

 

[myusername]

i actually work at a food place where we use some cooking oil. i know it can be used as a fuel, but the overhead to get it started is almost not worth it unless you use it as a daily driver or something. the thing with cooking oil is that you need an auxiliary fuel tank that is heated, and filtered, and most people still use straight diesel fuel to get going on first startup, so the heater in the aux. tank can heat the oil up til its thin enough to start burning. so the setup is quite expensive. plus, you have to buy the oil from food places. my managers told me a cost for me to buy it, but it was a pretty hefty fee

 

[yzrider]

we use e85 in our flexfuel dodge, i'v always wanted to mod a raptor 700 or yfz 450 to run on e85 too

 

[blasterdemon7]

They should give the used oil away. Normaly they have to pay someone to take it.

 

[myusername]

we use e85 in our flexfuel dodge, i'v always wanted to mod a raptor 700 or yfz 450 to run on e85 too

i know most people who have high end high pressure boosted gas applications tune them on e85. i think it burns cleaner and cooler? not sure on that but i believe they can make more power on it because they can tune to a leaner mixture and run more boost and still not have pre detonation

They should give the used oil away. Normaly they have to pay someone to take it.

before we got into the waste motor oil burning, we checked with my managers at work, both mcdonalds, and almost everywhere else in my town that would use veggie oil and they all were going to charge us to take it. my truck is not a daily driver, thats what my integra is for, so it would really not save me any money to do it that way

 

[DUALSTROKE]

Why not just run home heating oil in that deisel?It is illegal here to use it on the road other than for farming but plenty of my buddies run it and have no problems.Not that it is much cheaper but a $1 a gallon is worth it.

 

[myusername]

i havent really heard of that. but off road diesel is probably the same thing, and if you get caught running it, you can get fined several thousand dollars for each gallon that your tank holds. my truck is a 34 gallon tank, and if i get busted with even 2 or 3 gallons in there, they can fine me for the rest of the 31 or 32 gallons that the tank holds as well.

 

[DUALSTROKE]

Thats why they color it red so they can tell the difference.It still blows my mind that when I was growing up deisel was always the cheapest out of all the fuels.Now it is the most expensive fuel.

 

[myusername]

its been $3.96 a gallon here for the past several months. gas went over $4 a gallon for a couple days here, and then went back down to around 3.30 and diesel stayed put. i needed a truck though, and to me, i'd rather pay $4 a gallon and get 16mpg and a motor that will run to a million miles if i let it, than $3.30 a gallon for 10mpg and a motor that will need rebuilt in 200k miles. i think it has gone up because of the diesel craze in the younger people who want to blow black smoke all over everyone they see

 

[DUALSTROKE]

I prefer diesel over gas anyday.Thank god I have a work gas card.I don't even pay attention to price when filling my work truck.lol

 

[blasterfreek30]

Thats why they color it red so they can tell the difference.It still blows my mind that when I was growing up deisel was always the cheapest out of all the fuels.Now it is the most expensive fuel.

i was just thinking the same thing when i past the gas station today.....how is deisel more expensive then gas..it was always alot cheaper than gas...not no more

 

[DUALSTROKE]

i was just thinking the same thing when i past the gas station today.....how is deisel more expensive then gas..it was always alot cheaper than gas...not no more

I am no petroleum expert but I thought diesel was half as refined as gas which tells me it is easier and cheaper to make.It's all gouging now.taxes,gas,food it all has gone up substantially over the years.But no damn pay increases!!!lol

 

[myusername]

lol i hear you there. all types of fuel seems over priced these days. i really want to blame the diesel cost on all the cool kids driving their big diesel pickups, but then again i'm only 19 so i'm probably included in that. i just dont drive like an idiot, since fuel is expensive, and i work mine

 

[Luni]

I dont think its from the "cool kids". I think its because of the EPA to be honest. Diesel may be more efficient than gasoline, but it also produces more emission than gasoline. Its actually more harmful to the environment than gasoline, and Im pretty sure the EPA has something to say about that.

Its my little conspiracy theory, but I cant think of another reason why its more expensive, other than "supply and demand" but there are STILL more gasoline powered cars out there, which means the demand for diesel is still not as great as gasoline.

I dunno tho.

Oh and E85 is a tragedy. On a technical gearhead side, its a cool fuel. Its like running race gas to an extent. But it takes more energy to make a gallon of E85 than a gallon of gasoline. They should ban its production IMO. Use the corn for other things than that.

 

[UncagedShadow]

My roommates brother makes biodiesel out of cooking oil he gets for free from a local waterpark cook stand. He uses that in his excursion and sells the lye(bi-product) to some soap maker for alittle profit. But its kinda complicated to do the whole process.

Now, e85. Yes its true about the energy content to gallon ration, but its an all around better fuel if your engines pcm is flashed to run the stuff. Not many cars roll of the assembly line ready to run e85. My electronics teacher at school drag races on the side. He has an old school monte carlo with a 500ci motor, massive supercharger and all the works. He was running 100 octane(i think) and decided to retune and run e85. He gained a lot of top speed he claims, and ended up shaving 4-5 tenths off his best times on the 100 octane.

 

[blasterkiidirl]

Thats why they color it red so they can tell the difference.It still blows my mind that when I was growing up deisel was always the cheapest out of all the fuels.Now it is the most expensive fuel.

people used to use white bread to get da die out of green deisel

 

[blasterkiidirl]

my dad used run bio diesel in his opel vectra and it took the coating off the tank, then the pump when a month after that. then he stoped using biodiesel but the the biodiesel eat the injector seals and diesel got into the oil galleres and it run its own oil my dad put into 5th and hit the brakes. (it limited the damage ) but last year it droped a valve but some who it did no damage. jst got new valves done and its flying

but just becare full with bio diesel some bio diesel can have to much metheanal and that can do damage to the hole fuel system

 

[UncagedShadow]

ya it all comes down to how its refined and how well. My roommates brother is a freakin math/science wiz... He makes his own biodiesel from scratch. He has 2 150 gallon fertilizer tanks he uses for the refining process.

 

[Luni]

My roommates brother makes biodiesel out of cooking oil he gets for free from a local waterpark cook stand. He uses that in his excursion and sells the lye(bi-product) to some soap maker for alittle profit. But its kinda complicated to do the whole process.

Now, e85. Yes its true about the energy content to gallon ration, but its an all around better fuel if your engines pcm is flashed to run the stuff. Not many cars roll of the assembly line ready to run e85. My electronics teacher at school drag races on the side. He has an old school monte carlo with a 500ci motor, massive supercharger and all the works. He was running 100 octane(i think) and decided to retune and run e85. He gained a lot of top speed he claims, and ended up shaving 4-5 tenths off his best times on the 100 octane.

Its not an all around better fuel. It takes a lot of energy to make it. More than a gallon of gas goes into the production of making a gallon of E85. So does something like 9 gallons of water get used to make a gallon of E85.

So with that said, its horrible for the environment. It uses corn, where that land could be used to grow something else, but corns in demand so they grow it to make ethanol.

From an emissions standpoint, yeah, it burns cleaner than gas, but keep in mind that every gallon of E85 you "save" the planet with, has already in effect used a gallon of gas (or some sort of a fossil fuel to cook the mash they make the ethanol out of).

Its just a lose lose fuel. Im a car enthusiast, and I wouldnt mind playing around with it because it IS like running race gas (octane rating of like 108) but its not doing the environment any favors.

Just like people who buy hybrid cars like a Prius or anything hybrid anymore. Theres so much energy required to make all the batteries those things run on, and so much more energy required to dispose of the batteries, that any fuel econ saving you get is negated by the damage youve already done to the enviroment.

Now diesel, I agree has tons of potential. If we were more like europe, you could get fuel efficient diesel motors in like damn near anything we sell (little civics, subarus, smaller trucks, etc). But our EPA pretty much sucks, so we dont.