My Pumpe Duse WVO System Experiment - A Cautionary Tale

philngrayce

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I mentioned the low water temp and short purge times, but did not considerthem likely culprits. The oil analysis showed no contamination. Also, it appears he was doing very long trips on WVO, so the percentage of time running at less than full temp or starting on a mixture would be very low.

The grille cleaner does not sound so good, though. I would thnk there must have been quite a bit of it in the oil to wear a hole in the fuel line, and it may have had water and other garbage in it as well. I don't really know, not knowing how they clean out the fryers. Still, I don't think this looks like a smoking gun either. Or perhaps it is chemically changing the oil, along the lines of the acid discussion above?

For those reading this and loooking for general WVO practices, (those who haven't already been scared away) you can't be too cautious with warm up. I don't know much about engine thermodynics (I'm sure someone on here does and is hopefully following this thread), but I think the water hitting 190 is an absolute minimum for switching. I don't know how cylinder and piston temps compare to water temps, but the rest of the engine has a lot of warming up to do after the water first hits 190. There is a lot of thick metal there. I know in the winter, my gauge will hit 190, then drop back one or two times before staying at that point. I never switch to VO until it has stabilized at 190.

I'm sure what you say is right about the PD purging faster, but I remember on my '02, on a cold winter night, if I purged a mile before home the car would start a bit hard in the morning. If I purged 5 miles before, it would start up perfectly. Apparently there was still some residual VO in the plumbing.

I've never really cared for automatic controls, and this is a good reason. I suppose one could set it up so it switches 2 minutes after hitting 190, then doesn't switch back unless it drops to 180. Bu I think I'd still prefer manual control. If others (my wife) were using the car, of course, I might opt for the automatic.
 
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Mike_04GolfTDI

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A lot more than you did by running straight diesel. ;) And he was one of the few to pay attention and not run his car into the ground. He prevented catastrophy... Kudos to intelligence
All the stuff he did looks like it wasn't cheap. I understand that sometimes you just do something because you want to, not because it will save money.

I'd just be curious to know how much he spent on this project, what he spent on fuel, and how far he drove during the time he used the WVO equipment. This overall cost could then be compared to simply driving the car on diesel fuel with no modifications over the same distance.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have done it.
 

nicklockard

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Mike, Inky already admitted the costs of conversion were embarasingly high. However, it must be remembered that he was basically doing prototyping and product development, and he was doing it for the sake of learning, experimenting, and advancing the state of the art. i.e. a hobby.

Everyone benefits, so let's not hold that against him. Think how much money his write-up will save everyone else from seeing what not to do?
 

Mike_V

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Great thread, with lots of interesting information. I'm looking forward to seeing Drivbiwire's analysis of the injectors.

I have to say, I'd also love to see a similar analysis performed on PD injectors that have been run on high-quality B100 (after a substantial number of B100 miles, but while they still appear to be working fine, not after there is already an obvious problem).
 

A5INKY

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...The reasons for a lot of peoples failures in the past are a result of lacking information which we can directly attribute to kit manufactures not releasing such information. Possible ethical issue?...
I think so.

I see your point... I understand its a 10 degree difference but in certain air temperatures that 10 degree coolant difference can take 30 seconds to a minute, or even longer to get to 190... The lag between the coolant temperature and the coolant jacket actually being 190 is probably not exactly right; however, the longer you wait to achieve 190, the better chance you are at full compression. I don't know what a combustion chamber surface temperature is :confused: but the whole idea behind waiting for 190 is to ensure full piston ring expansion, full compression ratios, and as complete cylinder pressures as possible. Its not necessarily the 190 deg temperatures that is critical, its the components that need that temperature in order to work correctly. The same reason why fuel economy is best achieved at operating temperature. The same reason why blow by on all cars occurs in the time from starting the engine to operating temp...
I don't disagree. However, 190F is not a hard and fast operating temp. I still believe that the 10 degree offset is justifiable considering the considerable safety 'interlock' that the VO Controller provides - especially if your wife sometimes drives your car.;)

...So now my question is... what the hell is Chase doing that is so special with his PD. Could it be the baking soda treatment that makes all the difference?...
Could be the baking soda, but I doubt it. The PDs are amazing in how well they adapt to problems. I would not have known I had a problem had I not gone looking for it. My car was not running too bad and might have gone many thousands of miles further. As I told Phil, "success" is relative to the unique perspective of the observer. The scared ostrich sees no danger, only the security of the sand its' head is buried in.

Hope Chase has some magic bullet. But if I were a betting man I would say he has more of an issue than he realizes. No telling when it might reveal itself.

...By the way, you don't have to edit your posts for me... my skin is thick too.. ;)
My edit was more for me than you. I responded to your posts after a challenging day at work and allowed my judgement to be clouded. My intent with this thread is truth and nothing more. I cut out the stuff that didn't further that goal. Your contributions have been valuable to this subject and, tone aside, they are appreciated.

That may be the big smoking gun! You stated that you found a pinole leak not once, but twice, in the aluminum tubing. Where is the location of that pinhole? Is it at a low horizontal section where water can settle and sit?...
Actually no, it was in the higher section in front of the rear axle. There may be something to the caustic eating the lines though. Fryers are always stainless steel and the boil-out cleaners are typically sodium or potasium hydroxide based. These products don't commonly have any soft metal corrosion inhibitors built in. They will eat aluminum.

I am on the road for the next couple of days. When I get home I will do some testing of the oil. I have both pH litmus papers and an alkalinity titration kit. I use these on aqueous solutions so I don't actually know if they are effective for testing oil. Nick? Anyone?

...I don't know how cylinder and piston temps compare to water temps, but the rest of the engine has a lot of warming up to do after the water first hits 190. There is a lot of thick metal there...
The overwhelming majority of engine heat is generated in the combustion chamber. Friction between other moving parts is the other contributor but a proportionately very small one. It is the heat in the parts that make up the combustion chamber that matters for VO, none else. You are right about the time to warm all that other stuff up, but that stuff doesn't really count.

...I'm sure what you say is right about the PD purging faster, but I remember on my '02, on a cold winter night, if I purged a mile before home the car would start a bit hard in the morning. If I purged 5 miles before, it would start up perfectly. Apparently there was still some residual VO in the plumbing...
One should not compare the VE to the PD fuel systems. They share NOTHING except the attribute of being DI, the one thing that is most problematic for VO use.

How much money did you save by running WVO? ;)
I already answered that question (and now Nick has too):

Thank you. To answer your question, I really don't know what the cost totaled. Frankly, I have been avoiding adding it up because I don't want to know. The decision to back out was hard enough. Suffice it to say that it was many thousands of dollars for just parts alone. The 12V pump I used for collection was $650 alone, but it allowed me to collect oil in sub-freezing weather.

Labor... That one is the sticky question - hundreds of hours! The only way I justified that part was viewing it as a hobby. If I tried to put a similar hourly dollar figure to what I end up making per hour at work, it would be an obscene total and I would be ridiculously upside-down on investment.

Darn good thing I enjoy wrenching on my car...
...I'm looking forward to seeing Drivbiwire's analysis of the injectors.

I have to say, I'd also love to see a similar analysis performed on PD injectors that have been run on high-quality B100 (after a substantial number of B100 miles, but while they still appear to be working fine, not after there is already an obvious problem).
Me too.
 
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philngrayce

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There are now an lot of DI vehicles with an lot of WVO miles, including older VWs. You may argue that we're still learning how long the PD will run, but DI alone is not an impediment to longevity.
 

ducesrwld

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keep the tank start making some bio....i'm in the process of putting a processor together. my mentor is making some top notch fuel, 10 ppm way better than the b100 available at the pumps. time will tell....though i have no desire for wvo to enter my brm. greasecar tank will end up in my trunk eventually.
 

T'sTDI

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Hmmm this thread really makes me want to replace my injectors ASAP... With 185k on them, I think they need to be replaced.

Thanks for a very comprehensive, well wrote thread on your experiences.

Possibly down the road I may have my cylinder head off my car for some rosten rods in the relentless pursuit of more power. Should be interesting to see what things look like.
 

dieseljunkie

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........
Possibly down the road I may have my cylinder head off my car for some rosten rods in the relentless pursuit of more power. ......

Surprised to be hearing that from you, since from what I've read, you are the over cautious type. More power = more fuel. More fuel means more unburned VO, some of which can get past the rings and you know where that leads.
 

T'sTDI

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Surprised to be hearing that from you, since from what I've read, you are the over cautious type. More power = more fuel. More fuel means more unburned VO, some of which can get past the rings and you know where that leads.
Yes, but there is a difference between using that fuel for performance and chipping for fuel economy. I address this in my guide.

Just because your car is tuned to use the fuel, it doesn't mean that you have to use it. Chipping and fine tune performance involves a lot more than just "add more fuel to the fire."

People don't usually reap the benefits of additional fuel economy at the expense of a heavier right foot. However, combustion efficiency, fuel efficiency and burn characteristics are all improved on a finely tuned diesel engine; and hence, more power.

When I'm on WVO, I set the cruise and allow the engine to take over. I'm not an idiot like the average person and run WVO down a quarter mile just to say I am running on WVO. Now when I'm on diesel fuel, this is an entirely different story... its fun time :D

There's very few people that have self control... but in theory, I should be burning less WVO because my fuel economy improved with a chip tune and new nozzles.

This is the art of the diesel engine and why they are so fun... You would never burn WVO in a gasser, just like you barely ever chip a gasser and reap more fuel economy (a rarity).

This is also the art of the two tank setup... you could never get away with this on a single tank conversion.

Trust me, I've thought of everything and then thought it over once more... ;)
 

T'sTDI

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I would add this to my post, but I can't edit anything anymore...

To add more to it, Jeff at Rocketchips had a 200 HP/ 400 ft lbs TDI monster and said he averaged 60 MPG on the highway. This wasn't all just achieved with gearing either...

This is just to add a little more perspective to my argument. Its all about air and fuel... The power to a certain degree is irrelevant...
 

turbofan

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If I may, I'd like to resurrect this thread since the analysis was not completed. How did the injector tests come out?

One other thing.......
There has been talk about his crazy grill cleaner stuff that can eat aluminum. Some have supposed this to be the cause of the WVO eating through the aluminum tubing.

So if there is enough stainless steel cleaner in the oil to eat through aluminum tubing, HOW MUCH CLEANER WAS IN THE FISH they serve every day? Sort of alarming to me.

Sure enjoyed reading the thread though. There are some real sharp people on here.
 

philngrayce

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The grille cleaner (one hopes) was used to clean things up right before the oil was dumped and replaced with clean new oil. So there should be no grille cleaner in the fish and chips.

Didn't mean to re-re-direct your redirection. Please do tell us what the results of the injector tests were.
 

scubagli

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The grille cleaner (one hopes) was used to clean things up right before the oil was dumped and replaced with clean new oil. So there should be no grille cleaner in the fish and chips.

Didn't mean to re-re-direct your redirection. Please do tell us what the results of the injector tests were.
Boil out goes in after the oil is out.


Sent from crazy town.
 

philngrayce

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I guess when some of the restaurants drain the cleaner, they dump it into the same barrel as the oil went into. Can't really blame them - what else do you do with it?
 

A5INKY

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...There has been talk about his crazy grill cleaner stuff that can eat aluminum. Some have supposed this to be the cause of the WVO eating through the aluminum tubing.
So if there is enough stainless steel cleaner in the oil to eat through aluminum tubing, HOW MUCH CLEANER WAS IN THE FISH they serve every day? Sort of alarming to me....
Boil out goes in after the oil is out...
I guess when some of the restaurants drain the cleaner, they dump it into the same barrel as the oil went into. Can't really blame them - what else do you do with it?
Scubagli is right, boil-out happens after the oil is removed. The cleaner under discussion is a pretty heavy caustic, either caustic soda or caustic potash, and works by saponification. Many cleaners also include an emulsifier as well. Therefore, the procedure uses a good amount of water and ends with a good rinsing - those are all chemicals you do not want in your chips.
My restaurant WVO supplier did not dispose of the boil-out cleaning solution in my bins. I know because of how relatively dry my oil always was. Perhaps some do, but they should not, it should go down the sanitary sewer for proper waste treatment.
If I may, I'd like to resurrect this thread since the analysis was not completed. How did the injector tests come out?...
Sorry for not having followed up to this. Drivbiwire did try to inspect/test my PD elements. He was able to partially disassemble them and what came apart didn't look as bad as one (Drivbiwire for example) might have expected. Problems came when he tried to disassemble the nozzle end, he could not without physically destroying them. They were too coked up inside. This supports the hypothesis that it is combustion heat that wrecks DI injectors running SVO. I do not believe this a failure mode that can be overcome in any TDI due to their extreme combustion temperatures.

My PD elements are now very expensive paperweights. Cannot rebuild them If you can't get them apart.
 

vw_TDI_fan

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A5inky,

When you loop the wvo back to the heat exchanger rather than have it return to the tank, what temps were you seeing? is it possible that it go too hot which accelerated the coking inside the injector?

Do you think periodic cleaning of the injectors would solve this problem?
 

A5INKY

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A5inky,

When you loop the wvo back to the heat exchanger rather than have it return to the tank, what temps were you seeing? is it possible that it go too hot which accelerated the coking inside the injector?

Do you think periodic cleaning of the injectors would solve this problem?
The foreshortened looping that skipped the WVO's trip back to the tank was only for warm up at the beginning of the drive. There was a thermal switch in that loop that opened up the full fuel path (back to the tank) once the oil reached minimum operating temp. So no, I don't think that had anything to do with the injector failure. The too hot idea is a non-starter. I had only coolant fed heaters in my system, no electric ones. My coolant runs 190F and never more than 205F under any circumstance. This is universally considered a good temp range for WVO/SVO use. That said, hard to say how hot the oil reaching the injectors actually was. The PD head has fuel galleys that quite possibly act as a final heat exchanger raising the fuel temps much higher than is easily measured. But even those galleys never saw the temps that nozzles in a TDI see.

The conclusion that I and and many others have come to is that the injector nozzles are some of the hottest parts of a TDI engine in use and because of proximity alone to the combustion chamber are impossible to prevent coking and degradation over time.

To answer your final question, yes...well sort of anyway. Problem is that no one has found a way to take PD injectors apart and "clean" them of WVO coking. Read my thread. There is a lot going on in those injectors including literally hundreds of tiny laser drilled fuel return passages arranged annularly around the bodies. If you don't mind buying a new set of PD elements < every 100K miles you might be able to prevent the failure mode I experienced. New those will run you around $3000, used rebuilt might be able to get away with about half that cost.

I see you have a 2012 with a common rail injection system, and very complex and costly emissions systems. If I were you I would not even consider WVO/SVO. That is an adventure that will never pay off for you in the end. If you have the $$$, the skills and a ton of extra time in your life then have fun getting the first hand education I gave myself. I don't regret it as I needed a good hobby for those years. It did not save any money, time or the planet though.
 
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