WVO issues under valve cover

[sdeck]

For those of you running WVO in your TDI, read this:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=249556

You can search my old posts from when I was running WVO. I thought I was doing things right.......

 

[UFO]

Wow, that's grotesque.

 

[sdeck]

yeah, got my fingers crossed.......

 

[BioDiesel]

Hi sdeck,
Sorry to hear of your troubles.
Thanks for sharing the alert and remedial procedures.
I'll check under my cover this weekend.

Were you running the P520 injectors during your 40K WVO experience?
DR also had a main seal leak and was also running fatter injectors.
Perhaps both cars issues started with poly. cc oil?

Other things we now know you may have been doing 'wrong' include:

1. 10K OCI instead of rec. 4K
2. Soy oil instead of rapeseed/canola
3. Not using PlantoMot cc oil

#2 and #3 are commonly violated but I mention them in case someone is concerned or sees some of the symptoms.

 

[TurbinePower]

Hi sdeck,
Other things we now know you may have been doing 'wrong' include:

1. 10K OCI instead of rec. 4K
2. Soy oil instead of rapeseed/canola
3. Not using PlantoMot cc oil

#2 and #3 are commonly violated but I mention them in case someone is concerned or sees some of the symptoms.

Wait wait, is this WVO or SVO? Seems like the qualifications to run "WVO" keep getting more and more strict each time someone has a problem. How are you supposed to tell if the WVO you're using is canola and not soy?

Seems like you have to be pickier and pickier to run WVO as the damage mounts...

 

[T'sTDI]

I don't necessarily agree that soy oil is the culprit or canola is that much better. Regardless of the oil, if your experiencing CC contamination problems will occur. It is too bad you didn't know about the oil change interval needing to be shortened.

I also faintly remember you saying you would park your car while still on oil if you were to leave in a short period of time. The oil was hot enough, but the combustion chamber cooled off quite considerably. That could have caused some problems as well.

Too bad, but I think these problems could have been prevented...

 

[sdeck]

I will suffice it to say that the issues mentioned could have been mitigated to some extent, but not 100% prevented.

I ran mostly canola/cottonseed, some soy early on

P520s were installed about 2000 miles before quitting WVO

Biggest mistakes I made (IMHO) were 8K OCIs and short purge/post purge driving. Would 4K and longer purges helped-absolutely. Would they have prevented completely, probably not, but for sure would have delayed the issues. How long? Who knows?

 

[T'sTDI]

Biggest mistakes I made (IMHO) were 8K OCIs and short purge/post purge driving. Would 4K and longer purges helped-absolutely. Would they have prevented completely, probably not, but for sure would have delayed the issues. How long? Who knows?

Apparently it does make a difference as there are people with TDI's over 100k, some over 150K on vegetable oil. Regardless of their kit and filtering methods, the engines are similar and diesel combustion never changes.

As I have said in the past, when people get greedy, i.e shorter purges, and cheaping out on oil changes you will run into problems.

Any competent individual who burns VO should view this post as very important to burning VO for the long term.

OCI 4k max
Purge properly

Or blow up your engine....

 

[sdeck]

Amen to that

 

[BioDiesel]

"I ran mostly canola/cottonseed, some soy early on

P520s were installed about 2000 miles before quitting WVO"

Cottenseed looks ok to use, iodine # close to soy.
But it's unusual. Was it food grade?


P250s installed so late they weren't the cause of your problems.

Were there any signs of overfuelling at time of conversion?
Poor fuel economy? Smoking?


I hope you get the poly. deposits removed.
Tried a kerosene flush before an oil change?
You might have better luck with a plant oil based cc oil to dissolve your plant based poly.

 

[sdeck]

Yeah, the cottonseed was food grade. Came to the restaurant blended w/ canola. No idea what effect it has on your health, but looks OK for burning.

No issues with overfueling, smoking or mpg pre-conversion. I averaged about 42-43 mpg before conversion and I am averaging the same now. Smoke issues were initially due to the clogged ports and valves. Now the smoke is probably due to the P520s in an auto. That was a bigger jump than I had planned, but the price was right.

Kerosene scared me a bit. I tried some seafoam for about 60-70 miles in the CC before one OC a few month ago. I'll see what happens with the AutoRx. Oilhammer said he has had some luck w/ BG compressor restorer in WVO engines. I may give that a go if the AutoRx doesn't work.

I am really just trying to figure out my oil consumption without spending $2-3K on a teardown/rebuild. Lots of things point to rings, but good compression is hard to argue with (4x490, unchanged since I bougt it). Gurus claim oil control rings are fouled. Makes sense I guess, but only way to tell is mucho dinero.

 

[Rick Blalock]

What kind of oil temps did you see AT the instant you switched over to veggie oil? Do you have a digital veggie temp gauge or co-pilot?

One item that is IMO absolutely essential to be added to the greasecar kits for TDIs is a flat plate heat exchanger.

If you shut down on veggie oil just to run into a store real quick I do not see any problem with that. I don't know if I can rationalize the cylinder cooling off very fast at all seeing that it is surrounded by a hot metal engine with hot coolant lines running through it and on the cylinders with an open exhaust valve it is still a hot exhaust system insulated from the open tail pipe by a hot turbo.

I suspect the contamination problems in this case are due to the long OCIs (oil change intervals) as well as insufficient oil temperature at switch over and for the minutes after switch over if only the heated fuel filter and tank coils are the oil heat source.

- Rick

 

[VeeDubTDI]

Wait wait, is this WVO or SVO? Seems like the qualifications to run "WVO" keep getting more and more strict each time someone has a problem. How are you supposed to tell if the WVO you're using is canola and not soy?

Seems like you have to be pickier and pickier to run WVO as the damage mounts...

Exactly! This whole business started off being "really easy," and almost anyone could do it! Now it's like a constant laboratory experiment with a whole laundry list of dos and don'ts.

 

[T'sTDI]

Exactly! This whole business started off being "really easy," and almost anyone could do it! Now it's like a constant laboratory experiment with a whole laundry list of dos and don'ts.

Reducing oil change intervals was nothing new. I wouldn't call it a laundry list but there are things that need to be addressed and followed. Its nothing to extreme, it just takes willingness to follow it and not get greedy/cheap.

 

[T'sTDI]

What kind of oil temps did you see AT the instant you switched over to veggie oil? Do you have a digital veggie temp gauge or co-pilot?

One item that is IMO absolutely essential to be added to the greasecar kits for TDIs is a flat plate heat exchanger.

If you shut down on veggie oil just to run into a store real quick I do not see any problem with that. I don't know if I can rationalize the cylinder cooling off very fast at all seeing that it is surrounded by a hot metal engine with hot coolant lines running through it and on the cylinders with an open exhaust valve it is still a hot exhaust system insulated from the open tail pipe by a hot turbo.

- Rick

I would never ever shut down on oil even if it was for a minute. I cant say this for sure, but I think the combustion chambers cool off faster than what we realize and 190 deg coolant temps is a stone throw to what combustion temperatures reach. Regardless, the key is combustion efficiency when on VO, even more so then oil temps. Combustion efficiency is at its best when your at operating temperature and in a consistent RPM situation, AKA highway driving, which is when I burn VO.

Keep the pistons moving when on VO...

And yes a FPHE is mandatory. I do not know why Greasecar has not made that a standard to their kit.

 

[sdeck]

I had a digital cyberdyne gauge hooked to two senders, one in WVO filter, one in pre-IP fuel line. I always waited for the filter sender to read 140, then I turned on the vegtherm (between WVO filter and supply valve) for a minute or two, then I switched over to grease and the line sender. Temps in the line would drop initially to maybe 120, but only for a few minutes and then they would climb up to 180-200 over 5-10 minutes depending on driving conditions and outside temps.

I did not know about the reduced OCI when I got started. Not well-publicized. GC should really include that in their instructions. The other thing that threw me was the GC directions to determine purge time. thier diesel to WVO tank always comes out around 15 seconds, but that is no where near long enough and I have the UOAs to prove it. 30 secs minimum.

100% agree. FPHE should be mandatory, both for heat and cooling in summer. I would frequently see temps in excess of 220 on hot days in traffic and would flip back to diesel.

Almost all of my driving is/was hwy.

 

[Rick Blalock]

The other thing that threw me was the GC directions to determine purge time. thier diesel to WVO tank always comes out around 15 seconds, but that is no where near long enough and I have the UOAs to prove it. 30 secs minimum.

I prefer the Frybrid method of determining the purge time. Where you have a sight tube in the return line just before the return valve and you time how long it takes after you switch the fuel source before you start to see it come back through the return line.

Now, that does not mean that say it takes 15 seconds to see the the different fuel coming through that you should only run for diesel for 15 seconds total before you shut it down. No, you still want to drive a little ways before shutting it down, especially if the engine is going to cool off during that time. What I have found is that the IP cycles the fuel to and from the injectors rather quickly. So that being said, when you have a long flush time you are sending a lot of diesel back to your veggie tank, thus having to fill up your diesel tank more often. You can talk about trace, minute amounts of veggie in diesel all you want, but IMO unless you are only filtering down to 5 microns with a nominally rated filter then this shouldn't be a problem. I have not had any problems with this but I filter mine down to 1 micron absolute while at ambient temperature.

Its surprising how fast the flush cycle will drain your diesel tank. I actually ran out of diesel once because I still had a 30 second flush and the real kicker was that when I started the flush the low fuel light was only on for a couple miles... normally thats still at LEAST 50 miles worth of fuel when that light comes on!!