Has anyone ever tried maxing out cetane boost in synthetic WMO to avoid friggin' around with the timing?

[WMO4IDI]

With the price of diesel reaching over 7,60$/gal in the glorious Chinese Republic of Canad'uh!, I'm kicking WMO production into high gear. My access to high quality hydraulic oil isn't sufficient enough to keep me rolling full time but I do have access to loads of used (mostly) synthetic motor oil. I've read in pretty much every related thread that synthetic motor oil WMO has a low cetane value and that's why folks adjust the timing accordingly. Obviously I'd like to mix in as much WMO with my diesel as possible, even going pure wmo if possible. I've started testing my batches with a hydrometer to get good viscosity, now I'm tackling the cetane issue.

Has anyone been able to avoid doing any timing adjustments at all by using a high quality cetane booster & maxing it out?

Being somewhat strategically lazy about certain tasks, I want to avoid playing with the timing on my engine... so obviously my first thought was buying some pure EHN to boost the cetane value of my synthetic WMO to the max (aboot 4000ppm). Unfortunately it also happens to be a precursor for cooking ****, go figure! Not wanting to get the feds knocking at my door, I opted not to try and order some online. Trying to get some HiTec 4103 instead but that's another story...

 

[ROCK HARVEY]

I had a few hundred gallons of Valvoline synthetic 5w-20 that I used as fuel for a couple years. I ran about 4x the usual dose of cetane booster, and also mixed it with 25-50% diesel depending on time of year. It definitely smoked a lot more than straight diesel and had less power, but I sure wish I had more of it lying round right now.

 

[Black dawg]

Have you needed to mess with timing in the past?

 

[ROCK HARVEY]

I never adjusted the timing when I was running an oil mixture, I did like WMO4IDI is planning and tried to compensate with cetane boost.

 

[headhunter38]

Would preheating the wmo accomplish the same thing as raising the cetane value?

 

[WMO4IDI]

Have you needed to mess with timing in the past?

I've never used synthetic motor oil for wmo before, I'm just going from what I've read multiple times in various posts on here.

 

[WMO4IDI]

Would preheating the wmo accomplish the same thing as raising the cetane value?

Not from my limited understanding of cetane science, it would just make the WMO less viscous. Cetane is basically just the opposite of the octane scale for RUG, higher cetane # means easier combustion at high pressure, thus easier starting & more power.

 

[WMO4IDI]

I had a few hundred gallons of Valvoline synthetic 5w-20 that I used as fuel for a couple years. I ran about 4x the usual dose of cetane booster, and also mixed it with 25-50% diesel depending on time of year. It definitely smoked a lot more than straight diesel and had less power, but I sure wish I had more of it lying round right now.

I tried a first batch, straight forward mix of 75% WMO, 25% RUG, normal amount of Diesel Mate per volume. I put 10 gallons into a fuel tank with about 5 gallons of pump diesel and although it ran smooth, it felt severely handicapped power wise & smoked like a champ whenever I'd push ******* the pedal.

Then I added another 5 gallons of pump diesel saturated with Diesel Mate and it ran much better.

Still hard to start below freezing so this weekend I'm plumbing in a 3-way valve bypass to temporarily send the return fuel to the wmo tank when I switch back to regular diesel so I can flush out the filter.

I'll keep on playing with my recipe, unfortunately the cetane booster I want to try doesn't get shipped to Canada.

 

[Black dawg]

I've never used synthetic motor oil for wmo before, I'm just going from what I've read multiple times in various posts on here.

Never felt that I needed to adjust timing with all of the various mixes that I did.

 

[headhunter38]

Not from my limited understanding of cetane science, it would just make the WMO less viscous. Cetane is basically just the opposite of the octane scale for RUG, higher cetane # means easier combustion at high pressure, thus easier starting & more power.

Im not an expert either, lol. But from what I've read by raising the temperature of the fuel prior to injection its makes for better atomization and thus better/easier combustion. If you use a heat exchanger that uses engine Coolant you could raise the temperature of your fuel by over a 100f. That might improve combustiblility as good as raising cetane level with additives. I did pick up a marine heat exchanger that I plan to install at some point. I primarily got it to increase viscosity for the lift pump, but I also did for the supposed fuel efficiency improvements that Ive seen claimed

 

[kbenz]

I've never messed with the timing any. Try running it and see how it does. Might be worrying for nothing

 

[WMO4IDI]

Im not an expert either, lol. But from what I've read by raising the temperature of the fuel prior to injection its makes for better atomization and thus better/easier combustion. If you use a heat exchanger that uses engine Coolant you could raise the temperature of your fuel by over a 100f. That might improve combustiblility as good as raising cetane level with additives. I did pick up a marine heat exchanger that I plan to install at some point. I primarily got it to increase viscosity for the lift pump, but I also did for the supposed fuel efficiency improvements that Ive seen claimed

Well I did the prep work for adding a heating element to my WMO tank when I built it, I never bothered to put one in yet.... Mind you, a silicone heating mat around the fuel filter might be more efficient for that purpose since I'm already measuring the viscocity of my mix to match diesel.

 

[WMO4IDI]

I've never messed with the timing any. Try running it and see how it does. Might be worrying for nothing

From running on my first batch this week, I didn't get a decent burn until I had it mixed 50/50 with pump diesel. It ran fine, simply under powered.

It's still cold, averaging a few degrees below freezing during the day so what HeadHunter38 was saying might be part of it too.

 

[headhunter38]

I'm already measuring the viscocity of my mix to match diesel.

I believe its more than just improving flow. The higher temperature brings it closer to autoignition.

 

[franklin2]

I was wondering if you could burn synthetic at all and apparently you can. Years ago we had these large screw compressors in the plant, and when you changed the oil there was a lot of it. One of the guys had a waste oil burner for his shop, got a barrel of the old oil to burn for heat, it would not burn.

Funny story, they had a oil guy come in one day and told them I can sell you a equivalent oil for those compressors a lot cheaper. They jumped on it. It wasn't 6 months later they had a problem with one of the compressors and it caught fire. Apparently his oil would burn. They got it put out, but it was very close to being a disaster.

I suppose the oil you buy in the store they are calling "synthetic" must not be a true pure synthetic like that ingersol rand oil was.