gasoline engines running waste oils as fuel

[smokin89]

hello, new here, but not new to alternative fuels, and hoping to get some feedback or advice on this subject..

ive got a 460 and im sick of buying $100 tanks of gas that are gone in less than a week (10 mpg)

completely rebuilt .020 over 460 10-1 CR lunati cam ported efi heads with valve job and intake and now im putting a brand new q jet ontop as ive had great experience rebuilding them and tuning them. (dont go nuts over chevy and ford parts, im about function, not brands. and i had a square bore edelbrock that is complete crap and wont run right after countless tuning runs and complete rebuild) this 460 has efi heads intake and exhaust manifolds to flowmaster 40's and dumped

ill start off with what ive read, and then ask the ?'s


1 oils dont like to burn in spark engines(at high rpms), and foul plugs (hence compression ignition). but a simple modification to the ignition system has proven that generators can burn waste motor oil and veggie oil without fouling plugs. a typical spark is 50k volts, but less than 1 amp. by putting diode strings to the non resistor plugs and a power inverter rectified, it is possible to take a little spark and turn it up into a BANG. people are running gensets on junk oils and seem to have decent results. but the plugs wear out quick if you go with too much current capability. and the spark can be bright enough to damage your eyes while experimenting with it, and it creates alot of electrical noise, so your stereo will probly have some humming and whining in a vehicle

2 read about a guy who got the waste oils hot with exhaust heat, and then misted them into a tube that passes through the exhaust in order to "vaporize the oil" and reported having decent results with revving and running, but never talked much about power. he wasnt using the plasma spark ive read about. ive run engines on gasoline vapor and seen they run fine but have no power.

3 read about people mixing 20% veggie oil and gasoline with no ill effects to the fuel system or engine, also not using plasma spark. and not fouling the plugs

4 ive read about people using water injection along with a heated fuel line to the carb as a viable means or running kero in gas engines with higher than 8-1 compression ratios, and without plasma spark

5 ive also read about people making a exhaust heat exchange thing called a GEET, i personally built one and talked to the inventor, the engine had no power and wouldnt rev past 2k rpm.

6 ive also read about people heating up waste oils and sort of distilling them into lighter fractions, has anyone here done that and run the "drip gas" with success?


has anyone had experience running waste oils in a spark engine? this isnt a daily driver and im willing to experiment, i want to get to the point of having a vehicle that has a wide variety of fuels it can run, from 100% ethanol, to gasoline, to any sort of junk oil. i know i might have to have a separate tank for the oils to go through a heat exchange/vaporizing type system, but my goal is to get an engine that isnt killing my wallet with fuel costs by utilizing waste oils that would otherwise just be trash.. and has a wide range of wastes it can consume. i plan on filtering the oils (either centrifuge or paper towel rolls) before pouring them into the system, and most of our waste motor oil from our vehicles is amsoil synthetic. i am also open to the idea of water injection, probly wouldnt use methanol just bc it adds to cost, im experimenting with plasma ignition but if i couldnt get the plugs to last 5k miles or 10k miles, ill probly scrap that approach, but i have considered it as just a means to clean the plugs right before shutting the engine down / easy starting. so im looking at heat and vaporizing, possibly water injection.

thanks for your time and posts, i have videos and pdfs and links to other threads where i have read this info if ppl get interested

 

[MedicMoe]

sounds like a lot of work. for the cost of these modifications, i bet you could find an old diesel on the cheap. ( i bought mine for $500), but it took a lot of work getting it street worthy.

just my two cents worth.

 

[gatorman21218]

Huh thats interesting. I have seen gas motors that run on wood fueled gassifiers. Basically you have a boiler type burner that heats up the wood and then the fumes are fed into the engine.

 

[fordf350man]

welcome to the site, i have seen gassers with propane injection systems with gasoline, i am not sure on the difference they made with fuel milage i couldnt confirm but both poeple told me it helped with fuel milage, but honestly with a 460 i dont think that anything will really help much,

 

[smokin89]

yeah i have looked into gasifiers, truth be told its a bronco build, and there just isnt enough room for a 700 lb gas factory on the rear bumper. i personally love the approach of trash for fuel but after looking into designs from wayne keith i just cant see it happening where i can get a properly sized unit with reliability on my bumper. it is still an option but i think it could be easier with some sort of exhaust heat exchanger to get the oils vaporized, and possibly the plasma spark to kick on every start up and just before shutdown so the plugs stay clean. the spark actually removes a bit of metal every fire so thats how it stays clean but wears out pretty quick.

and even if the truck doesnt run with all 400 horses on the junk fuels if i can get up to 60 on the highway thats a success in my book.

i have most of the parts and tubes and misting heads and diodes and all sorts of other junk for heat exchange plasma spark, oil misting and water misting.

it could be a year or more until its working right but in the mean time im making the truck really nice bedliner inside and out runflats onetons complete restomod


now i just need a cheap fuel source. ha

 

[Josh Carmack]

Yeah, sell the 460, save a few hundred bucks, find an early 90's model 7.3 IDI. I have bought three early 90's 7.3 trucks, two 3/4, and one 1 ton since January. 600 for one, 1500 for another, and 2250 for the 4 door 1 ton. I have saved enough in fuel to pay for all of them.

 

[smokin89]

before i yank out my new motor ha

im going to wrap a copper or stainless steel pipe around my exhaust pipe (copper melts at nearly 2000deg), with a misting head to spray coolant heated oils (200deg) into the coiled tube around the exhaust (1000deg) and pass that under the carb, ive read of a few engines that run on oil vapor, and i know that syngas from oil has got to be more powerful than syngas from wood, this will just be a few tubes and misting heads. like i said ive got the time and parts to experiment. if it works ill let you guys know. apparently back in the day holley made something similar and could run black oil kero diesel and gas in a spark engine. oil starts hydrocarbon cracking at about 500 deg, taking it to twice that temp should yield lighter fractions, and i know the engine will run on this but i need some power with it.


this is something i thought id share:



9 A practical vapor carburetor system for use on the internal combustion engine in the Fordson tractor enabling it to use "the whole range of fuel oils, from benzol and gasoline down through kerosene to the very heavy fuels, such as black oil commonly used in Borneo."
10 The device was made by the Holly Carburetor Company, (which today makes carburetors for 'performance' cars or "hot rods") in the year 1925. The editors of Automotive Industries tested a Fordson tractor running the gasoline engine with waste crankcase lubricant! It was said of this;
"runs under actual field conditions were made with the tank filled with waste crankcase lubricant. Even with this unusual fuel, little or no smoke showed at the exhaust end and the engine had the flexibility of gasoline operation& the element time lag has been reduced to a minimum, so that with the improved economy the demand for flexibility and ease of starting has been satisfied."

11 The Holley Vaporizer installed in the Fordson Tractor was so popular with farmers around the world that Bates and Strettell in the Proceedings Of the Institution Of Mechanical Engineers report on its widespread use in Great Britain in 1962!

 

[pwjackson]

If I were you, sell the 460 and convert your truck to either a 7.3 or 6.9 diesel. You will have less money in converting than you will testing and experimenting with the 460. I run waste motor oil thinned down with regular unleaded gas in my 6.9 and it runs great!! I can make 5 gals of fuel for about $2.50 depending on the price of gas. 4.25 gal of oil mixed with .34 gal of gas and filtered with a 2 micron fuel filter then straight into the truck.

If you are stuck on the 460 I would look into trying to convert over to alcohol and learn how to make ethanol. Just need a still and a large supply of corn.