In truck fuel heating

[Matrix37495]

What do you guys think about putting this heater on the bottom of my fuel tank and running it for 3 hours?

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200339139_200339139

Also wondering about an inexpensive 12V heater for those times i cant plug my truck in. I have the factory 6.9L heater but i dont know how efficient it is (or if it even works).

 

[mtran]

I don`t like heated fuel tank even with 12V 0.15KW.
I use 220v ac 1 KW with thermostat for oil pan only,I put it for min 30 min.

 

[Boston]

well 150 watts at 12 volts = 12,5 amps so you should be good to go on your batteries assuming your playing with a full charge to begin with. Might help to insulate the tank as well.

there are generally two schools of thought on heating fuel. One is that colder fuel is denser and therefor carries more BTU's per gallon. But warmer fuel atomizes better and ignites easier. It kinda looks like six one way and a half dozen the other. I prefer warm fuel cause it starts so much easier. But I'm new at this so take all that with a grain of salt.

 

[Matrix37495]

The heater i linked to is 120VAC. The reason for heating (and the reason this thread is in the alt fuels section) is because my fuel is thinned WMO.

I think i really only need to heat my fuel pre-starting. Once it's running i dont seem to need much help.

Edit: when i say bottom i mean on the outside of my steel fuel tank.

 

[gearhead]

the problem with heating your tank with 120 is what happens when your driving out on the interstate and its 15*F outside?

I went on trip once when I was single tanking(unheated) in my old 89 cummins.I started of the trip with the main tank filled with engine oil in 40 degree weather.I had a 55 gallon drum of engine oil in the back of the truck.When it came time to fill the truck up I pumped in the oil from the tank in the bed to the main tank.

it worked fine for about 5 minutes.After that the oil was too cold to flow right and the truck wouldn't go faster than about 25 mph.So I limped the truck to the nearest diesel station and filled up the rest of the tank and didn't have any more problems.

heating the main tank with house electricity can work if you don't venture too far from your house or it doesn't get too cold.Heating with 12V would work but its gonna be drawing alot of amps.Best would be to heat the tank with some sort of heat exchanger from the coolant.

 

[Boston]

you mean like this one

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all it is is a couple 5 to 4 inch reducers a 4 inch pipe and a 5 inch pipe with a couple fittings welded on. Cost me less than $150 and doubles as a muffler, so saved me about $160

 

[gearhead]

let me see if I got this straight.Your running a 4" exhaust and put a 5" section over the exhaust.Then you run the oil into there to heat the oil?

 

[Boston]

thats it in a nutshell, just a thin jacket of oil around the tail pipe is all it takes and then I pump the heated oil back up to the big tank for processing.

Once It dewatered and run through the filters its good to go. From there I just switch a few of the quick connects and reconfigure the system to heat dewater and filter again and then send the fuel up to the engine.

Its a pretty trick system actually but the basics are quite simple. By having hydrolic quick connects at strategic points in the system I can tune the filtering process to different oils. Use the tank as a fuel filtering reservoir or run it directly up to the motor.

 

[Matrix37495]

That's pretty slick. I may have room for this, but i'm not sure.

I was just thinking about coolant exchange once it was up to temp. I only seem to have trouble on the first start of the day. Driving and the whole rest of the day it runs great. Of course its only been down to about 32° thus far.

 

[gearhead]

how hot does the oil get from your setup?back there the exhaust should be at a fairly stable 200-300.Seems like it might warm up the oil faster than if you heated it with engine coolant..interesting..

 

[Boston]

I'm a fan of not playing with the engine temp system. My logic on that one is that if we enlarge the coolant volume then you reduce the flow to achieve the same operating temp. Which results in lower coolant temps and slower heating of the fuel oil. The other way to heat your oil with the coolant is to run it through the radiator core somehow. Either way your playing with the flow rate and optimal opperating temp of the engine. Cant be ideal.
By using the exhaust gas I get two things, one is I'm going to get a pretty quick heat source, those gasses take no time at all to heat the system. Specific heat of a gas is lower, but I get higher heat and conduction down the length of the pipes from the headers, which are best kept as cool as possible. I'm also cooling the exhaust gasses, which means additional expansion, which creates additional suction pulling those gasses away from the valves. All in all the greatest benefit to the system comes from cooling the exhaust gas rather than lowering the flow rate of the coolant ( thermostat must compensate for lower return coolant temps ) which might result in uneven cooling of the block.

my two cents and I'm sure there are lots of other views on this but that was my thinking when I built the tube exchanger.

 

[Brad S.]

Boston I've gotta say that setup looks awesome,, the exhaust heater and how clean the bottom side of the pickup looks
From your description that your not using any other product to thin down the wmo?

Chris
That heater that your looking at should work just as good on the bottom of the tank as any oil pan. I've used that kind on oil pans before, they work good. But like gearhead said to keep it warm after the your running down the road.

 

[Boston]

during the summer the oil was hot enough, being in a ********* tank in the sun, that I didn't heat it or thin it at all. Seemed to filter just fine. But this is Colorado, its 90°F+ for months at a time. Ive recently finished getting my engine rebuilt a little and I'm still tuning the truck, although some certain pile of jerks is having some fun with it at my expense, and I've not charged up that echanger yet. Nor have I operated the big tank in the cold yet. so no thinning agents yet, but I'm planing on a kerosene mix eventually. I've kinda run out of money available for the truck, temporarily. So I've just got to make do with what I've got for now.

I've got it tuned enough that its not belching smoke and its got OK power. Next item on the list is a couple extra batteries and the wiring to run my tank motors at the 24V they require. Then I'll know how well my heat exchanger works.

Thanks
B

 

[mtran]

Very,very nice.
Do you know which temp are before or after IP on this setup.

 

[gearhead]

but I get higher heat and conduction down the length of the pipes from the headers, which are best kept as cool as possible. I'm also cooling the exhaust gasses, which means additional expansion, which creates additional suction pulling those gasses away from the valves. All in all the greatest benefit to the system comes from cooling the exhaust gas rather than lowering the flow rate of the coolant ( thermostat must compensate for lower return coolant temps ) which might result in uneven cooling of the block.

as gas gets colder it CONTRACTs not expands,2nd hotter exhaust flows faster than cold exhaust.Otherwise header wraps and thermal coatings wouldn't be popular.cold exhaust is a really dense gas that the engine has to work to push out.

there is no free lunch,so if you use coolant to heat the oil,the truck takes longer to heat up meaning less mpg.If the exhaust is used than the engine will make less power due to the heavy dense gas.off course the loss of MPG or power is pretty much null,but still.