Vegistroke
#1
01-31-2012, 11:15 AM
The following users liked this post:
03Powerstroke (01-31-2012)
#2
01-31-2012, 12:38 PM
Ok I'll take a stab, there's a LOT of info to give on this. Lots out there already too, but I'll answer what I can here.
Basically there are two ways to run WVO or SVO (waste vegetable oil, or straight vegetable oil, essentially the same thing, I see both acronyms in different places). You can either build the truck for the fuel (what I did) or build the fuel for the truck. Both ways require you to collect your oil (local restaurants, fairs, local community, etc). Quality of oil is KEY. You don't want someone else's JUNK (relative term, since most of it is used and comes from their grease dumpster). I wont really get into this, this is an entirely separate topic on it's own!
Once oil is collected, it needs to be filtered, no matter how you use it. There are several ways to achieve this, and the setup will typically depend on your costs, your time involved, how much oil you need to filter and how often you filter it. The most common ways are a "still" or a centrifuge setup. Centrifuge is more like the cadillac of filtering. The still is a slower process, but still very effective. I currently use a "frybrid still" which you can google and get diagrams etc on how to build.
Here's how I filter:
https://www.dieselbombers.com/altern...ion-setup.html
Your filtering methods may vary depending on whether you're using just straight oil, or bio as well. Bio is typically washed when it's filtered, where WVO is just left as is.
So getting back to two ways to do this. Bio is building the fuel for the truck. There is more work into getting the fuel ready to run, but you don't have to do anything to your truck, you can dump this right in the main tank and drive. You will need to carry extra filters on board, as the bio will CLEAN your lines/tank right out. Typically fuel filters plug in less than 1k miles with bio. Most recommend starting out small with say a 25% batch of bio to 75% diesel and weening up to 100% to avoid the almost instant clogging of filters. Bio makes more sense for those running more than 1 vehicle on the fuel too. However, you need to be weary of cold weather operation. Bio will gel far easier than diesel.
The other way to run oil is to build the truck, ie, the vegistroke. The vegistroke is what is commonly referred to as a "two tank heated system". It is a complete secondary fuel system. The only part of the fuel systems that are shared are the heads themselves (our fuel rail) and the injectors. Everything else remains stock on the diesel side.
The basic components include, a tank (a few options here, I use the standard 51 gallon smooth tank that goes in the bed, but they also have combination tanks with tool box etc and different capacities, they also offer a spare tire tank to keep bed space and other options for excursions too) all the fuel/coolant lines, the timer cards (brain of the operations) and the heart of the system, the V3 manifold. The manifold holds a pump, a pre-screen, a filter, a temperature switch, a pressure switch, a purge valve etc... everything.
The tank in the bed is heated from the coolant lines of the truck. You "tee" in on both sides of the engine and run it as a giant loop to the tank. The tank has an aluminum loop through the bottom so the heat from the coolant heats the WVO. WVO needs to be heated to run by itself. It's viscosity is normally too high, and it will also burn poorly at colder temps (very bad!). We can test this by heating a pan up. Take a frying pan, heat it on the stove to 450*. Take two samples of WVO and heat one of them, leave the other room temp. Heat it to 150* or so. Go outside and throw the heated WVO into the frying pan.... burns off nice and clean. Throw the unheated one on and watch out for the smoke... DO THIS OUTSIDE!!!) So now that we have a way to heat the oil (the tank) we are good to go.
The truck starts and shuts off on diesel. I start the truck, it fires on diesel, and I take off for my day. As I'm driving down the road, heat comes up. The 140* temp switch activates once coolant temp at the V3 manifold is at that mark. (the coolant line running back to the tank also runs through this aluminum manifold too, to keep the pump and everything else warm as well). As it hits this mark, the WVO pump kicks on, and starts building pressure. Once it hits the predetermined pressure mark (standard pressure sensor on the system is 65psi), it automatically shuts off the factory diesel pump and kicks on the WVO pump and starts feeding the engine WVO from your heated tank. You will never notice this driving down the road, it is a smooth switchover. The only way to know it has happened is that the green light comes on on the dash on the power switch for the system. You can also tell by seeing fuel pressure jump up, if you have a fuel pressure gauge, the engine will also get quite a bit quieter! So now you're burning grease! When you get to your destination, you shut the truck off like normal. The truck will however, stay running. It does it's purge (pushes diesel back through the entire system from diesel tank all the way back to WVO tank in the bed to completely clear the lines) and then shuts the purge valve and continue's to run for a set amount of time (usually around 1 minute - 1.5 minutes) to burn off an excess. This ensures there is no cold oil left in your system when you come back to restart the truck.
This system obviously doesn't make much sense for the guy driving 5 miles one way to work... by the time you're pulling in the parking lot, it's just kicking the system on, and then it wastes some diesel purging... you'd end up using more diesel purging than you would save driving for 10 seconds on WVO.
The fuel lines going from the WVO tank to the pump/manifold and into the engine are typically wrapped in one big clump with the coolant lines, and wrapped with insulation tape. This keeps more heat in the oil as it makes it way to the engine. This is known as HOH, or Hose on Hose (makes sense right), you can also do HIH (hose in hose) or some guys refer to it as TIH (tube in hose). Basically this would take an aluminum or similar fuel line, and actually run it INSIDE of the coolant line. You'd need the special fittings for this, but this ensures great heat transfer to the WVO, and less clutter of fuel/coolant lines under the truck.
The standard vegistroke is NOT cheap. However, it will pay for itself in no time if you do any amount of driving. I think you're looking near $4000 for a full system. Is it expensive? Yup. Do you get what you pay for? Yup. Could you do it cheaper yourself? Probably. Will you make 3 dozen trips to the hardware store if you do it yourself? Definitely. The vegistroke is a complete turn-key system. It is fully automated, which is what I love the most. This means my gf or heck, even my mother could jump in my truck and drive it on WVO without having to worry about watching temp gauges, or switching stuff on and off, and remembering to purge etc. Simple.
The main reasons I chose this system:
Anyone can jump in and drive it without worries
I am only running one vehicle on an alternative fuel, so it didn't make sense to do a bio setup
I live in cold weather climate, so bio wouldn't work 6 months out of the year for me. I can however run WVO or Bio in this system without issues.
The vegistroke is a stand-alone second fuel system... this means if my diesel pump craps out on the road, I can still get where I'm going on the vegistroke, and vice-versa. If the vegistroke stops working, just switch to diesel and get where I'm going again.
I actually ran into a situation last year where my stock diesel system had frozen fuel (it was -30* F). The truck would start and idle, but couldn't supply enough fuel for a load (couldn't drive it), so I started it in the driveway, let it come up to temp, switched it over to WVO (I cut it a little with kerosene it was so cold) and drove all the way to work like this. Passing diesels pulled over everywhere here.
I've only skimmed the surface of what is the vegistroke. Ask questions and I'll answer them as I can. There is a lot more too it, but this is the basic layout. I can try and get some pics too, but the best thing would be to just go download the install manual.
You can of course get LOADS of information @ WVO Diesel Conversion | SVO Grease Conversion | Ford Vegistroke Powerstroke | Biodiesel Conversion
Basically there are two ways to run WVO or SVO (waste vegetable oil, or straight vegetable oil, essentially the same thing, I see both acronyms in different places). You can either build the truck for the fuel (what I did) or build the fuel for the truck. Both ways require you to collect your oil (local restaurants, fairs, local community, etc). Quality of oil is KEY. You don't want someone else's JUNK (relative term, since most of it is used and comes from their grease dumpster). I wont really get into this, this is an entirely separate topic on it's own!
Once oil is collected, it needs to be filtered, no matter how you use it. There are several ways to achieve this, and the setup will typically depend on your costs, your time involved, how much oil you need to filter and how often you filter it. The most common ways are a "still" or a centrifuge setup. Centrifuge is more like the cadillac of filtering. The still is a slower process, but still very effective. I currently use a "frybrid still" which you can google and get diagrams etc on how to build.
Here's how I filter:
https://www.dieselbombers.com/altern...ion-setup.html
Your filtering methods may vary depending on whether you're using just straight oil, or bio as well. Bio is typically washed when it's filtered, where WVO is just left as is.
So getting back to two ways to do this. Bio is building the fuel for the truck. There is more work into getting the fuel ready to run, but you don't have to do anything to your truck, you can dump this right in the main tank and drive. You will need to carry extra filters on board, as the bio will CLEAN your lines/tank right out. Typically fuel filters plug in less than 1k miles with bio. Most recommend starting out small with say a 25% batch of bio to 75% diesel and weening up to 100% to avoid the almost instant clogging of filters. Bio makes more sense for those running more than 1 vehicle on the fuel too. However, you need to be weary of cold weather operation. Bio will gel far easier than diesel.
The other way to run oil is to build the truck, ie, the vegistroke. The vegistroke is what is commonly referred to as a "two tank heated system". It is a complete secondary fuel system. The only part of the fuel systems that are shared are the heads themselves (our fuel rail) and the injectors. Everything else remains stock on the diesel side.
The basic components include, a tank (a few options here, I use the standard 51 gallon smooth tank that goes in the bed, but they also have combination tanks with tool box etc and different capacities, they also offer a spare tire tank to keep bed space and other options for excursions too) all the fuel/coolant lines, the timer cards (brain of the operations) and the heart of the system, the V3 manifold. The manifold holds a pump, a pre-screen, a filter, a temperature switch, a pressure switch, a purge valve etc... everything.
The tank in the bed is heated from the coolant lines of the truck. You "tee" in on both sides of the engine and run it as a giant loop to the tank. The tank has an aluminum loop through the bottom so the heat from the coolant heats the WVO. WVO needs to be heated to run by itself. It's viscosity is normally too high, and it will also burn poorly at colder temps (very bad!). We can test this by heating a pan up. Take a frying pan, heat it on the stove to 450*. Take two samples of WVO and heat one of them, leave the other room temp. Heat it to 150* or so. Go outside and throw the heated WVO into the frying pan.... burns off nice and clean. Throw the unheated one on and watch out for the smoke... DO THIS OUTSIDE!!!) So now that we have a way to heat the oil (the tank) we are good to go.
The truck starts and shuts off on diesel. I start the truck, it fires on diesel, and I take off for my day. As I'm driving down the road, heat comes up. The 140* temp switch activates once coolant temp at the V3 manifold is at that mark. (the coolant line running back to the tank also runs through this aluminum manifold too, to keep the pump and everything else warm as well). As it hits this mark, the WVO pump kicks on, and starts building pressure. Once it hits the predetermined pressure mark (standard pressure sensor on the system is 65psi), it automatically shuts off the factory diesel pump and kicks on the WVO pump and starts feeding the engine WVO from your heated tank. You will never notice this driving down the road, it is a smooth switchover. The only way to know it has happened is that the green light comes on on the dash on the power switch for the system. You can also tell by seeing fuel pressure jump up, if you have a fuel pressure gauge, the engine will also get quite a bit quieter! So now you're burning grease! When you get to your destination, you shut the truck off like normal. The truck will however, stay running. It does it's purge (pushes diesel back through the entire system from diesel tank all the way back to WVO tank in the bed to completely clear the lines) and then shuts the purge valve and continue's to run for a set amount of time (usually around 1 minute - 1.5 minutes) to burn off an excess. This ensures there is no cold oil left in your system when you come back to restart the truck.
This system obviously doesn't make much sense for the guy driving 5 miles one way to work... by the time you're pulling in the parking lot, it's just kicking the system on, and then it wastes some diesel purging... you'd end up using more diesel purging than you would save driving for 10 seconds on WVO.
The fuel lines going from the WVO tank to the pump/manifold and into the engine are typically wrapped in one big clump with the coolant lines, and wrapped with insulation tape. This keeps more heat in the oil as it makes it way to the engine. This is known as HOH, or Hose on Hose (makes sense right), you can also do HIH (hose in hose) or some guys refer to it as TIH (tube in hose). Basically this would take an aluminum or similar fuel line, and actually run it INSIDE of the coolant line. You'd need the special fittings for this, but this ensures great heat transfer to the WVO, and less clutter of fuel/coolant lines under the truck.
The standard vegistroke is NOT cheap. However, it will pay for itself in no time if you do any amount of driving. I think you're looking near $4000 for a full system. Is it expensive? Yup. Do you get what you pay for? Yup. Could you do it cheaper yourself? Probably. Will you make 3 dozen trips to the hardware store if you do it yourself? Definitely. The vegistroke is a complete turn-key system. It is fully automated, which is what I love the most. This means my gf or heck, even my mother could jump in my truck and drive it on WVO without having to worry about watching temp gauges, or switching stuff on and off, and remembering to purge etc. Simple.
The main reasons I chose this system:
Anyone can jump in and drive it without worries
I am only running one vehicle on an alternative fuel, so it didn't make sense to do a bio setup
I live in cold weather climate, so bio wouldn't work 6 months out of the year for me. I can however run WVO or Bio in this system without issues.
The vegistroke is a stand-alone second fuel system... this means if my diesel pump craps out on the road, I can still get where I'm going on the vegistroke, and vice-versa. If the vegistroke stops working, just switch to diesel and get where I'm going again.
I actually ran into a situation last year where my stock diesel system had frozen fuel (it was -30* F). The truck would start and idle, but couldn't supply enough fuel for a load (couldn't drive it), so I started it in the driveway, let it come up to temp, switched it over to WVO (I cut it a little with kerosene it was so cold) and drove all the way to work like this. Passing diesels pulled over everywhere here.
I've only skimmed the surface of what is the vegistroke. Ask questions and I'll answer them as I can. There is a lot more too it, but this is the basic layout. I can try and get some pics too, but the best thing would be to just go download the install manual.
You can of course get LOADS of information @ WVO Diesel Conversion | SVO Grease Conversion | Ford Vegistroke Powerstroke | Biodiesel Conversion
Last edited by Mdub707; 01-31-2012 at 12:41 PM.
The following users liked this post:
03Powerstroke (02-01-2012)
#3
01-31-2012, 01:21 PM
#4
01-31-2012, 01:48 PM
To make bio yes you need methanol and lye. To run oil in my system I do not, it's JUST filtered oil. I should have added this in my reasons I got the vegistroke. At the time I got my system going, I was renting a house (still am, just a different house) and didn't want the hassle of having caustic chemicals at a rented unit. Same thing applies where I'm at now. My landlord didn't want me making bio diesel for this reason, however once I explained I was just filtering oil in the garage, she was ok with it.
As for power, technically speaking WVO has a lower BTU content than diesel, but it's still higher than gasoline. So you would theoretically lose a few HP, but in most cases it's not enough to notice. The trade off is the excellent lubricating properties of WVO. You would not believe how quiet the injectors get once it switches over. Imagine pulling up to a stop sign in your 6.0 and wonder if the truck is still running... that quiet. All you can hear is exhaust and turbo, injectors go totally noiseless. It's amazing.
Oh did I mention your truck will smell similar to french fries, but sweeter smelling? Your friends will complain about being extremely hungry if they have to ride behind your truck.
As for power, technically speaking WVO has a lower BTU content than diesel, but it's still higher than gasoline. So you would theoretically lose a few HP, but in most cases it's not enough to notice. The trade off is the excellent lubricating properties of WVO. You would not believe how quiet the injectors get once it switches over. Imagine pulling up to a stop sign in your 6.0 and wonder if the truck is still running... that quiet. All you can hear is exhaust and turbo, injectors go totally noiseless. It's amazing.
Oh did I mention your truck will smell similar to french fries, but sweeter smelling? Your friends will complain about being extremely hungry if they have to ride behind your truck.
#6
01-31-2012, 01:55 PM
No problem. It's taken me quite a while to get all my research done on this, so ask away man. There's a LOT to it all, between the collecting methods, the filtering methods, the tips and tricks with the systems etc.... it's a lot to swallow, but it's fun. One word of advice... treat it like a hobby.
I'll go through my photobucket album and see what I have for pics. There are a few detailed write-ups on install too on the forum.
I'll go through my photobucket album and see what I have for pics. There are a few detailed write-ups on install too on the forum.
#7
01-31-2012, 02:01 PM
#8
01-31-2012, 02:09 PM
Diesel Bomber
#9
01-31-2012, 02:22 PM
I should also add that the vegistroke system is specifically designed for the 7.3 and 6.0 powerstrokes (99-2007). There should be a system for the 6.4 powerstroke out soon as well. They also cover the CR Dodge 5.9's with the vegi-ram.
Here's a quick peak at what the tank looks like in the bed. I lose a lot more room than most since I have the stacks too. The stacks can't sit flush up against the front of the bed, so they're spaced off, then I spaced the tank accordingly behind that.
Also here's a good pic showing the coolant lines and fuel lines being wrapped together. This is just insulation tape from Home Depot, it's something like $8 for a 30 or 50' roll I can't remember. A single roll did my lines from my tank to my manifold.
Here's a quick peak at what the tank looks like in the bed. I lose a lot more room than most since I have the stacks too. The stacks can't sit flush up against the front of the bed, so they're spaced off, then I spaced the tank accordingly behind that.
Also here's a good pic showing the coolant lines and fuel lines being wrapped together. This is just insulation tape from Home Depot, it's something like $8 for a 30 or 50' roll I can't remember. A single roll did my lines from my tank to my manifold.
