Hi Craig, Thanks for the info.....I have spoke with you once on the phone briefly before the Christmas holiday.....I especially appreciate your feedback on the choices for WebbStk and hose on hose for reliability and minimizing the downside risk......This is my first attempt at converting a diesel to run primarily on WVO and I'm going to go overboard which is my nature.....Rather than start with a "bare bones" approach I'm opting to go with the latest technology available, create what I can't find and hopefully attain my goal of a nearly "on demand" "fill up, turn the key, pause for the glow plugs and drive" vehicle running on WVO.
Questions on the Vormax which I will cheerfully purchase from your company. 1. Can you get more than one heating element in it....Such as 12V heat, coolant heat and 120V heat all in the same unit?.....I'd at least like to have 12v and coolant together and preferably all 3 options bundled together. 2. Are you letting your WVO settle before pouring it in the tank or do you use any WVO that you can pump from a dumpster?.....I'd like to believe that a Vormax could handle these, however I had planned to build or buy a pumping and filtering system for collection and purifying. 3. What is the average life of the filter you use on the Vormax and what do you recommend?.....Is it a cellulose type filter?.....I thought I had read that VO causes the fibers to swell and can ruin them quickly....Have you heard of this? I have many more questions, but will limit them to these for now. Thanks in advance for your assistance, Geoff --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Craig Reece <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Geoff, > > You wrote: > > > Has anyone installed an Espar, Webasto or other diesel fired water > > heater in their WVO system to pre-heat the cooling system and thus > > the WVO?......My question is if these will work burning WVO..... > > > I've installed a Webasto diesel-fired coolant heater/pump in my Tdi Land > Rover, plumbed into the cooling system (obviously) and will use it to > preheat the coolant in my radiator, engine, heatercore, Webb HotSTK > (now Racor HotSTK, since they bought Webb in December) in my WVO tank, > and in my Vormax fuel pre-filter/filter, which has a heat exchange > function. (The Webb HotSTK is the only way that we - Neoteric Biofuels > www.biofuels.ca recommend as a means to introduce coolant into a fuel > tank - we don't feel like taking on the potential liability we'd incur > if a customer had a catastrophic loss of coolant into their fuel from a > copper loop or transmission oil cooler. Which has happened, BTW - with > diesel engines being turned into boat anchors in a few minutes of > operation without coolant.) > > So, fire up the Webasto or Espar, (and they both offer a keychain remote > feature) and after some amount of time, which of course varies depending > on ambient air temps, you've got hot coolant being circulated (by the > 12V pump) through all of the above components, so you've got: a hot > engine, hot (or at least warm) fuel in your injection pump and > injectors, hot fuel in your tank, hot fuel in your fuel filter, and hot > coolant in your heatercore - so everything, including your passenger > compartment, is hot prior to starting the car. For campers or RV's, you > can plumb a hot water heat exchanger into the loop, and use the Webasto > or Espar to provide you with domestic hot water. If your fuel lines are > bundled next to your coolant lines (HOH or hose-on-hose, as opposed to > HIH or hose-in-hose, which scares us (see above - can you say > "catastrophic loss of coolant") with the whole bundle insulated with > foam pipe insulation) you've also got a heated fuel path from tank to > engine. > > As far as running an Espar or Webasto on WVO: Alexander Noack, the > senior engineer at Elsbett, who's in charge of the SVO kit side of their > business, (and Elsbett installs Espar heaters as a cold-weather option > on conversions they do at their workshop in Germany) told me that Espar > claims you can run *biodiesel* (not SVO or WVO) in their heaters, but > that you need to run them on diesel periodically. Whether pre- heated > biodiesel would eliminate this need, I don't know. And it's possible > that pre-heated WVO would also combust properly. I'd of course suggest > our Vegtherm 12V inline fuel heater for this purpose. My Land Rover > isn't quite on the road yet, but when it is, I'll be experimenting with > the Webasto, to see if it will run on pre-heated biodiesel, and I'm sure > I'll try it on pre-heated WVO at some point. With a bit of plumbing one > could of course do a two-tank system for the Webasto or Espar and start > it on bioD or dinoD, run it on WVO, then shut down on dinoD or bioD. > > I'll keep the group informed of the outcome of my experiments. > > Craig Reece Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?list=biofuel Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
