Vegitable oil??

so i was wonder why hasnt anyone took their diesel mastercraft and turned it into vegitable oil boat?? they could run for free and there is plenty of room in those things for all the necisary hardware. just a thought bc of all the gas prices talk.

Looks like MC's motor is made by Volkswagen. If it's possible, it would be interesting to see someone convert one to run on bio or veggie. And with fuel prices climbing the way they are, I bet we'll see it before long.
The problem is the expensive boat..... will someone shell out the cash & then tear it down to make it burn something it's not really designed to use?
The real question is, when will MC (or any boat manufacturer) make a diesel engine that will burn bio from the factory?

(Message edited by bill_airjunky on April 29, 2008)

yeah but running veggie isnt bad, you do need deisel to run the boat at first (starting) but after it warms up completly you can flip the switch and run veggie oil right through the motor. and when your ready to turn the boat off you need to turn the diesel back on and clean it out for a few minutes. then shut her down. its not extremely expensive to put in your diesel truck but a custom boat job might be more. but what i do know is you will make your money back quick, and its way cleaner burning.

hey mike get on it.lol

I am a VW Audi mechanic and they have been using the v10 Tdi motor in sailboats for a long while. The v10 toureg is pretty sweet too. Running vegi oil is clean BUT..... things like injection pumps and other things really suffer. It gums up alot. We change about 1-2 injection pumps in the 4cyl TDI every week and at a tune of 2400 it is not cheap. I have not had the time to really check out the V10 nor the effects of vegi oil but since We just partnered up with a start up called Green Motors that will be doing TDI conversions to vegi I hope to become versed in the conversions. I will definately be sharing with you guys

michael its noy my boat but if it was i would try it out.

Hey, you could even use the fatsacs as tanks seeming its only vegetable oil!

yeah or just plum hard tanks on both side of the engine for even weight distrabution.

the diesel motor upgrade for MC is a $25,000 upgrade. I couldn't imagine anyone spending that much just for the upgrade and then worring about the price of diesel.

wow well if i knew that then the price of the motor exceeds the price of fuel for the life of the boat.

Straight vegetable oil? I thought you had to add something like methylated spirits to get it to burn better and thin it a bit. At least everything I've seen apart from what I read on this forum seems to say that's the way to go.

There is probably more than one way to skin this cat...

yeah what i have read is just stright oil from the back of the neighborhood chineese food resturant. the system definitly has to have a couple of inline filters to filter out the sedement in the oil from the resturant.

I talked to the VW diesel guy at surf expo last year and he said that you cannot run Bio diesel or veggie oil in any of there diesels over the 3.0 liter. this is because of the type of injectors that they use in their bigger diesel motors. They use Piezo injectors which are similiar to those lighters that you push and the electric spark lights the flame. The bio/wvo will clog these type of injectors. This is why their V10 Toureg diesel is only rated for B10 I believe. As for having to start and stop on diesel that is for running straight WVO. There are other ways around this. Bill(airjunky) the diesel motor was actually designed to run on veggie oil so getting one of these motors and then running it on somehting it was not designed to is not a problem. Like I said it is the injectors that are the issue on diesel motors. I only wish I had a diesel in my boat, my duramax loves vegetables!

Thats what i was going to say i have a duramax and i know it can run on veggies but i dont have the money to convert it... yet. but thats lame about the vw engine. you duramax runs on veggies??

distribution is a problem

if too many people catch on the supply will evaporate quickly

It may be a problem with something like Waste Veggie Oil. There are only so many restaurants with old WVO up for grabs.

But if we develop biodiesel from something easily renewable like algae, then it gets easier to supply everyone. Sounds like another hurdle will be modifying the injection systems so it doesn't get clogged easily.

The bottom line is the US government should be throwing out huge incentives to develop the fuel & the engines & fuel systems to get this working for everyone. Private business will probably do it in the long run. And providing the companies with tax breaks & funding options should help the process.

WVO is nearly impossible to get a hold of in the Phoenix area because the gov't and school districts are grabbing it up in bulk to make bio for their vehicles.

http://www.marinediesel.nu/

Has anyone checked this company out? They have already fitted a malibu response and sport nautique with a diesel. It gets 2 GPH.

thats awesome 2gph! thats like 16- 20 bucks bettweeen everyone a ride. the problem is the engine runs like 6k right??

That & the fact that their made in Sweden.

The USA needs to catch up.

There's a guy on here who posts whenever there is talk about a diesel X star. He put a yanmar diesel in his boat and cut his fuel consumption in half. I believe he was able to do it pretty economically as well. I don't know too much about diesels but i would bet that the yanmar would be much better suited for vegi oil than the VW.

There are some guys down here researching making diesel from settlement pond scum, that might be the algae thing... I don't see that supply running out any time soon, haven't heard anything about them lately though.