It’s also possible to make biodiesel from any animal or vegetable lipid base with a few cheap and readily accessible ingredients in a dystopian scenario. I don’t usually promote products, and I am not a dealer, I have no stake in the company, but if you haven’t looked at Amsoil I recommend it. The oil originated in aerospace and is vastly superior, and I have vetted it for double change intervals with independent lab oil analysis, change the filters at the normal interval of course. Regarding diesels, the mechanical injection diesels are the best, no automobile with a diesel made in the last twenty years is free of electronics though, so it’s a swap it in yourself deal. Hatz and Deutz both make mechanical air cooled diesels suitable for automotive applications, not cheap but insanely reliable.
Discussion
Electronic injection has some major advantages, my hope is that we continue to see the growth of things like the speeduino project that make open source fuel injection cheap & easy to adapt & modify for all sorts of things.
In diesels the overhead cam driven common rail injection at exceedingly high pressures paired with variable geometry turbochargers has vastly improved efficiency in the last few years. I’m of the opinion that the systems would be more reliable if fewer electronics and sensors were used though. In my thirty years I’ve seen engines go from the 2 million mile no problems CAT 3406B to the 1 million mile no problem Detroit Series 60 to the modern $40k rebuild at 500,000 mile, thousands per month in diagnostic bullshit we have today. I have no problem with emissions controls, modern emissions systems are solid, but the electronics are a constant, expensive problem. I’m excited about the development of single stroke combustion engines, they look promising, this “liquid” piston engine looks like a rendition of the old oil burning, compression losing rotary engines from the 1970’s though. All that having been said though, the key to transportation efficiency is energy scavenging. It’s physics, potential energy to kinetic energy and back again with as little heat as possible. Whether you use a battery or a pressure vessel or a spinning mass in a vacuum to recover and store energy, as long as any vehicle has friction brakes that are engaged outside of an emergency we’re not doing as well as we could. I get what you’re saying though, maybe a relatively simple car getting 40 mpg and lasting a long time is good enough for now.
The government has fucked FUBAR diesels. My 2004 Jetta TDI is still going strong I think has over 300,000 miles on it. (the lady I sold it to still buys from me)
Diesels went through a rough patch, but the SCR diesels are the best engines ever conceived of. The problem was meeting the NOx emissions requirements. The first iterations lowered combustion temperatures to reduce NOx, increasing soot. Fuel economy was terrible and the DPF units clogged. The introduction of urea catalyst allowed all time high combustion temperatures without soot or NOx. I have an SCR diesel with 700k on it, no issues whatsoever. I run synthetic diesel, renewable. The EGR valve is as clean as it was when new. #diesel #engines #renewablefuel #engineering
Double intervals? Try 3-5 times. #AMSOIL top of the line is good for 25,000 miles or one year. I had an 05 Nissan frontier with 200k on less than 10 oil changes.
As a dealer I have to prove to myself before I can confidently sell something.
Hit me up with your #AMSOIL questions!
I’m a believer. I have run 225k on a commercial diesel changing only filters at the 75k interval. Oil analysis through two labs confirmed adequate oil specs at 3x intervals, and the oil was probably serviceable for another 75k, but at $40,000 for a new engine I change the oil as soon as specs slip at all. Amsoil is an amazing product. #amsoil