hi!
did a little experimenting recently and thought i'd share some of
the observations for the benefit of any/all.
firstly, Helga is an '85 300D with almost 160K miles, and has been
using almost exclusively commercially purchased BioD for ~3 years/40K
miles. the fuel is commercially produced from recycled oil stock (i
believe the current stock was used for frying potato chips, but i may be
mistaken.)
on a recent trip to the Sierra, i decided to try straight B99/100
purchased from our favorite local supplier, just to see how the vehicle
would react to the low temps since i had the luxury of convenient
support should i need it.
after sitting for a few days with temps near freezing, it started up
perfectly; a single Glow cycle resulted in an immediate smoke-free start
and a smooth idle, as is normal for this car. power, however, was lower
than it usually is when cold as i started up the hill out the driveway,
to the extent i found i had the accelerator floored just to keep it
moving. out of curiosity, i tried revving it in Neutral, and found i
could only get about 2K RPM on it maximum!
even after coolant temp had reached normal indicated range (80C+),
Max RPMs were still only about 2K RPM for about the first 10-15 minutes
of use; fortunately, this was enough to suit the needs in the small town
we were in. it wasn't until we'd gotten several miles farther down the
road that it rev'd freely as normal.
my theory is that although the fuel had not gelled completely, it
had gelled enough that there was enough occlusion in the fuel system
that it wouldn't allow full fuel flow until things had warmed up. were i
to head into the same conditions again, i'll probably top off with #2
Dino before stopping, just to try to lower the Gel Point of the fuel a bit.
fortunately my wife tends to have a bit of an adventurous nature, or
this could have been much less fun! (the dog napped serenely in the rear
seat the entire time, knowing nothing of the fun we were having; only
that we were going home,...)
cheers!
e
Berkeley
- [MBZ] Biodiesel Cold Weather Data Point ernest breakfield
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