How to go about diagnosing the overall condition of my greaser?
September 8, 2010 - 2:52pm
I bought a 2003 Jetta Wagon TDI a few months ago with 78,000 miles on it. The one previous owner had it converted with a Greascar kit at around 35,000 miles. He admitted that his wife had made some mistakes switching fuels/flushing the system. They were only doing the flush/purge option on occasion, but were diligent about switching the fuel to deisel a couple of miles before reaching their final destination. Looks like they were replacing the syn oil at 5k intervals after greasing the car. At 67k, they had the intake manifold cleaned,the intake manifold chamber replaced, the EGR manifold and flange gaskets replaced and a few other vegoil related components replaced/repaired.
I've had the EGR checked, timing belt replaced, veg fuel lines flushed, all hoses replaced with biodiesel compatable ones and had the co-pilot installed.
The car runs fine. My question is, upon researching the potential fallacies of running veg oil in these engines, what is trhe best way to find out if this engines overall condition? I intend to have the oil lab tested upon the next oil change interval, but is there any other measures I can take here?
I would also like to know if you think I should have the following components installed to prevent future catastrophe:
-lift pump(assists existing fuel pump with thicker veg oil)
-egt gauge(gauge's exhaust temp to monitor uncombusted oil levels)
-flat plate heat exchanger(fphe) to insure that veg oil is at proper temperature upon reaching injectors.
-To prevent Coking of intake manifolds, and intake valves with polymerized vegetable oil should I reduce the EGR duty cycle through use of VAG COM or even eliminate it all together? And if I did delete it altogether, resulting in the check engine light coming on, can I re-activate when it's time to inspect car?
-Add 2200 ohm resistors to fool engine into not increasing the flow of fuel as temp gets hotter, thereby reducing amount of uncombusted, polymerizing veg oil deposits
Folks at the TDIForum insist that adding these features to a stock Greasecar system is the only way to prevent veg oil related engine failure down the line, but I have also heard stories of these mods NOT being necessary. I would think if they were than Greasecar would offer/install them in their regular kits. Any help here?
tnx,
Alex
September 8, 2010 - 8:13pm
#2
"Seadog", over on the Frybrid forum had this response,
"A lift pump is not necessary on an 03. Definitely get a FPHE.
If you don't mind the check engine light on all the time go ahead and delete the EGR. I reduced the EGR duty cycle through use of VAG COM.
Other than oil analysis I would do a compression check. That will tell you the condition of the rings."
Anyways, Greasecar may have already checked my compression when they changed the timing belt and cleaned the fuel lines recently...I'll have to double check that. I know GC also offers a FPHE, so I'll be lokking into that tomorrow as well. I just want to be sure my engine isn't compromised at all from WVO or the previous owners habits, before I sink any more money into my conversion. This is a sweet ride compared to my '84 Benz...I don't want to destroy the engine! Better to just rock the 45+ mpg's on dinodiesel than risk engine failure!
-A
September 9, 2010 - 5:38am
#3
I hear you totally. I've had an '84 Rabbit and an '80 Benz. They were both great, but I didn't do the maintenence I should have done on either of them before installing the grease kit. I want to get a TDI too and I can relate to what you're saying.
Isn't the whole point of the EGR to reduce emissions though? If you delete it, even if you're running grease, isn't that bad for the environment?
A lift pump is not necessary but can alleviate stress to the stock pump.
I have read that the EGT gauge is a great way to keep your car safe on grease. Basically telling you you're getting complete combustion if you have similar temps. as diesel. (exhaust gas temps.)
When you have a 300 dollar car you're not so worried about these things, but when you have a sweet ride, you want to keep it nice and not have to worry about engine failure.
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These are very important questions that I've never seen anywhere on this site (other than EGR/intake info). It would be great if Conor or someone from greasecar can answer these questions. It's hard to know what to think. The Greasecar guys are the experts, come on dudes tell us what you think about all this.
When we see Sdecks '03 TDI with a Greasecar kit blow up, it scares us. Tell us what we need to know to run a TDI for the long haul. Similarly, I just watched the installation DVD for the Jetta install and it talks nothing about any of the things mentioned above.
I hope someone clears these things up for you.
__________________
-Daren
'03 Jetta TDI
140k