Justin's 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit, pre-chamber injection mechanically controlled engine
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Converted engine running on diesel or on filtered, heated vegetable oil. Typically, recycled frying grease from restaurants is used as the oil.
Straight vegetable oil (SVO) is very viscous, and solidified at relatively high temperatures. Primarily for these two reasons, it needs to be heated prior to entering the fuel injection pump. To adapt the engine to run on SVO, a second fuel tank and a second set of fuel lines and filters needs to be installed. The fuel tank, fuel lines and filters are heated, typically by engine coolant. Also, a switching mechanism to allow the engine to run on either ordinary fuel (diesel or biodiesel) or SVO needs to be installed. In typical operation, the engine is started on regular fuel, and operated on regular fuel until the auxiliary SVO fuel filter, lines and tank heat up to the desired temperature. The engine is then switched to run on SVO - this can be done manually or automatically. The engine operates on SVO until a short time before shutdown, when it is switched back to the regular fuel, so that no SVO is left in the fuel injection pump and high pressure lines. The SVO tank is filled with filtered vegetable oil, typically obtained from restaurants. It is very important that the fuel does not contain any water, or any solid materials.
For more information:
Grease Car - manufacturer of SVO conversion kits
Other options: Commercially produced biodiesel -- Home-made biodiesel
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