Build a Greasecar and virtually eliminate your fuel costs.

[RottenWillow]

I started a thread on this topic 6 months ago, but I'll bet people might be more interested in this subject now.

Any diesel car or truck up to the model year 2002 can be easily converted to run on vegetable oil, new or used. Beginning in '03, common rail FI was introduced which is incompatible with veggie oil.

Many people produce a veggie oil conversion kit now, but the one I've looked at most is made by a guy that operates a site called greasecar.com. His kits run about $750. You add a secondary tank that holds your new/used veggie oil, along with an oil heater, onboard filter, and the new fuel lines. You crank your engine on diesel fuel and allow it to idle for a few minutes to operate the oil heater, then flip a switch to change to your veggie oil supply. When you reach your destination, you again switch to diesel for a minute or so.

If you choose used veggie oil, the will need to filter it prior to adding it to your onboard tank. The oil will be filtered a second time by the onboard filter. Used veggie oil can be obtained free from restaurants since they typically pay to have it hauled away. You'll just need to do a little legwork to find a restaurant. Chinese restaurants generally have the best quality used oil. The tiny bit of diesel you'd use and the filters would represent your only fuel costs if you ran used oil. However, new veggie oil would not require any preliminary filtering at all, and at this point is actually cheaper than pump gas. I checked the price for a five gallon jug of veggie oil at Sam's Wholesale Club and with tax it worked out to $2.18 a gallon. I found some wholesalers online that could get the new oil price down below $2.00, even with shipping costs.

Home mechanics can install the conversion kit. The forum at greasecar.com has members who've driven over 40k miles on oil with no discernable mechanical problems related to the the conversion. HP is not decreased.

My fiance and I have been seriously considering making a greaser for a while now, but this crap that's going on now is just the motivation we needed to do it.

If I had a dick, I'd tell the oil suppliers to suck it.

 

[bluepeter]

Another good one is plug-in hybrids. I read recently that people have been converting their hybrids and putting 12-18 batteries in their trunk that they charge while the car isn't being used. Gets something like 250 miles per gallon.

 

[bdog527]

I remember JuicedHairWeave posting awhile back that he had bought an 80's something diesel benz and converted it to Vegetable oil.

 

[GoldenDelicious]

that. is. really. cool!!!!!

i had no idea this sort of thing existed! coooooool i found a new project

edit: i love you willow. im the biggest DIY guy i know, and after building my last project a month ago, ive been twiddling my thumbs whoaaaaaa!

edit edit: greasecars just got the flick. my house garage shall now be transformed into a biodiesel plant.

 

[75th]

Another good one is plug-in hybrids. I read recently that people have been converting their hybrids and putting 12-18 batteries in their trunk that they charge while the car isn't being used. Gets something like 250 miles per gallon.

....conversing with bluepeter has a similar effect

 

[eat big]

Another good one is plug-in hybrids. I read recently that people have been converting their hybrids and putting 12-18 batteries in their trunk that they charge while the car isn't being used. Gets something like 250 miles per gallon.

Only problem with those is they require a lot of electricity to charge. That electricity comes from power plants that also pollute.


No doubt it's much cheaper, it's also still more environmentally friendly.

The goverment offers some tax cuts for them now too!

 

[RottenWillow]

Only problem with those is they require a lot of electricity to charge. That electricity comes from power plants that also pollute.


No doubt it's much cheaper, it's also still more environmentally friendly.

The goverment offers some tax cuts for them now too!

My dad is an engineer at a power plant and he'd argue about the pollution, but I wont. Most plants are coal fired and definitely do pollute even though it's not conventional coal and funks up the air less.

Regarding fuel cost, I'm not sure a conventional electric car is really any cheaper. You pay less for gas, but more to your power company. And I'm still not convinced about hybrids yet either. I think the little bit of gas savings may be negated by the replacement cost of the battery pack.

 

[slat1]

Cool car concept.

Anyone else secretly hoping this was one of those stories from the pizza shop Rottenwillow worked at?

 

[bluepeter]

My dad is an engineer at a power plant and he'd argue about the pollution, but I wont. Most plants are coal fired and definitely do pollute even though it's not conventional coal and funks up the air less.

Regarding fuel cost, I'm not sure a conventional electric car is really any cheaper. You pay less for gas, but more to your power company. And I'm still not convinced about hybrids yet either. I think the little bit of gas savings may be negated by the replacement cost of the battery pack.

Hybrids are not yet worth it. The higher purchase cost is only offset if you drive an awful lot. The plug-ins are more than worth it and the enormous savings easily outpace the electricity used. The only problem is knowing enough about cars to pull off the conversion. I do not know what all is involved.

 

[chewyxrage]

Cool car concept.

Anyone else secretly hoping this was one of those stories from the pizza shop Rottenwillow worked at?

lol...we could only hope