Evening all
Emptied all the tanks and jerry’s on the return trip from the
Broken Hill OBC 07 on Friday and finally made the decision to load up with Bio diesel after talking to a diesel fuel apprecation/monitoring/pedantic nutter some time ago.
I loaded up at the SAFF outlet on the cnr of Boronia & Scorseby Rds, Boronia last night with B100 (very close to 100% bio diesel)
Then drove around doing things for and hour or two that racked up 100kms, and included a trip up the Mt Dandenong Tourist road to Mt Dandenong from Ferntree Gully.
Obviously noticeable differences:
(1) Smell – no stinking diesel smell whilst filling
(2) Spillage – nice smell on hands and washed of very easily leaving no residual smell
(3) Once fuel was through to the pump and engine the first immediate effect noticeable was on the EGT gauge, The sucker runs noticeably cooler. This surprised me the most, especially the long climb up the Mt Dandenong tourist road.
(4) Stopped at lights - idles much smoother and quieter
(5) Power – definitely different however I think it is the much smoother translational shift to power via the turbo (Turbo lag almost gone) that gives the impression of extra power. However that’s not to say there isn’t extra power.
Flew up the
hill on Ferntree Gully road towards Jells road easy as (3.4tonne) in fourth gear at 85kph. (fairly long steep
hill for those that don’t know it) at the amazing thing was the EGT gauge which would normally sprinting to the magic 500degs. mark, was actually dawdling its way up to 400degs.
This for me was the most obvious and exciting benefit of all as it is something that has had me thinking about ‘what to do’ whilst towing.
(6) Fuel consumption seemed the same, however I was giving it a ‘roost’ every now and again (
well, lots actually) whilst playing with it (the vehicle that is)
(7) It was very obvious in the car lights at road level that the amount emissions had been cut drastically. It didn’t appear to blow smoke under 3500RPM on diesel according to those that follow, however at night you can see these rolling clouds of something or other at ground level in the following vehicle headlights. These ‘clouds’ of whatever chit seem to have been largely eliminated with the B100.
(8) Exhaust smell – nothing like a fish & chip
shop, just smells like a ‘rose’. Very nice actually.
(9) Price $1.21 a litre.
(10) So far there has been nothing to give a reason not to use it again, which I intend to do from now on on a continuous basis.
Discussion:
(a) Yes! I will be monitoring the filters so don’t fret about that. I did away with the OEM ones some time ago and replaced both with a CAV agglomerator and filter pack
(b) Yes! It is a post 96 model Troopy (Oct 1997)
(d) Yes! At exactly 100,000kms (another 400kms to g) I am going to put a
CEM engine wash through it and then see how the oil handles B100
(e) Yes! I carry spare CAV filters just in case it blocks same. I can get a pack of 10 for $40.00 which is just ace. The one that is on there at the moment has done 20,000Kms and to date is as clean as a whistle. The little in line filters I installed collect all the heavy bleep and get changed every 5,000kms. B100 could be a different matter with its detergent effect.
(f) No Truckster, there are no doom, gloom or despair happenings/events on the horizon.