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phil_rc_cab -> RE: diesel fuel additive (1/15/2005 8:12:20 PM)
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I had my quest for cetane improver too, here in France.
It was for little diesels I collected past year.
I was amazed and charmed since the first time I run one.
The fun also was brewing my own mix from castrol oil ,ether (got from a vet being a friend, they have bigger 0.8 liters GIFFER can for big animals) and lamp oil or home heating kero. I was missing the !QUOT!magic spirit!QUOT!
I found a new product named !QUOT!CETANE DIESEL PLUS!QUOT! sold here in France in ELF gas pumps.
It is a blue aluminum bottle.
Since the join between 3 French oil companies ,Total having bought ELF plus FINA; the ELF stations recently changed their range of petroleum additives for diesel and gas.
ELF stations have also changed their colors now from blue and red to blue and yellow .
They sell now two different additives for diesel.
The !QUOT!CETANE PLUS DIESEL!QUOT!is a pure cetane improver, containing light petrol distillates (just for dilution I think)plus di-ethylhexyl nitrate. The reason for di-ethylhexyl nitrate seems to be it is less volatile than others : less bad fumes, easier to stock. the thing would have bigger atoms. From memory the diesel improvers are named DII ,DIII. this one is the last generation.
This product is a winter product. I can read on it:
-boosts cetane rating
-makes cold start easier.
-lessens the fuel consumption (saves fuel)
There is no doubt about purity , because the other diesel product ELF sells is specially aimed at keeping the engines clean . It contains 5 other additives: anti corrosion anti foaming, cleaning,.....
Here is one of the mixes I tried : 28% castrol castor oil, 45% ether, 25% lamp oil or kero, 1.5~2 % cetane booster. that's nearly 2 parts oil , 3 parts ether , 2 parts kero(+booster)
Despite not having a tach, I can tell you my little kalper seems to like it, running smoothly after run-in.
I use a syringe for measuring the booster.
(In a car the one dose -quarter liter- goes with 50 liters diesel oil .That's only a 1/200 ratio or 0.5%). I found a math curve on a web site showing that the amount affects the final cetane extra rating, until a max where it gives nothing more. I think the key -in our purpose- is the kero/booster ratio ,rather than total percentage. In my mix this ratio gives about 1/15.
Another question would be about replacing missing cetane improver by extra ether,lowering kero.That is obviously at the cost of less power.
I tried it in the initial run-in .
With a bit more oil , if you lower the kero and max the ether ,you get near an olde recipe :
30% oil,70%ether.
Another thing is the viscosity of the fuel in engines with steel cylinder and cast iron pistons.
These get tighter as the temperature rise. In my point of view it is dangerous to lower the oil in the mix.
Not only you get less lubricating by the mix itself , but (because it is too rich in the burning part of the full)you come to close the needle to far lessening the lubrication and getting a hot engine getting tighter running to fast getting hotter etc...
Last point : I ruined a pfeffer by miscare after running it.This engine has exhaust pipes which I connected to some tubing , in order to let oil falling in a bin .I wanted to keep my garage clean during the break in . I was quite sure castor oil would have kept the pfeffer free from rust.
Alas! the reddish~brown color I found at the end of the tubing I first thought was burned castor was in fact rust. For my other engines the color is always clear with sometimes a bit of black soot. (If I see any black I correct this by lowering kero , increasing ether and or cetane booster)Then it was to late the engine loosed compression and didn't want to come back to live.
My thought is cetane booster is at least a small part of the problem .
When I opened it I found a brown residue (nearly the same color of the exhaust) on the top of the piston. It cannot be only rust because it was not hard at all. It had no grain like rust.It looked like soft mould (mold) not as sticky as old gunk. This deposit seems to have favored rust in a ring on the top of the cylinder perhaps by acidity.
Now I will always clean my engine with pure kero or some kind of oil and will always get the exhaust port open to free air.
I am also looking for a product to remove that deposit on the piston.
I think about a product which removes sap on gardening tools.
Philippe Cabon.
P.S: I am looking for some repair help, or spare cylinder .I got my engine from **** and don't know any seller. I have no machining facilities around also.
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