Diesel GT40 ?

[Mark Pickford]

[ QUOTE ]
Or........... I could tie my horse to the front of my GT40 and I could run it on hay. 10 bucks a bale and a bale goes for 4-5 DAYS!!!!!!!! Slow but cheap!!!!!!!!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

You'd need to carry a bucket and sponge, the front clip could get messy real quick! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Ron Earp]

Real simple - get the V6 turbo diesel engine with 6 speed manual from a wrecked VW Passat or Audi A6 from Europe. Already has the 01E attached. 132kW of power @ 4000rpm and 370Nm of torque @ 1500rpm.

R

[Mike-M]

un-modified citroen ax 1500

over 70mpg

and a neck breaking 0-60 in 4.5............mins

mike

[Howard Jones]

If you put a french engine in a GT40 you will go to hell.

[Bill Musarra]

Last night I was watching the Discovery channel program Dirty Jobs. The host helped clean out the deep fryer of a Mexican resturant(done every couple of days, yuck!!). The program went on to show what one guy does with the used soybean/canola oil. He takes it to his barn where he analyses the mixture and calculates the correct blend of alcohol and lye(?), as canola alters the blend amount. After blending, he then just puts it in his 82 Nissan(?) diesel truck that with 170k + miles gets 40 miles per gallon. For his effort, he calculates it cost him about $.55 per gallon.

Bill

[Paul W]

Top gear on UK TV did a similar thing with an old diesel Volvo estate, they used vegetable oil and drove it round the track - it does work.

[Lucas van Altena]

Bill,
My van with cooling a VW LT35 2,8 ltr diesel 156 HP commenrail 137.000 km his bin riding on half diesel, half used sunfloweroil ( I produce springrolls ) and 2 procent methanol, i have the benefits of the dieseloil and save a buck and envirement with vegyoil.
The only thing is change the fuelfilter every 10.000 km.
In the past i got €. 5,00 for 100 ltr used backingoil, now i have to pay €.10,00, so when Rudolf diesel invent the diesel engine there was no dieseloil, i think he used vegetable oil and thats what i do in my VW.
Sadly last monday my driver fel driving on motorway asleep in Belgium, hit the rear of a truck, the both drivers were oke but the VW is totalloss.The new van will be delevered over 10 weeks and is factory delivered for biodiesel.
Luc

[jimbo]

There are a lot of folks over here running diesel cars and trucks on restaurant cooling oils. It has to be filtered etc but it works fine. It works best mixed with petroleum diesel but they will run on just fry oil as well. You do spend a lot of time running around collecting used oil but it is a lot cheaper- until you start valuing your time at anything above zero...
Don't get me wrong- I LOVE diesel engines and if I weren't finishing a GT40 I would be buying a pair of Cummins 8.3 QSM diesels to replace the CATs in my boat. They are amazing engines- electronically governed, smokeless, common-rail systems- all the bells and whistles. I think, though, for racing cars the weight is a disadvantage. Diesels always have to be more robust than gas engines in order to hold in the higher combustion pressures, which are formidable. And gasoline engines easily get down to the range of 1.5-2 lbs per horsepower; I don't know of any diesels in that range.

[Frank Catt]

It is always huge fun and very interesting to see just how far a small innocuous posting can lead to, and the type of reply we get. From the inane to the more carefully thought out responses, from the incredulous to the more scientific approach, there is such a diversity of reaction. Great stuff !

[Geoff S]

I am actually wondering about doing this as I'm running my daily drive (a VW Golf) on pure new vegetable oil & I'm about to convert my wife's Renault Scenic. Although the fuel is cheaper the cost of conversion would take a long time to recover so I'm doing it explicitly for environmental reasons.

Besides the cost/environmental issues (which are objectively small considering the likely mileage), I am actually considering diesel on a long term (30yr) perspective. I would hope to be driving (& perhaps competing) in 30yrs & I think it more likely that fuels for compression ignition cars will be more widely available than for spark ignition vehicles, and diesels are more adaptable/fuel change tolerant.I am thinking of creating a diesel trackday/hillclimb/sprint car. I don't have the resources to do endurance racing or try to win (I'd look for a competition with power/wt based classes), it's just the "craich" I'm attracted to.

My questions about this undoubtedly strange idea are these:

Is there an american diesel "short block" ford V8? I suspect not. There has been a diesel race car (Trident Iceni) runing on biodiesel almost entered into British GT racing, which is based around a GM diesel, but I don't have details.

Although fitting an Audi or possibly VW engine/ gearbox combination seems attractive do they have the right size/ mechanical orientation & is the computerised fuel system adaptable enough? And I believe neither is V8.

AFAIK there aren't electronically controlled diesel injection systems available for modified engines (as there are for petrol engines) so running a "modern" diesel with non original induction & exhaust could be a whole world of tuning pain & expense.


Frankly I am amazed there is a threas like this running, but it's reassuring to know I'm no the only crazy one...(perhaps)

Geoff the unexpectedly non-lurker

[Murray Cowley]

Geoff,
check this out,
web page
is it any use?
Murray

[Geoff S]

Murray,

Thanks for your fast reply. The question about ford diesel V8's is size (what's this small block thing - it implies ford also make large blocks) & power/weight. The description by the ebay vendor says that ford moved onto a 7.3 litre engine & one with a turbo "powerstroke" in 1992 - implicitly that would be a better start. If one were using a diesel, a turbo isn't perhaps that much greater a departure from "stock". Perhaps the reported marine use means that "performance" parts might be available from those sources. I suspect that it is too much to hope for bellhousing compatibility - this is such an archane implicit question I can't believe that anyone on the list knows the answer.

Geoff

[jimbo]

Ford does have a V8 diesel, the "Powerstroke" engine. It is actually built by International Harvester, also brand named Navistar. It is a good engine with serious torque and longevity. It is also heavy. There are performance parts for it, mostly in the way of chips for the EFI and intake systems.
The problem is weight. They are heavy. The weight of diesels is not such an issue in performance race boats, but it really gets to be a problem in race cars where folks will spend huge amount of money to just get a few dozen kilos off the weight of a car. It is more efficient than increasing horsepower and has the same effect, as we all know.
If I were looking at this and trying to find small, relatively light high-performance diesel power, I would look at Yanmar. Their marine diesels are lighter than anyones, and they wind them up pretty tight. Their only V8 is mammoth- about 900hp, which means over 4000 lbs, and huge. In other words, the weight of two GT40s. Some of their smaller engines, though, might fit and work.
I think that the USA lags way behind the rest of the world in small high-performance diesel technology for cars. None of the really good ones are built in the USA. We do well on marine engines (Cummins, CAT, Detroit/MTU) but the good diesel tech in cars is from Germany and Japan. I think there is a Yanmar web site showing their small marine diesels with weights etc.

[Geoff S]

Jim

Thank you for your well informed input. I checked on some sites & it looks as thought the Ford diesels produce about 230hp in standard form & with electronic tuning about 330hp. Power drops off a cliff at about 3300 so the right diff ratio is very important. With the weight and the complications of running electronic management in a non standard installation as well as the "old technology" it's probably not a good option. I think a european installation would be the way to go, but the two obvious modern contenders (Audi A8 V8 or VW Touareg V10) are very new/complex/expensive & drive 4wd gearboxes. Although the V10 does have LeMans history I would expect that it is too long. Both diesel cars are 100kg heavier than their petrol equivalents & have over 300bhp. Im sure they too could be electronically tuned.

From my perspective this is too complex to consider engineering myself, but I suspect over the next 5-10 years one of the kit producers will go for the Audi option.

Geoff

[Frank Catt]

Going back to the original post, I looked at the Bio diesel "still" yesterday, ingenious , and my friend reckons it costs him about £5 ( $8.5 USD) to make 50 litres of good quality fuel. THATS an incentive! Frank

[peterwalker58]

Hello
Build it yourself. Alloy big block race crank and block.
Order heads with thick walls.CNC the combustion chamber and piston as a matched pair. Use common rail injection and suitable controls( 2 x 4 cylinder diesel )run lots of boost with twin turbos
Biggest worry would be head studs and head gaskets. The components are there The drag boys have proven that.
Imagine the comments at the gas station. Sir you are using the wrong pump......
Or tag the filler jet fuel only......