Diesel preheating?

[Jim Timber]

I got some oil to water heat exchangers in an auction and am wondering if I should use one to preheat my tractor's fuel?

I've read a bunch of reports of mixed opinions on the matter: from it being a power enhancer and increasing fuel economy to being harder on the injection pump - so which is it?

The benefits would be less chance of wax clogging the filter when running in the winter and possibly better atomization. Downside is obviously more complexity in the cooling and fuel lines, greater chances of leaks, harder to purge when run dry, and I don't know if a 100 degree temp rise is really that hard on an injection pump but I'm no where near competent enough on the subject to make that call.

So what do you guys think?

The exchangers are stainless brazed with copper and have heavy duty fittings (the reason I bid on the lot was all the silicon hoses and belleville washered hose clamps, and stainless hydraulic elbows, etc) and are probably 6x3x10" or so which means it's not that big or hard to stash somewhere. I don't have any pics or I'd post one up to show you.

I also have some bigger exhangers as well, but those would be difficult to integrate and probably way too big for the task. The coolant lines on those are 2" in/out.

My tractor has a stanadyne db4 mechanical injection pump if that matters.

Thoughts?

 

[2458n]

Old timers talk about the B model Mack semi and how if you got it started that the fuel would not gel up when out on the road. The fuel return line ran along the engine heating it up as it went back to the tank. This was state of the art back then. Seems like a bunch of needless work to do if your running good fuel with a after market gel additive. It does not get that cold in Ohio so I really do not know.

 

[Jim Timber]

It's 0F right now at my land.

 

[pmsmechanic]

It gets to -30-35C here at times and there is rarely problems with gelled diesel. The largest issue is with people who fill their tanks with summer fuel and then are surprised when winter rolls around. In fall just fill with enough fuel till winter comes and then fill the tank up. In about a month or so I will start to make sure that I don't have full fuel tanks for spring.

I wouldn't bother with putting in an extra heat exchanger for the fuel. A good winter diesel additive does the same.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

If you are buying "winterized" fuel from a gas station, then I wouldn't worry about it being 0F out... Your fuel is already "winterized" and won't be a problem even in colder temps than 0F.

I switch over to premium diesel from a local BP station that sells quite a bit of diesel and I NEVER have had even one problem...

SR

 

[Jim Timber]

I agree that it wouldn't help with gelled fuel if it was un-treated #2 and allowed to cool to the point of wax falling out of solution. It also requires a warm engine to pre-heat the fuel, so a gel up would be DOA with or without it. Winter mix should keep things happy, and that's my intent on what to run until we don't have any chance of deep freezing (so around April).

The other thing that's intriguing is the option of straight WVO if the fuel is heated, but that could be more trouble than its worth with all the filtering and hustling to source it.

 

[Cord]

Many semis and diesel pickups will come with a small heater in the fuel filters to help with fuel gelling. I presume this is more for non blended fuel that is driven into a cold climate. Honestly, unless you are having a problem, I'd leave it alone.

Power enhancer? No. Fuel economy increase? Heck no. Not unless you clamp some magnets onto your fuel line...

 

[Jim Timber]

lol Heating the fuel expands it, which makes it less dense. So you could see an increase in economy via the fact that there's physically less volume of molecules entering the combustion chamber per injection cycle. The question is whether this lighter charge is also capable of better combustion efficiency which would be required to also meet the claim of more power.

Magnets are a joke, but heated fuel has the potential to be what it claims scientifically. Whether or not it shakes out in reality hasn't been proven or debunked from what I've found.

I'm not going to install one anyway. It's not worth the effort for the potential gains. If I was an OTR trucker I'd probably try it.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I got some oil to water heat exchangers in an auction and am wondering if I should use one to preheat my tractor's fuel?

I've read a bunch of reports of mixed opinions on the matter: from it being a power enhancer and increasing fuel economy to being harder on the injection pump - so which is it?

The benefits would be less chance of wax clogging the filter when running in the winter and possibly better atomization. Downside is obviously more complexity in the cooling and fuel lines, greater chances of leaks, harder to purge when run dry, and I don't know if a 100 degree temp rise is really that hard on an injection pump but I'm no where near competent enough on the subject to make that call.

So what do you guys think?

The exchangers are stainless brazed with copper and have heavy duty fittings (the reason I bid on the lot was all the silicon hoses and belleville washered hose clamps, and stainless hydraulic elbows, etc) and are probably 6x3x10" or so which means it's not that big or hard to stash somewhere. I don't have any pics or I'd post one up to show you.

I also have some bigger exhangers as well, but those would be difficult to integrate and probably way too big for the task. The coolant lines on those are 2" in/out.

My tractor has a stanadyne db4 mechanical injection pump if that matters.

Thoughts?

Jim, sounds like a good idea. Do you have any photos.

I was entertaining (but have not looked into) an inline fuel heater that uses engine coolant with an inline bypass valve in front of the heater for summer running. My tractor's coolant lines are space challenged and to really get into it, my tractor needs to get back to my Tinkerage for quality time. I have purchased the $130 zerostart 600W heater hose heater and wonder if I wrapped 1/4" copper tube around it while connecting the ends to my fuel line if I could transfer enough heat to run a much more diluted diesel #2 in the very cold.

http://www.phillipsandtemro.com/use... Application Guide and Product Catalog(1).pdf

 

[Jim Timber]

The problem is that you need the fuel to be warm to not gel, and the engine coolant will only warm up if you can get it to run, which won't happen if your fuel is gelled.

How I envision using these with WVO would be to have a separate tank for that oil, and some kind of Y with dual ball valves at the lift pump's inlet. You'd have the engine start on #1, 2, or blended out of the diesel tank, and once the WVO was up to temp you'd switch to that which would now be heated via the exchanger. This is pretty much standard configuration for WVO systems that I've seen, although I'll admit it's been a few years since I explored the process and things might be different now.

I'll get a pic later and post both styles of the exchangers I have.