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.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

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.

Your idea of firing up on a blend and then switching over to diesel #2 is interesting. That link to the PDF catalog is pretty extensive including the preheating engines.

My strategy (and again, I haven't puzzled out the details as I need to get the tractor back into my shop to get into it) is to use both the engine block heater in combination with the 100W Zerostart heater (PN# 3305048) I purchased which is 120V. The coiled copper wire wraps around the 1000W heater housing transferring heat into the fuel line and acting as a preheater. Even if the engine isn't super warm, the heater should get warm and heat the fuel line as a preheater, and then my Kioti already has a fuel filter heater and then through the fuel pump and into the direct injection rail. Once the engine is running and warm, the coolant heater continues to radiate heat, thereby continuing to warm my copper fuel line. I have a polyethylene gas tank and so unless I weld up a new tank, I cannot install an in tank heater that plugs in.

I have a different tractor than you do, but even well above freezing, I found out that I had a problem getting any heat into the engine running on diesel #2. As a result, I changed out the stock 160 degree bypass thermostat with a 185 degree bypass thermostat. The new stat warms up the engine faster, but I've only run it in cold temperatures and so I'm interested to find out how the new T-stat works in summer. As a precaution, I have the original T-stat and a new gasket in the cab of my tractor should the tractor try to overheat this summer. I explain the problem to my fellow Kioti NX series owners in a video.

 

[Jim Timber]

You'd need to recirculate your fuel while the tractor is parked, given that you have access to 120v, this is a very simple predicament and easily rectified with an electric pump. You could even run 120vAC solenoids to ensure that the valves for your recirculation were closed when not plugged in - the whole works could be run off a single cord on a 20A outlet.

I was wrong about the size of the smaller exchangers. These are pretty close to the dimensions of a 4x4 and only 9" long.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

You'd need to recirculate your fuel while the tractor is parked, given that you have access to 120v, this is a very simple predicament and easily rectified with an electric pump. You could even run 120vAC solenoids to ensure that the valves for your recirculation were closed when not plugged in - the whole works could be run off a single cord on a 20A outlet.

I was wrong about the size of the smaller exchangers. These are pretty close to the dimensions of a 4x4 and only 9" long.

View attachment 409980

You're right: adding a little pump would circulate the system. I wonder how much heat would be lost in the non-heated sections (nothing to lose but try it out). The coolant heater I have cycles between 100F on the low side and 120F on the high side, so not super hot.

It'll be interesting if you get a WVO to work.

 

[Jim Timber]

I wouldn't try WVO on a common rail system, but on my dinosaur technology it might be fun to play with some day. One of the most attractive things about the 5e's is just how little tech there is on them. Look at the 9N's for example - the starter circuit is the most complex system on that entire tractor, and they run for 70 years.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I wouldn't try WVO on a common rail system, but on my dinosaur technology it might be fun to play with some day. One of the most attractive things about the 5e's is just how little tech there is on them. Look at the 9N's for example - the starter circuit is the most complex system on that entire tractor, and they run for 70 years.

If a 5E came in an HST, I would have looked at them! I take it you're going to do something like this:

 

[Jim Timber]

I'd run everything through the same fuel filter and I wouldn't use solenoids, I'd use ball valves so I could mix ratios if I wanted. You also forgot the recirculation through the heat exchanger to raise the temp of the WVO, but something like that.

It won't happen for quite some time though. I have a lot of real work to do with the tractor once I get it.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I'd run everything through the same fuel filter and I wouldn't use solenoids, I'd use ball valves so I could mix ratios if I wanted. You also forgot the recirculation through the heat exchanger to raise the temp of the WVO, but something like that.

It won't happen for quite some time though. I have a lot of real work to do with the tractor once I get it.

I have a DPF and junk sitting on top of my engine taking up too much space and turbo induction pipes taking up for space for locating extra stuff. I have the same problem in my F150. =)

 

[Jim Timber]

I'm not familiar with the Kioti's at all. I really liked the looks of them when they were under the Bobcat distribution, but I was too poor to buy one at the time. Then I thought I wanted a Yanmar 4900 and the CC distribution deal soured (had a dealer 6 miles up the street). Then a couple years ago I got wind of the 5e's and fell in love with the ground clearance, lift capacity, and robustness of the line (going back to the early 2000's). I would've liked the power reverser tranny, but I'm a gears man since my off-roading days in jeeps and K5's. With the fixed throttle on a tractor, there's really no need for 3 feet anymore.

I wouldn't pull the turbo unless it's shot. It acts like a secondary muffler and if you can dial your fuel up, the boost does help make more power. You just need to get the exhaust temps down and combustion temps up to stop burning the **** charge in the catalyst instead of in the cylinder where it belongs.