Odd... ran heating oil as gas, 7mph increase in speed???

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Once upon a time when I was much younger I found myself far from home and low on petrol and low on funds so I..... ah...'borrowed' a quantity of diesel and poured it into the petrol tank of the elderly Austin I was driving at the time. To my amazement once the Austin got into its stride it seemed to be running with much more oomph that I was accustomed to. The engine was rather well worn and tired and was due to be replaced with a newly overhauled engine so I wasn't too worried about what the change in fuel might do to it.

 

[maniac57]

Davezilla nailed it. Heating oils actually has MORE energy in it than gasoline! So does diesel.
The main drawback to using it in vehicles is the extremely long warm-up times and very poor low temp performance.
It also is much more prone to detonation and pre-ignition from cylinder hotspots.
Like cannonball said, some older engines could use either if warmed up on gasoline and I have even seen conversions with extensive intake heating modifications that worked quite well.
I'm thinking as long as you don't gouge the crap out of your greasy doll, it won't hurt much.
I can't even imagine where to start trying to jet it....

 

[2door]

Don't leave us hanging, Ann. What happened?
Did the engine revert to its normal running when you went back to gasoline? Were there any lasting detrimental effects from running Diesel?

Tom

 

[Intrepid Wheelwoman]

Don't leave us hanging, Ann. What happened?
Did the engine revert to its normal running when you went back to gasoline? Were there any lasting detrimental effects from running Diesel?

Tom

The engine ran just fine once the car had petrol in the tank again and when I tore the engine down after fitting the rebuilt engine I didn't see anything out of the ordinary apart from the expected wear to be seen in an engine that had done many thousands of miles.

When I lived on an off-shore island I owned a rather shabby English Ford 100E car with an 1172cc flathead engine for a while. Sometimes fuel deliveries to the island were delayed so it was run on kerosene sometimes. It didn't seem to mind.
Both the Ford and the old Austin only had compression ratios of around 7:1 which is why they most probably didn't mind the change in fuel.

 

[mapbike]

This may have already been covered here but in case it hasn't....

Some of the old Farm tractors and even an old International dozer a friend of mine had ran on either Gasoline or Diesel, they started on Gasoline and then when they warmed up a bit you switched them over to the Diesel or Kerosene, those old engines made a lot more power on Kerosene or Diesel than they did on Gasoline.

http://www.tractordata.com/articles/technical/fuels.html

 

[Theon]

Just don't try running your Diesel on Petrol, lol.
Funny though, I recently did, was lucky there was a lot more petrol than diesel, and after the diesel was flushed through the lines and filters It stopped. The old Toyota blows a bit less smoke now?

 

[Flyman]

I been telling you guys more oil is good. (SMILE) Hey just having fun leave it be.

Fly

 

[Davezilla]

I been telling you guys more oil is good. (SMILE) Hey just having fun leave it be.

Fly

Um... Just leave it be... it's Fuel oil, not motor oil...

 

[rudyauction509]

random thought, you guys think if I ran my old pickup on 20% diesel it would have more power?

 

[maniac57]

random thought, you guys think if I ran my old pickup on 20% diesel it would have more power?

I doubt it. You would have heard about by now if it were that easy....

 

[rudyauction509]

I figured. Either way it was fun putting heating oil through the bike. Plus I had a big blue smoke cloud behind me.

 

[rudyauction509]

Finally seized the engine due to heat, swapped piston and cleaned up cylinder and it runs fine again. It was fun and interesting but I won't be using heating oil anymore.

The engine was running so hot the aluminum was rough and pitted, and the spark plug was melted into the cylinder head, took a lot to get it free but the threads are still usable. I'm surprised the cylinder didn't have any large gouges, the only damage was the piston melting over the rings. The bearings and crank had a thick layer of oil so I doubt lubrication was an issue.

 

[Davezilla]

Yup... that's happened to a few people before who put diesel in with their gasoline to get a bigger bang... it works but the diesel burns way too hot for a gasoline engine...