A mental excercise: A diesel commodore?

michaelw · #1 04-09-2005, 06:05 PM

Before anyone leaps down my throat hear me out.

With fuel being the stupid cost it is and biodeisel being relatievly easy to make my thinking goes like this....

People have potted a 3.8 V6 from our favourite car into a hilux ute. You can get a Hilux motor that drinks diesel so the great question is, if you were to re-pot a hilux diesel into a commodore how hard would it be?

Caveat: I have no plans to do this at the moment so arguments of "convert to gas" are not useful. I am just curious as to wether it is in the realms of possibility.

Thoughts anyone?

Mike

Troy711 · #2 04-09-2005, 06:22 PM

interesting theory... *ponders*

Juzza · #3 04-09-2005, 07:32 PM

VE Commodore will have an optional diesel 6 as far as I know, waiting would be some good advice for anyone considering this option if they wanted to do the conversion to a new car, otherwise sure, with a bit of engineering and a lot of money anythings possible

It also depends on how long you want to own the car for I suppose, if the cost of fuel over your ownership of the car is less than the conversion you'd be suffering for nothing with the diesel

ElDubya · #4 04-09-2005, 08:08 PM

Diesel costs the same as regular fuel. Where's the benefits?

michaelw · #5 04-09-2005, 09:04 PM

BIODIESEL you make your own fuel using a simple chemical process using methanol, sodium hydroxide and used cooking oil. It works out to be about $0.30 per litre.

Read on... http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x?a=cfrm&s=447609751

ElDubya · #6 04-09-2005, 10:00 PM

Sweet, cheers ....

I totally missed the bio-diesel mention in the original post, my bad.

michaelw · #7 04-09-2005, 10:06 PM

No worries. Biodiesel is of interest as unlike normal fuel it is a closed carbon loop, so even though carbon dioxide still goes out the exhaust it is taken up by the crops to grow the oil seed. Sadly there is not enough land space for this to totally replace fossil fuel.

Personally if I had the time (and money) I would like to do an EV (electric vechicle) conversion. I found a 110kW motor with 600 Nm torque from 0->2000 rpm.

Mike

Wombat · #8 04-09-2005, 10:47 PM

I'm kinda attracted to diesels by the fact that even though the fuel costs the same, the staggeringly high economy you get out of a well-set-up turbo diesel makes up for it enormously.
Puegeot are the masters at diesels, and openly advertise a proven 1100km+ out of a fifty liter tank of diesel on the highway.
In Europe, diesels are the commonest engine for passenger cars. In fact, the current new Astra in Europe has a turbo diesel model (not available here) which is more powerful than any of the petrol models in the model lineup.

I would hazard a guess that a high revving four or six cylinder turbo diesel (out of a passenger car mind, not a four wheel drive) in a Commodore would be a snap to fit, and would result in excellent economy and moutains of torque. As the old saying goes, "Horsepower makes a car fast, but torque makes it pleasant to drive"...

It has been my pet hate that neither Holden nor Ford has until very recently even considered a turbo-diesel for the Falcon or Commodore.

michaelw · #9 04-09-2005, 10:56 PM

I think the reason is that up until recently the diesel quality requirements in Aus have been pretty bad (NZ is much much worse) as a result most passenger car manufacturers have kept their distance. With the new diesel regs (set to come into force next year I think) and the current fuel prices, I suspect that Lions and Ovals will drink diesel very soon.

To be biodiesel safe the fuel components must be made of a teflon based material like viton (sp?) and not rubber. Due to the ethanol in the fuel, this is the same reason why manufacturers got so shirty about ethanol in fuel, despite the fact that other places have used E10 for years.

Mike

sydneybiodiesel · #10 28-09-2005, 11:20 AM

Interesting idea to convert a commodore to diesel, but obviously not for the economics of it!

It think it is a damn shame that Australian Vehicle manufacturers/importers have not bothered with diesel engines. The Commodores and Falcons and all our family cars here would be just perfect for Diesel. The Europeans have some incredible diesel technology in their range, but we are limited to a few 4WDs and only 2 passenger cars (Peugeot 405 and the new VW golf TDI). While the Europeans get on and do stuff, (with VW actually recommending the use of biodiesel over petro diesel in their engines,) we Australians just sit on our hands and then get upset when we can't afford or obtain cheap petrol anymore!

Anyway, I just thought I'd drop you a note about it here as I've just set up a new website www.sydneybiodiesel.com , which has some answers to some of your questions that you've posed here. There is a forum there too.

Mike, you are right about Viton, the diesel quality in Aust and the closed carbon loop. Wombat, I agree entirely about the turbo diesel being then engine of choice. I had to buy a Land Rover Freelander, not because I like the car (I didn't want a 4WD), but because it was the smallest turbo diesel car on the Australian new car market at the time.

VW have now released their 2.0 TDI golf here this year - 103kW@4000RPM, 320Nm@1750-2500RPM and 0-100 in 9.3sec. Economy is 6.1l/100k and emissions are tiny (even less on biodiesel). I know this seems off-topic, but you can see how well a commodore would do with a decent European engine on biodiesel!

BOV · #11 28-09-2005, 11:49 AM

Prolyl forget about performance side of things... i can see Mr Bean car running on vege oil but I cant see Mark Skaife in his V8 giving it the thumbs up as he is about to do a 1/4 mile down Calder....

Cheap6 · #12 28-09-2005, 12:02 PM

Not so sure about that. There are some diesel powered race cars in various European production car based race series, one of the US engine manufacturers entered an Indy 500 race many years (decades) ago. For a road car, low rpm torque = better real world performance (and generally more subtle).

Re converting a Commodore to diesel: depends on the source of the engine. There may be issues with emissions as commercial vehicles have to comply to more relaxed standards.

Rmyers · #13 29-09-2005, 03:05 PM

Correct me if i'm wrong but would the fact that a diesel isn't a spark engine make it exempt from current emmission laws?? The rule is that any petrol engine prior to 86 needed to comply with the ADR37 emmissions test (meaning gas cars are exempt and can can nuts with modifications). The rule was then reworded in 86 to say that any SPARK engine needs to comply with ADR37. Since diesel does not use spark and uses glow plugs, does that mean you would be exempt from emmision laws and can go nuts with modifications???