I am no engine design engineer, but I would have no qualms running it short term or intermittently since you don't have exhaust components to worry about.


The lubricity issue would be a long term worry.

 

Mainly I would just like to test it for a tankful, if it makes more power, which is possible due to higher volatility, better mixing and hotter burn it might be just the ticket for a couple of events I want to try.

Our local roadracing track has a current lap record held by a modified F350 Ford dually, with my summer wheels and tires it seems an easy mark to beat as I cut a faster lap in first session in a dead stock E36 which makes about same bhp as my car but WAY less torque and it's more of a torque track...just a bragging rights thing, I'm not actually a very good car driver on the track really, never crashed or spun one, did a stint as instructor at another local track for the Mini Club back in 03' or so. I've got a decade of past experience roadracing motorcycles so I know enough to be more of a danger to myself than others.

I also want to hit the drag strip after I finish my mods and final tune just to see what it does before doing a photo shoot for Diesel Power magazine but that is a year off at best, they like pretty under hood shots and I've got some welding, polishing and plumbing to do first.

There is also a hippie hyper-miler club local to me, I've enjoyed toying with them when they are clogging up my favorite state highways in my V12 and NSX so of course beating them, perhaps not in best mpg but definitely down each straight in brutal fashion while still getting some insane mpg number would be high on my fun list too. They have no idea who hunts them down out in the Hill Country and blasts past them like the battery laden slugs they are...revenge of a nerd.

 

Jet fuel and kerosene can be burned in diesel engine, but they lack lubricity and will cause premature pump and injectors wear and failure. Other side effect will be emission failure if any testing done because higher sulfur content and maybe some internal engine damage since jet fuel is not regulated like #2 diesel and it may come with very low cetane # since this does not matter for turbine engines.

 

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a529442.pdf

 

This is EXACTLY what I'm looking for, THANKS HUGE. SWRI is basically right down the street or runway from me and I have plenty of customers who work there, 100% confidence in their work. Will read up and collect my thoughts.

 

All I see in OC Calif is diesel #2.

Does Jet-A fuel have a lower energy content and higher Cetane than diesel #2?

 

Aviation forums are packed with this question about diesel vs. Jet-A due to tdi motors coming on some newer aircraft. Below is an abstract from an SAE paper on testing the two fuels, well four really. Good stuff.


The effects of jet fuel properties on compression ignition engine operation were investigated under high-load conditions for jet fuels with varying cetane number. A single-cylinder oil-test engine (SCOTE) with 2.44 L displacement was used to test a baseline #2 diesel fuel with a cetane number of 43, a Jet-A fuel with a cetane number of 47, and two mixtures of Jet-A and a Fishcer-Tropsch JP-8 with cetane numbers of 36 and 42, respectively. The engine was operated under high-load conditions corresponding to traditional diesel combustion, using a single injection of fuel near TDC. The fuels were tested using two different intake camshafts with closing times of -143 and -85 CAD BTDC. Injection timing sweeps were performed over a range of injection timings near TDC for each camshaft. The apparent net heat release rate (AHRR) data showed an increase in the premixed burn magnitude as cetane number decreased in agreement with previous work. The results indicated very little change in the mixing-controlled section of the AHRR curve. Ignition delay for the fuels showed small differences which correlate well with the increased premixed burn. Pressure rise rate data also showed a corresponding increase with decreasing fuel cetane number. Engine-out emissions of NO

, CO, HCs, and soot were comparable for all of the fuels with the exception of soot for the baseline #2 diesel sample. The diesel fuel showed higher soot emissions relative to the jet fuels likely due to its lower volatility and higher aromatic content. However, the other diesel emissions were comparable to those for the jet fuel samples. Overall the data show that, for the range of high-load diesel conditions tested, fuel volatility does not have a substantial influence on engine performance in heavy-duty compression ignition engines. Instead the data suggest that the amount of air entrainment into the fuel jet up to the point of ignition controls the amount of energy converted in the premixed burn and the resulting pressure rise rate. Therefore, for the conditions tested, for fuels with different volatility but with the same air entrainment and cetane number the ignition delay, the fraction of energy converted in the premixed burn, and the pressure rise rate should be similar.

 

What is the difference in retail cost of Diesel Vs Jet-A?

 

This all depends on your local options and pricing. If you are a pilot and use the Foreflight app on iPad or iOS, there is a fuel price feature in the app which shows current fuel pricing at all airports in the portion of the sectional chart you have open for everything from MoGas (if available) to 100LL, 130L and the Jet ranges of fuels. Some airports are insanely higher than others, usually due to local taxes while others seem to have subsidized fuel or special deals going on regularly to get more of a certain type of aircraft to drop in for a visit. Here in Texas prices range from almost $8/gallon for Jet-A down to about $4/gallon, the B0-B20 (you just never know really in Texas, few places to get guaranteed D2) is around high $3 to low $4/gallon range. I filled with what I'm guessing based on mileage was B5-10 last tank and it was like $3.78/gallon?

 

Thanks, so no real cost benefit either way.

 

Nope, doesn't really look like there is unless you get Jet-A for free from time to time and need a way to dispose of it that isn't wasteful.

 

Off topic....

I must say.... forget the Mercedes.... Micah has some nice toys.... Let's go play at his house! A missile engine? Really? Where can I get one?

I've been wondering, like every other pilot, about diesel engines in aircraft and the disappearance of 100LL.

Any other pilots on here?

 

Based on the cars parked under hail sheds at my local airport I'm betting I'm not the only one who has an appreciation of toys with wings. There is another cdi often parked just down from me and a tdi "cup edition" down the other way and a whole collection of diesel trucks. Thankfully I don't have to own most of the toys I play with. All the jet and rocket parts I have, have been from trades or bartering with customers who know my weaknesses.

Hopefully in the next year or two I'll have the cash sacked to repurchase the a Beechcraft V35, now all updated, I grew up in. The owner has contacted me and let me know he is agreeable to this when he retires his wings soon due to medical issues. That plane means a lot to me, it was my first childhood motor out job with my dad, we also did some stupid stuff in that bird as part of the data acquisition team investigating mid air break ups of that model aircraft, we had one forced landing, IFR in the middle of west Texas one night that we all walked away from, and I got my storm chasing start in that plane while my dad was writing technical articles on lightning, we used to fly around and take data getting intentionally struck by lightning. To say I had an interesting childhood but an odd one does no justice to how odd it really was. N3778N was 1947' serial number D1000, we shared hangar space at various times with WWII vintage warbirds, I thought climbing into a P51 weekly was totally normal, I mean as a child your assumption is that your experiences are little different from other kids right?

My dad acquired that plane from my grandmother when she moved up into a another. At one time between dad, grandpa and grandma they had five planes in their private fleet. My little Cessna I have now was previously owned from new by one of the female aviation pioneers, Edna Gardner White and used in her CFI business in north Texas. She had been not only a pilot but one of the first female air racers, I have a biography of her life.

I'm just a hopeless gear head. On any given weekend I'm wearing out cameras at motorcycle races, NHRA or top fuel boat events, airshows, museums, forgotten airstrips or out chasing severe weather. I've spent a lifetime trying to learn airflow, be it on the macro or meso scales or micro scales, boundary flow to convection, it's my OCD.

Here is a sample of what I do to "relax".




From last Monday, Thundersleet in Central Texas




These pics have been going like hotcakes!





If you really want jet and middle motor stuff to play with watch government auction sites, for premium aviation historical bit about once a year RR Auctions has some truly amazing stuff, I lost out on a Soyouz yaw thruster and a Russian medium range liquid fuel missile motor last year when bidding got well out of hand.

Shameless play pic of myself next...