Pure soybean oil as a fuel additive?

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I've seen the report where they tested quite a few different diesel fuel additives for their wear protection, and the diesel with 2% SoyPower biodiesel had the best wear reduction results. This has something to do with soybean oils' excellent lubricating abilities.

Many of us have been running 2 cycle oil in our 4 stroke engines at around a 500:1 ratio. I recently switched to a fully synthetic ester based oil, but it is quite expensive at $27 per gallon. I can get a 1.25 gallon jug of 100% pure soybean oil at Costco for less than $8.

I did see that report a few years back that warned against using unprocessed vegetable oils and animal fats as fuel, but they was in a much higher concentration than I would be using here. Do you think that soybean oil in a 500:1 concentration would cause deposits in my combustion chamber? Would it cause other problems? Fuel hose or seal incompatibility? Some sort of chemical reaction?
 
That was not a test of pure soybean oil, it was biodiesel with 2% soybean oil. Biodiesel by itself was not tested. Allot of owners mix biodiesel with regular diesel for added lubricity in a diesel application.

If you are planning to use it in a diesel application and have access to biodiesel I would just run the biodiesel with or without the soybean oil. If you are thinking of using it in a gasoline application I would say your are reading to far into the data trying to find something that may not be there.

http://wiki.sportsmobileforum.com/images/3/34/Diesel_fuel_additive_test.pdf
 
Originally Posted By: TaterandNoodles
That was not a test of pure soybean oil, it was biodiesel with 2% soybean oil. Biodiesel by itself was not tested. Allot of owners mix biodiesel with regular diesel for added lubricity in a diesel application.

If you are planning to use it in a diesel application and have access to biodiesel I would just run the biodiesel with or without the soybean oil. If you are thinking of using it in a gasoline application I would say your are reading to far into the data trying to find something that may not be there.

http://wiki.sportsmobileforum.com/images/3/34/Diesel_fuel_additive_test.pdf


It was regular ULSD with 2% SoyPower biodiesel added. Soybean oil, and diesel made from soybean oil have excellent lubricating qualities.

I am not using it in a diesel application.
 
Quote:
Background
All diesel fuel injection equipment has some reliance on diesel fuel as a lubricant. The lubricating properties of diesel fuel are important, especially for rotary and distributor type fuel injection pumps. In these pumps, moving parts are lubricated by the fuel itself as it moves through the pump—not by the engine oil. Other diesel fuel systems—which include unit injectors, injectors, unit pumps, and in-line pumps are partially fuel lubricated. In these systems the mechanism typically consists of a plunger or needle operating in a sleeve or bore, where the fuel is used to lubricate the walls between the reciprocating piece and its container. The lubricity of the fuel is an indication of the amount of wear or scarring that occurs between two metal parts covered with the fuel as they come in contact with each other. Low lubricity fuel may cause high wear and scarring and high lubricity fuel may provide reduced wear and longer component life.


Quote:
Lubricity Benefits Provided by Biodiesel
The addition of biodiesel, even in very small quantities, has been shown to provide increases in fuel lubricity using a variety of bench scale test methods. A diagram of the various testing apparatus can be seen in chart provided by Lucas (attached). The two most popular bench test methods for lubricity are the Ball on Cylinder Lubricity Evaluator (BOCLE), and the High Frequency Reciprocating Rig (HFRR). The BOCLE is commonly used to evaluate the lubricity of fuels or fuel blends but does a poor job of characterizing the lubricity of fuels containing lubricity additives, while the HFRR is commonly used for both the neat fuels and with fuels containing small amounts of lubricity enhancing additives.


Quotes from: www.biodiesel.org/pdf_files/fuelfactsheets/Lubricity.PDF
 
Again it is 2% soybean based Biodiesel. That is not the same thing as 100% soybean oil.

Quote:
The bio-diesel sample was sponsored by Renewable Energy Group. One of their suppliers, E.H. Wolf and Sons in Slinger, Wisconsin supplied us with a sample of 100% soybean based bio-diesel. This sample was used to blend with the baseline fuel to create a 2% bio-diesel for testing.
 
Not sure what that has to do with my interest in using it in a 4 stroke engine as an upper cylinder lubricant. I'm already using 2 stroke oil, I'm just looking for an alternative.
 
Soybean oil was never tested, it was a ULSD with a 2% mixture of Soybean based Biodiesel.

You cannot draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of soybean oil in any application from this study.
 
I know soybean oil wasn't tested. But what makes the Soy biodiesel so good is that it's made from soybean oil. All I'm using that test for is reference to the fact that soy based stuff is an excellent lube.
 
I don't see how you can come to that conclusion. Biodiesel can be made from algae, sunflower oil and allot of other sources besides Soy. There simply is not enough data at this time to determine which source is best for lubricity.

Quote:
Can sunflower oil be used in biodiesel?
Biodiesel can be produced from any fat or oil such as sunflower oil, soybean oil, canola oil, palm oil, tallow to name a few through a refinery process called transesterification. It is recommended that the sunflower oil be refined and de-waxed before blending it with diesel fuel.


http://www.sunflowernsa.com/oil/default.asp?contentID=255
 
I specifically mentioned soy, I didn't mention algae or anything else. Soy is known to be a good lubricant. That isn't even what I'm asking. What I'm asking is if anyone thinks that at a 500:1 ratio it will leave deposits in the combustion chamber, and I'm asking if there are any issues with it harming rubber fuel lines or o-rings.
 
You're asking if pouring vegtable oil into your gas tank will cause problems. Nobody is going to know that.

You seem to think it won't cause problems based on a study, but as TaterandNoodles has pointed out, that was using soy based biodiesel, not cooking oil.

There are a lot of different oils in the world. They aren't all the same. I really doubt wesson and 2 stroke oil are very similar.
 
At 500:1 I doubt pure soybean oil would act very differently than 2 cycle oil.

Note, Wesson oil may be soybean oil, or one of the similar ones such as corn oil.
 
Soybean oil can be added to gasoline but is will lower the octane rating an may produce some gumming on fuel system parts. A more saturated fat may be a better choice due to heat stability. I don't see non-esterified soy as a good fuel additive. I think staying with biodiesel makes more sense from a stability point of view.
 
At 500:1 I wouldn't expect enough octane reduction to cause problems. I'd be able to tell if it was reducing it very much because my car is very prone to detonation from not enough octane (no knock sensor). Gumming is really the only thing I'm worry about, but people are running pure soybean oil in their diesel engines with apparently no major problems, which makes me think that a very diluted ratio of 500:1 in a gasoline engine wouldn't be enough to cause buildup.
 
Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
I know soybean oil wasn't tested. But what makes the Soy biodiesel so good is that it's made from soybean oil. All I'm using that test for is reference to the fact that soy based stuff is an excellent lube.



Hoo boy...
33.gif


Why do you think soy is any different from 100 other types of vegetable oils as far as lubricity? (note that there is a notable exception, castor oil, but that's not what we're talking about here)

No, what makes biodiesel different from regular diesel is the fact that biodiesel is an ester, and thus has detergent properties. It does not matter what the biodiesel is made from (again with the exception of castor oil), they are all good detergents.

What sets castor oil, and castor-based biodiesel apart is the special chemistry. Also see http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/reportsdatabase/reports/gen/20000501_gen-308.pdf
 
While I find using soybean oil or any other unsaturated vegetable oil as a motor oil insane, I hardly see a little in the gas as a problem.

Castor and coconut oil are both highly saturated and have little tendency to polymerize.
 
Originally Posted By: labman
While I find using soybean oil or any other unsaturated vegetable oil as a motor oil insane, I hardly see a little in the gas as a problem.

Castor and coconut oil are both highly saturated and have little tendency to polymerize.


Actually castor oil has a very high proportion (over 90%) of ricinoleic acid which is monounsaturated not saturated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_oil
 
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