Very cheap way to get fuel

[Maes]

That's the ultimate cheap and ghetto way of filling your fuel tank up.

Must smell really nice too. You can even have variety between Chinese, Thai, Turkish etc., for a different olfactory experience every time!

[Planky]

I was under the impression you had to add various chemicals and mix it for a few hours before you can use recycled grease/oil in engines...

[Maes]

Depends. Newer diesel engines can work happily with various mixtures of oil and normal diesel fuel, or even with 100% vegetable oil. What needs replacement, usually, are certain plastic parts (tubes etc.) which don't tolerate vegetable oil well. Oil has a tendency to "wash" engine parts it comes in contact with, so it can lead to more contamination and debris being carried through the engine.

[VileSlay]

they did a thing about this on mythbusters. they were exploring the myth of The Great Gas Conspiracy, in which people claim that auto makers purposely make cars inefficient so we have to pay more for gasoline. they tried several methods, inluding a "miracle carburetor" purchased on the internet, but all of them were busted. finally they tried the used cooking oil method for a diesel car. one of the hosts, adam savage, went to a fast food place, got some food and some used oil to go. at the lab he filtered it and had a car rigged with an external gas tank to monitor fuel consumption. it was only slightly more efficient. my only thing is that, AFAIK, it only works on diesel cas, and how many people have one of those?

[Planky]

A few fair people I know have them - diesel is cheaper, albeit they have to pay roadtax every year (guessing how much travel they will do) whereas its included with the cost of petrol.

I would like to give it a try but that will only happen when I can afford a place with a garage and a second hand ute.

[Maes]

I've even heard of people that think there's a rechargeable battery conspiracy ("Why don't they make rechargeable batteries at 1.5 V instead of 1.2? It's a conspiracy so people don't buy them!").

[kristus]

You can use veggie oil in 2 stroke engines aswell. But I I'm not sure if it's merely as the supplement to gasoline that those engines require to lubricate the engine. I've really not investigated it any.

[Maes]

If you have ever driven a moped/older Vespa scooter with a 2-stroke engine, then you must be familiar with the oil/fuel mixing procedure. If you refueled with regular or super gasoline, you had to manually mix some oil (2%-5%) each time to keep the engine lubricated. Nothing else was required apart from oil, but it was a boring procedure :-)

Modern 2-stroke engines, even on the cheapest scooters have separate oil tanks so you don't really need to do that anymore. However in some countries like Italy, up to a few years back there were still "mixture" columns at gas stations, which sold pre-mixed fuel with oil to use directly in 2-stroke engines without separate oil tanks, and without having to mix the two manually. Last time I went to Italy (2005) those were already phased out, though.

The only widespread engines that still use lubricant mixed with fuel are R/C Nitro engines. For all other uses, even chainsaws and lawn mowers have either moved to 4-stroke or 2-stroke with separate oil tank.

[deathbringer]

My old Kart has oil mixed with petrol for fuel, but i never actually got to drive it, or even start it (dad was gonna let me drive around the huge, flat yard at the truck place where he worked, but loads of new regulations came in and they would have got done if i had had a crash). Also i remember seeing some sciency TV show, and on the "next week" segment they had some mixture used in the third world where they buy a little bit of petrol (which costs loads) and mix it with some other stuff they can get hold of more easily, and the mixture stretches out that little bit they could afford into a full tank that the engine will run well enough on.

Also this stuff about how "modern engines will" annoys me. Really old car engines would run on all sorts, so do tank engines which are usually detuned so much they'll chug along on whatever the soldiers can find to fill them. Even Spitfires used to run on what would today be considered pretty weak fuel, and the Soviet planes of WW2 had to make do with even less

[Bank]

Maes said:

Scooter Engines

I own an 86 Honda Elite and it uses the two stroke oil, IE, no mixing required. If you're asking if I'd put fried food oil in it, you'd be out of luck. Not in my baby.

[Inferno]

I'll admit that this is very interesting, but it's also just plain disgusting.

That's a pain in the ass imo, monitoring the oil when it gets filtered, which happens to be in the guy's trunk bed. He had it being filtered through the side of the frame, like wtf.

So for people who don't own a pickup, they woulden't be able to do this cause there isn't room to lug around their stuff.

[Maes]

Bank said:

I own an 86 Honda Elite and it uses the two stroke oil, IE, no mixing required. If you're asking if I'd put fried food oil in it, you'd be out of luck. Not in my baby.

Well, a Honda Elite is reasonably modern in design, for an 80s scooter. The mixed oil designs are mostly found in older/cheaper scooters and mopeds, and some manufacturers (especially Italian ones) kept producing two-stroke scooters without separate oil tanks well into the early 90s, when the classic Vespa line of scooters was officialy phased out, with a design dating back into the 50s-60s.

I am not aware of any Japanese designs with mixed fuel/oil systems though.