I didn't know where I should post this one at: under engines, or alternative fuels. But here goes:


Giving thought to this alternative fuels idea, and I was entertaining the thought of leaving the engine run, instead of stopping it. Now, I have read posts about the postive and negative about idling. Some say to let idle, others say it will kill and engine sooner. But here's my question and how it ties in to my situation.


If I obtain fuel for free, like WVO, or something along that line, then cost is not an issue with leaving it idle for long periods of time. WVO likes to be warm/hot for it to be used correctly without issues. So, the benefit would be that the fuel would stay warm if allowed to idle for long periods of time. In the summer time, I have issues with my a/c (another story) that if it was allowed to idle, it would keep the interior cool.


Now, with that said, what can expect if I idle my engine at high idle for extended amounts of time? I've heard some say that the engine does not stay or run hot enough on diesel to burn off the varnishes, etc at idle, but what about high idle? and WVO to boot?


You get my train of thought? Free fuel will not offset the cost of new engine, if it will die from extended idle periods.Edited by: knkreb

By extended period of time, do you mean 50 minutes or 12 hours?

Think about a generator--they run constantly, at a constant RPM, and eventually, they too wear out. Electrical parts overheat, resistors and diodes give out, and the generator quits working properly. I would think that, reguardless of what RPM an engine is running at, the less time it's running, the better. HOWEVER, I'm new to the diesel side of the world, and the BIG RIGS are constantly running, and go millions of miles. I think this is one of those issues nobody will ever agree on.

You'll probably have increased wear on the engine because it would cool down to lower temperatures than it was designed to run at when idling it for a long time. You probably won't see that on the temp gauge, but internal temps are very likely to be lower than normal. Oil pressure can be lower, too.

On lower temps, the metal parts will have smaller sizes than on higher temps which can contribute to increased wear.

When running SVO/WVO, lower temps can even be worse as the oil needs higher temps to ignite than Diesel does. There's chances of injector cokeing(?) and bed effects on the engine oil with SVO/WVO; they might be worse on lower temps.

Thus, better don't do it.

To answer question about duration, it would be most often maybe at church for about 2 hours. There would not be a source of plug in power for cold days, etc. I have three different high idle speeds to choose from (from 1050-1600 rpm). Now, I know that more heat is generated while under load, but, at a higher idle, more fuel is flowing into engine, thus more heat. Or at least on paper that is. High idling was the key to what I was asking. I would not want to run it for extended periods of time at low idle. The oil pressure maintains 40+ at any of the higher idles selected.

Ja, hmm, the engine usually doesn't get cold when turned off for 2 hours. It takes at least an hour of driving to get fully warm and about 24 hours turned off to fully cool down.

If you want to keep the cabin warm in the winter, you could use a parking heater or, much cheaper, a petroleum furnace. --- The furnace is no joke, a friend of mine has a very nice one at home, and you could even use it in a car. It's an electrical one, just press a button to turn it on, set it to the desired temperature and let it do its work in the trunk: No wear on the engine, no noisy idling, and it takes only very, very small amounts of petroleum. It will be much cheaper than idling on the long run.

I can ask him to take picture of it if you're interested.


PS: Where/how did you get the high and the higher idle? Seems to be a nice feature :) CR was looking for that, too.
Edited by: 0lee