Unlike gasoline engines, which today use compression ratios of up to11 to one, with spark-plugs to ignite fuel-air mixture in the cylinder, the first diesel engines relied on powerful compression ratios up to 23 to one to heat the air in their cylinders to the point that the hot compressed air ignited the fuel on contact.

The then-new engines were impressively efficient. Thanks to their high compression ratios, they captured 30 per cent of the energy released from whatever fuel they ran on, compared with 20 to 25 per cent efficiency for gasoline engines.

Today's diesel engines are even more efficient, with direct fuel injection and turbocharging, and they can capture up to 40 per cent of the energy released from the fuel, compared with about 30 per cent for gasoline engines.

Another advantage of the diesel engine was its much heavier design. To contain its powerful combustion, it had to be engineered to higher specifications and therefore proved far more durable than the gasoline engine. It typically lasted three to four times as long as its gasoline counterpart and this toughness, coupled with its greater efficiency, rapidly made it the power plant of choice for heavy duty applications.

Today Petroleum based Diesel fuel is the more common fuel, but Dr. Diesel designed the engine to run on a renewable resource, vegetable oil

The development of indirect ignition (IDI) diesels, which inject and ignite fuel in a small pre-chamber connected to the main combustion chamber, provided one important advantage, most often applied in diesel cars. With this improvement, IDI engines produced more rapid cylinder pressure increases for the wider speed and load variations required for passenger cars.

The direct ignition (DI) engine, which is slower but more efficient, continues to be the favourite for larger applications. In these engines the fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber. Most of today's diesel engines are DI, including those in passenger cars.

Diesels developed a somewhat-justified reputation as noisy, smelly and frequently temperamental in the cold. Because they rely on heated air for ignition, starting could be a significant problem in sub-zero conditions. But their efficiency and toughness earned them a solid share of the market, especially for heavy duty applications, and the use of computer controls in modern technology diesel engines has resolved many of these issues.

We sell and install fuel systems so that you can run your car on Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) which includes the use of Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO)

Southern Fried Fuel Systems