TS2 - injector question

[dourobob]

I am checking out a TS2 driven 9kw gen set  that the seller says "This diesel has mechanical injectors and will run on almost any available heavy fuel including filtered french fry oil."

When asking about WVO filtering etc on another part of this forum, dieselgman says "Speaking strictly to your question about Lister TS2 and WVO - Since this is a direct injected engine and has fairly small ports and passages, carbon build-up will be an issue. I believe you will have to preheat your fuel or convert it to biodiesel if you expect to burn it in a TS series engine. If you preheat, I believe it will run through the TS fuel injection without an issue. That process does get a bit complicated."

I am very new to this whole process and am trying to SIMPLIFY this as much as possible.

I am wondering if anyone can help me with the following:

1 - Are mechanical and direct injectors the same thing?
2 - Could this TS2 have mechanical injectors?
3 - Is there an easy way to determine the type of injector?
Thanks for any guidance.

Bob

[carlb23]

I am checking out a TS2 driven 9kw gen set  that the seller says "This diesel has mechanical injectors and will run on almost any available heavy fuel including filtered french fry oil."

When asking about WVO filtering etc on another part of this forum, dieselgman says "Speaking strictly to your question about Lister TS2 and WVO - Since this is a direct injected engine and has fairly small ports and passages, carbon build-up will be an issue. I believe you will have to preheat your fuel or convert it to biodiesel if you expect to burn it in a TS series engine. If you preheat, I believe it will run through the TS fuel injection without an issue. That process does get a bit complicated."

I am very new to this whole process and am trying to SIMPLIFY this as much as possible.

I am wondering if anyone can help me with the following:

1 - Are mechanical and direct injectors the same thing?
2 - Could this TS2 have mechanical injectors?
3 - Is there an easy way to determine the type of injector?
Thanks for any guidance

Dieselgman knows what he is talking about, While i am not familiar with the TS2 I will try to help with your questions as best I can.

I am wondering if anyone can help me with the following:

1 - Are mechanical and direct injectors the same thing? 
No, not all direct injectors are mechanical and not all injectors are direct injection
2 - Could this TS2 have mechanical injectors? 
Yes it most probably does
3 - Is there an easy way to determine the type of injector?
Yes a mechanical injector will have just he fuel pipe going to it,  an electrical injector will also have a wire going to it.

[dieselgman]

Bob,

Some people may mean a direct cam driven mechanical injector as in Detroit Diesel (purely mechanical)- The Lister mechanical injector is not cam driven but rather fuel pressure driven (hydraulic) - mechanical just the same. There is obviously no electronic component involved with these Lister engines but they use cam driven fuel pumps.

Direct injection describes location of the nozzle and combustion chamber. Indirect does the initial injection and fuel burn in the head, Direct does it in the piston crown.

As far as I am concerned the question will NOT be the type of injector but rather the type of combustion chamber and the engine mechanicals and their tolerance for different fuel types. I believe the consensus of experience here indicates that direct injected engines tend to carbon up worse and foul injector nozzles more quickly than indirect injection. Therefore the TS direct injection would not be a first choice for alternative fuels. That said, you can certainly do other modifications to your fuel system to allow for this to be done effectively. Filtration and viscosity reduction are the two big major issues.

Too much ground to cover in a single post, but I hope this helps a bit!

dieselgman

[dieselgman]

One other possibly significant factor not yet stated here... The slow-speed indirect injected engines have their combustion chambers (in the heads) surrounded by a heated water jacket and their temperatures tend to be stable. The TS you mention is air-cooled, direct injected (into the piston crown) and their operating temperatures may tend to vary much more widely than a water-cooled counterpart.

With WVO or raw VO, viscosity changes with temperature sometimes are a problem (mostly in getting it through the fuel injection components). Diesel fuel has a fairly definite specific gravity (viscosity) and the pumps and injectors are set up to deal with this in a fairly precise way. The ideal is a fully atomized and fully burned mixture. If the alternative fuel is not able to atomize fairly completely, then it will likely have problems burning completely. Combustion leftovers in the form of carbon are an enemy to your engine. Of course there are many other factors involved that will affect efficient burning of your fuel and no engine is perfect in this regard.

Hope this helps!

dieselgman

[listerdiesel]

Heating and filtering will help, but it has to be continuous as long as the engine is running.

Mixing veg fuel and mineral oil is a bit of a mess, but most engines seem to cope with it.

Most of the air-cooled engines seem to run hotter than their equivalent water-cooled brothers, although we run the Ruston at 94 degrees C, that's nearly boiling point.

Peter