For a point of interest, 30 years ago, Detroit Diesel had some experimental 6V92
engines for urban transport buses that were modified to run on methanol. The
city of Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada had two buses for test. The reason Medicine
Hat had them was that there was two methanol production plants that were shut
down due to low demand and the city and plant owners wanted to get them operating
again.
The methanol engines short blocks were basic 6V92 as used in buses that were
about 277HP. Cylinder kits were the same as used in diesel fueled engines. The
cylinder heads were different castings. They looked to be the same as diesel heads
but had provision for the glow plugs from Chevrolet 5.7L diesel pickup engines.
Mounted on the supercharger was a glow plug controller with LED indicators. When
the engine was started it ran like an alcohol or fuel drag race engine, rough idle and
the glow plug indicators would be flashing on and off. When they took off and made
a bus run and came back to the garage it ran like a new car engine, nice and smooth;
for a minute or so. Then as it cooled off the rough idle returned. The cylinders had
cooled and the alcohol was difficult to get to fire in compression ignition. The alcohol
absorbs heat so fast it reduces the cylinder heat from compression and it will not
burn without the glow plugs. Initial engine life was about 80,000Km or 50,000mi.
They started experimenting with oil lubricity additives to get more engine life. The diesel
engines were getting 350,000 to 500,000mi. They eventually got them to last 100,000mi.
At that point the city gave up and converted back to diesel fuel. They tried to use the
methanol heads but they lost prime in the fuel system. They retained too much heat
and boiled the fuel in the fuel manifold when shut down and had to be primed again.
had to go back to diesel heads.
Another experimental project by Nowsco Well Service was on frac units to help vaporize
nitrogen. One of the engineers came up with the idea to use the hydraulic oil to heat the
nitrogen. Oil does not transfer heat as well as water so they got some glycol based
oil and mixed it with water. The problem then became hyd pump life. Then came the
lubricity additives. Slick 50 was one. I do not think they solved the problems in the end.

Dale Davies


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