Diesel engine conversion for vmax

[rebeltaz83]

Found some YouTube videos of diesel bikes. Accidentally by looking up if diesel oil is good for bikes. Anyways, does anybody know of a diesel conversion for the vmax??

 

[Miles Long]

Found some YouTube videos of diesel bikes. Accidentally by looking up if diesel oil is good for bikes. Anyways, does anybody know of a diesel conversion for the vmax??

Don't know of any offhand, but if you run across one developed by Volkswagen, I'd steer clear of it!:biglaugh:
Cheers!

 

[one2dmax]

I'm sure it could be done though it would be expensive for sure!

 

[caseyjones955]

It would be ridiculously heavy. Kawasaki made a diesel powered KLR for military purposes, I guess they get like 8 zillion MPG or something. I found that article back when my tour bike was a KLR650 and thought it was pretty cool.

 

[sdt354]

The engine would have to become fuel injected first, to start on Diesel fuel. Then, built to take a lot more compression. The load on the lower end would be increased dramatically. I think it would be possible. Longevity would be an issue. Cool project for sure.
I started wrenching on farm equipment for International Harvester. Some of those old Farmall Division tractors are still around. They used to have a Kerosene tank and a gas tank. They weren't high compression, but would run fine switching over to kerosene after the engine got hot running on gas and preheated the kerosene. Gas being rationed was the reason I believe.
Steve-o

 

[Bill Seward]

Why? You're gonna gain 100 pounds, and lose 100 horsepower...

 

[[email protected]]

The engine would have to become fuel injected first, to start on Diesel fuel. Then, built to take a lot more compression. The load on the lower end would be increased dramatically. I think it would be possible. Longevity would be an issue. Cool project for sure.
I started wrenching on farm equipment for International Harvester. Some of those old Farmall Division tractors are still around. They used to have a Kerosene tank and a gas tank. They weren't high compression, but would run fine switching over to kerosene after the engine got hot running on gas and preheated the kerosene. Gas being rationed was the reason I believe.
Steve-o

Mechanical fuel injection with 4 Hilborn stacks up through the faux and a billowing black cloud pouring out the exhaust?

Maybe for the next ghost rider movie

 

[Fire-medic]

Like this?
His diesel VMax has dirty injectors. Or he's running it rich to 'roll coal' (make large clouds of smoke by running excessively-rich) or whatever they call it, when the rednecks use a sooty exhaust to smoke a Prius. Except in Ghost Rider's case he's doing it to the spawn of Satan.

Mechanical fuel injection with 4 Hilborn stacks up through the faux and a billowing black cloud pouring out the exhaust?

Maybe for the next ghost rider movie

 

[rebeltaz83]

Diesels have come along way since the 70s. Lose 100 horsepower, gain 100 pounds. Tell that to the guy I know who has 900 horsepower and 2000 pounds of torque in a Cummins 5.9 inline six in a ram 2500. Did you know the diesel engines in the military hmmwv is just a GM 350 block. The mpgs you would gain would be off the charts. Longevity? if the current diesels last over 300,000 miles plus before a rebuild. If diesels are that bad, why are most cars over seas diesel?? First diesel ford focus I saw was in Germany. Diesels are gonna be the future, the rise in truck sales with diesel engines has risen over the past ten years. Dodge now offers a diesel for the 1500 series. What's with stereotyping?? Only rednecks have trucks that blow black smoke?? Like all bikers pass on double yellow lines and lane split, and drive loud obnoxious motorcycles, and have tattoos and beards??

 

[caseyjones955]

Are we talking about converting the V4 into a diesel or grafting a different diesel in? Remember the Cutlass and Caddy cars that were diesel, and ruined diesel cars for most of the USA for years. Those that loved diesel cars still embraced the EXCELLENT 116 and 126 chassis diesel Benz, those 5 and 6 cyl engines way to long for a bike though. For a bike conversion there must be some commercial generator or bilge pump motor that might work. You could go all Hoss Boss and put a TDI in it. They get insane MPG in a car aside from having decent power, cant imagine what they would do in a bike.

The high compression and torque of a diesel has traditionally made it rough to convert a gasoline engine into a diesel, just ask GM. VW did it ok with the older Rabbits but not nearly as sweet as the current day TDI. They did get caught cheating on software but don't let that take away from what a jewel it is. In any event it would be a novelty item but a pretty cool one.

 

[Fire-medic]

From reading Road & Track, the current car powerplants in Europe are pretty-evenly split between gas and diesel. Gasoline is >$6 US gallon in Sweden, and about $6.60 in the UK and Italy. That's why diesels are popular in cars there. We want a VMax to burn gas, and apparently so does Yamaha since they never built one any other way. The number of diesel bikes is almost negligible, it's an oddity, not a driving force changing the market.

As for longevity, I just sold a 19 year old Camry w/300K miles, bought from the dealer, and passed among family members to end up w/that-many miles. It only had timing belts replaced according to schedule, for the engine. These days, due to better manufacturing tolerances and metallurgical advances, gas engines can generate such results frequently.

If you want to hit youtube, you can see any number of Harvard, Stanford, and Yale-educated (no, not really) pickup-owning guys 'rolling coal' in-front of a Prius or Insight, because they think that's a form of social protest against 'greenies.' Why else would someone do that?

If diesels are such a market force, why hasn't Yamaha ever made a diesel VMax? Does it mean that in twenty years there might be one? Maybe, but everyone in the market for one seems to be content with gasoline VBoost for now.

As an esoteric question, why aren't there diesel motorcycles? is easily answered: because the market and government regulation hasn't driven us there. Here is an article from Popular Mechanics explaining some of the reasons cited above, and more, for the use of automobile diesels in Europe: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a4567/4330313/

Diesels have come along way since the 70s. Lose 100 horsepower, gain 100 pounds. Tell that to the guy I know who has 900 horsepower and 2000 pounds of torque in a Cummins 5.9 inline six in a ram 2500. Did you know the diesel engines in the military hmmwv is just a GM 350 block. The mpgs you would gain would be off the charts. Longevity? if the current diesels last over 300,000 miles plus before a rebuild. If diesels are that bad, why are most cars over seas diesel?? First diesel ford focus I saw was in Germany. Diesels are gonna be the future, the rise in truck sales with diesel engines has risen over the past ten years. Dodge now offers a diesel for the 1500 series. What's with stereotyping?? Only rednecks have trucks that blow black smoke?? Like all bikers pass on double yellow lines and lane split, and drive loud obnoxious motorcycles, and have tattoos and beards??

 

[falling]

In thermodynamic terms, there is no comparison. The Diesel cycle is more efficient than the Otto (4-stroke gasoline) cycle. This is mostly based on compression. The higher the compression, the higher the efficiency. I dislike diesels for lots of reasons...but there is more potential there than in the Otto cycle. Gasoline engine development has virtually reached its peak.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[johnpclynch]

Forget diesel, anybody want to try convert a Vmax to a blown 2-stroke? :biglaugh:

 

[tothemax93]

Diesels have come along way since the 70s. Lose 100 horsepower, gain 100 pounds. Tell that to the guy I know who has 900 horsepower and 2000 pounds of torque in a Cummins 5.9 inline six in a ram 2500.

There are a lot of Badass diesels running around where I live. I don't know the horsepower, but at the drag strip they have 2 or 3 guys running 8 seconds in the 1/8 with there duelies. Matt Donally from this board had one. I know a few people with VW diesels and love them. I think your right on the money Medic, why we don't have diesel Motorcycles. Government hasn't forced it yet:damn angry: Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[rebeltaz83]

Tdi swap would be the most practical. I know in a car they get around 50mpg. I always wanted one but even used they are expensive. Turning the v4 into a diesel would be almost impossible trying to find out have a bottom end built. Stronger crank, rods, different pistons. Then getting enough amps to the starter to turn over the massive compression ratio. Most of bikes on YouTube were twin cylinder 20 horse engines. One had a turbo, and propane injection. Guy said he had it up to about 80, but didn't dare go past that as the engine was built in China lol. He installed a constant velocity clutch system. I was thinking along there lines of maybe a3 cylinder air cooled Deutsch engine with a twin turbo setup. Or the small 4 cylinder engine out of a portable light plant. Those engines would fit in a bike frame. Finding a trans would be the next step. Durability, and longevity.

 

[Biker Dash]

Did you know the diesel engines in the military hmmwv is just a GM 350 block.

MAYBE, and that is a very slim maybe, the newest ones might be, but I do know that the ones I worked on when I was at Camp Kinser in Okinawa, or at 7th Motors, Camp Pendleton, they were NOT SBC blocks. The heads were completely different. They might have been based off the BBC motor, where the intake and exhaust ports follow the same pattern. Even then, I doubt it, because the bottom end would have to have been severely beefed up to support the hugely increase in torque down low. That and the engine weighs in a bit more than the 7.4L big block gas engine.

 

[one2dmax]

Oldsmobile did an early diesel with not many changes to the overall makeup. It can be done. Our cranks will take around 250 hp or so and stronger rods are easy to get. Better gaskets and head studs are available too.

 

[rebeltaz83]

The injection would be the hardest part. Finding heads for the direct injection that diesels have they would have to be specially made specifically for the v4 lol. Not sure what got me on this topic lol. Just thought it would be cool to have a turbo diesel v max lol. In all practicality it's kinda dumb. The loss in hp would be no fun, but the range on a tank of fuel, prolly wouldn't be worth the money dumped into the engine. Would be a neat project though on any bike. In the long run gasoline is just cost effective, and practical this day in time. If it ain't broke don't fix it lol. A turbo diesel with v boost would be something though lol

 

[Biker Dash]

If threaded injectors could be made to match the spark plug threads... but then you would run into another problem, the same one that plagues multiport conversions. You would need some sort of cam position sensor. I was thinking that timing it off the pulse generator might work, but that would fire twice per complete cycle, so it would be rather difficult to tell where in the cycle the cam is.

 

[D-Max2012]

I wonder, if this is idea is purely for gas mileage, and not just a cool project to attempt. I wonder how well would the powerful VMax fair on a HHO assist fuel system. Add some Oxi-Hydrogen directly into the carbs, and back off the fuel mixture to compensate. I dont know if the R/R can provide the needed amps to run the HHO generator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFtCuXOJqjQ


Also, have you guys ever heard of people running the Bubbler systems for their cars.. They let natural air intake create a vaccum below the fuel, which in turn bubbles up the gas and allow for only fumes to be drawn into the carbs.. some are claiming well over 40% increase is gas use / mileage..

here is a guy testing it on his lawnmower.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP5Q_tenG2I