Rising gas prices are starting to make me feel a strong interest in diesel power. Although a gallon of diesel costs about the same as a gallon of gas right now, we're not going to see any alternative choices putting the breaks on gas prices. Diesel may be a different matter. My neighbor has a system that produces 70 gallons of diesel fuel per day from sunflower seeds. He uses it in all his trucks and tractors, and has excess he can sell for $3 a gallon. He is using some new technology and believes he is the first Wisconsin farmer to have it.

Seems to me I read somewhere that some company is producing diesel-powered quads. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has had some experience with them. I'm looking ahead to when gasoline reaches $10 a gallon. At that point, I'll want something other than a conventional quad. It might be better to switch to a diesel machine before demand drives prices up.

 

polaris made a diesel powered quad a while back, i think it was a 450cc

 

I did a Google search and found a few made in the late nineties. The Polaris website didn't list any diesel's among their current models. I'm wondering if those diesels didn't work very well, or if there just wasn't any demand at that time. Or, maybe they were too expensive?

 

The Polaris diesels were heavy and underpowered, and never sold well. The problem with diesel engines in a small off road chassis is really going to be weight vs power output, plus the extra $$ a diesel will cost upfront. Still, I believe Mercedes? is planning on campaigning a diesel engine in one of the big international race series. They could be designed to work in our application, just not to sure how much more expense the motor will add to the bottom line.

 

The US military uses a diesel version of the KLR650 so it is probably doable at least with a larger engine. I think that particular model also gets over 100 mpg!

 

Basically a logistics issue for the military. This way it only has to haul around one type of fuel for all the different vehicles it uses. Many are used in places like Afganistan for recon, and fast response teams.
I think you might be surprised to find the uses these machines can accomplish. Definately worth a look if you are using them around the farm to pull a heavy trailer on a regular basis. Although down on speed and HP, they really put out the torque.
Weight wise, diesels are getting more and more comparable to gas engined 4 strokes every day. In these small sizes, other than compression being much higher, they are not all that different from your typical 4 storke motor.
Diesel is slightly lower in price than gasoline.. for now any way, but I doubt that the claims of inicreased MPG are going to show a major increase over gas powered vehicles. Maybe a few percentage points... but not a big deal...

 

The original poster is talking about Biodiesel. Has some great qualities that can make it a better fuel than regular diesel (aka Dinodiesel to the biodiesel folks.) Lose about 10% of power but get better emissions (and zero sulfur) but higher NOx than petrol based diesel.

As far as price, diesel, at least in CA, is running between 89 and 92 octane gasoline. But that can depend on various things. Generally in-town stations will sell higher than gasoline, but truck stops will sell for less. Also the brand will very the price. Around here Chevron is the most expensive.

We'll be lucky to see any here. CARB has a complete aversion to anything diesel. Too many soot belching city buses in the big cities.

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