Jalopnik
We had another close race down the highway to the Lake of Fire yesterday, with the so-called win going to the triple helping of '55 Austin FX3 cabs in the Choose Your Eternity poll. Today, however, I'm inspired by the big drums of used tempura-frying oil I saw waiting for disposal behind the Japanese take-out joint near my house; think of all that potential carbon-neutral fuel just sitting there, waiting for some enterprising sort to put together a veggie-oil diesel machine to burn it up! Actually, what we really want is a diesel that runs on liposuction fat harvested from cosmetic surgeons- imagine the sheer coolness of driving a car that runs on human flesh- but the next best thing is a project fueled by your soul!
First of all, we have a hard time getting really enthusiastic about a veggie-oil-powered Mercedes-Benz diesel, because that's what 99.9% of veggie-oil-burnin' types are running- if you're going to go to the trouble of converting your vehicle to burn weird fuel, at least start with a weird vehicle! In fact, we think the best approach is to get a car that never came with a diesel option from the factory. For example, you could buy this 1986 Mazda RX-7 with Chevette diesel engine, which has been bid up to just over 300 bucks at this point. Yes, a Chevette diesel-powered RX-7, folks! Does it get any better than that? It starts up and moves under its own power, but "Feels like it needs struts on all four corners," so you'll have to figure on fixing the suspension before you get started putting a 200-gallon heated bacon grease tank in the back. Oh yeah, the Isuzu diesel used in the Chevette managed only 51 horsepower, so you'll either need to add turbocharging or get used to driving a car that takes several miles of acceleration to reach highway speed. Thanks to JRHMobile for the tip!
There's nothing wrong with using a factory diesel vehicle as the basis for your veggie-oil conversion, as long as you choose something more unusual than a Mercedes-Benz or even Peugeot (you Yurpeans have more diesel options, of course, so we suggest you head to an ex-Warsaw Pact nation and locate a Zaporozhets fitted with a Bulgarian diesel tractor engine). We tried and failed to find an example of the super-elusive Ford Tempo Diesel, but we've got the next best thing: this 1985 Mercury Lynx diesel (go here if the ad disappears). Have you ever seen a diesel Lynx? Of course not... which makes the $1,100 price tag seem like quite a steal for such a rare machine. It "runs good," though there's what sounds like a front main seal leak, the battery is "not very good," and it has "some rust and dents." Horsepower rating? 52! So while you're converting your Lynx to run on falafel oil, you'll probably want to add some turbocharging gear.
Comments
Am I wrong or did I read somewhere that rotaries can run on diesel? I may just be making that up.
Oh, and definitely the RX-7.
I suggested a human fat powered diesel engine for a Human Powered vehicle project a couple of years ago. I was called a freak ...... just sayin'
no WAY. I am not falling for either of these.. do you know how painful fryer oil burns are?
The RX-7 with Chevette diesel is really, really, weird, no matter what fuel you put in it. But unfortunately, N.A. Escorts, Festivas, 1Gen Tercels and all derivatives of said vehicles win anything, all the time, automatically, only out of loyalty.
I think a car powered by an engine never designed for it beats a factory setup everyday of the week and twice on Sunday... RX7-D FTW!
For complete hell, what you really need is a ROTARY diesel engine ;-) I wonder if it is even possible?
The RX-7 with a diesel engine, and a Chevette diesel engine at that? that is so wrong, so wrong in fact that in this case two wrongs do make a right...It's kinda like shaving a transsexual person's legs with a machete!
I feel sorry for the RX-7. It was born with a powerful rotary, and then it got lumbered with a chevette diesel.
The Mazda wins because it verges on Dadaism. The Lynx, on the other hand, is just depressing.
RX-7 with Chevette engine? sounds like all kinds of hell.
Taking a sports car and dropping in a motor that makes it a far, far slower machine has got to be from some sort of twisted, wackyland hell. And apparently that type of hell is located in Warren county, Ohio, my childhood home. Therefore, I vote for the greasy spoon Mazda.
That Lynx diesel is the automotive equivalemt of the Coelacanth. The RX-7 is something out of the twilight zone...like a 3-headed lamb or something.
I'm frightened.
Taking a Lynx and making it diesel is merely purgatory. It's weird, but it's slow and of questionable merit to begin with.
But a diesel, it's a complete 180 on the personality of a rotary. One's light, zingy, and burns oil for the hell of it, the other's heavy, slow, and burns oil to make "power." Once I follow through on my plans of world domination, I'm hiring the guy evil enough to think of kneecapping an RX7 with a diesel.
One of the funniest write ups, Murilee.
Yes, Mazda, of course. If only for the suspension problem + hot bacon grease line.
wtf-
how do you end up ww an extra diesel chevette?
You'd never be able to register the Mazda here in Kalifornistan (diesel-to-gas conversions are okay but not vice versa), so the peewee Merc wins by TKO.
one metric ton of dead environmentalists can be converted into 80 gallons of Soylent Diesel.
We can solve both the fuel crisis and the population crisis.
Wow. This is inspired. RX-7 wins because even a diesel Lynx has a better power-to-weight ratio. To heighten the Dadaism the Lynx is the one with the Mazda diesel.
I'm going to turn 360 degrees and walk away from both of these.
@dolo54: Good luck with that.
Isn't a turbine a diesel rotary engine of sorts? Anyway, I would rather have the turbine 928 than either of these.
Chevette RX-7 lemon!
With the fuel economy of a diesel and the handling of an RX-7, what could possibly go wrong ?
As PCH goes, That RX7 is just, too far out there for my brain, it's like, WHY???!!!!
And to use the non-turboed chevette Diesel? Surely there's better options out there (unless the dinky little chevette motor was the only one that would fit in the RX7's engine bay)
but still... WHY!?
The Chevette Diesel was SLOOOOOOOOWWWWWW on it's own. I can only imagine how slow the RX-7 is with a 51HP Isuzu Diesel.
I remember an acquaintance of mine (that's what you call a friend who isn't really a friend!) who owned a Chevette Diesel. The dealer even added a "Diesel" stripe along the rocker panel. Zero to Sixty? oh, in about a week.
RXavette, all the way. Next project, a Morris/Austin 4 banger transplanted into a 70's Eldorado, SU carbs, Lucas distributor, and all.
As there was (apparently) a direct-injection turbocharged version of the RF used in the Lynx (also used in the awesomely-named Mazda Bongo) that produced 101 bhp, there may yet be hope for the little Merc rust bucket.
I vote Rexvette.
I'm choking on my confusion with the RX-D. So many questions.
That may easily be the most PCH car ever. (I smell a poll...and burning sulfur)
After working at Mazda dealers during the 1990's and trying to sell used RX-7's I can attest that they are almost Italian in their PCH-ness. The Isuzu diesel may hurt its performance but makes up for it in drivability over the rotary.
A diesel RX7!? That's project car hell in a more literal sense, as something so blasphemous (take a light, high-revving motor out of a sports car and put in a diesel) really ought to land you in actual hell.
@facingtraffic:
Rotaries can run on diesel. Sorta. They can't produce the required compression to ignite diesel on their own, so to get a rotary to burn diesel, they have to have a lot of forced induction. In the only diesel rotary application I ever saw (and this was in a book), a second rotary engine was hooked up and driven by the diesel-powered rotary. The sole job of the second rotary engine was to act as an air pump, shoving compressed air into the intake ports of the first. Oh, and the rotary that was just acting as a supercharger was about three times larger than the one actually burning the fuel. It was deligtfully preposterous.
"That Lynx diesel is the automotive equivalemt of the Coelacanth. The RX-7 is something out of the twilight zone...like a 3-headed lamb or something.
I'm frightened."
@MustaineGT:
Anyone who can use Coelacanth in a Jalopnik post must be of COTD stock right?
I stand in awe....
[www.halfbakery.com]
Oh, I shouldn't have looked at that ebay auction. The diesel RX-7 (DX-7?) is about 20 miles from where I work. Now, despite the fact that I berated it earlier, I want it!
No contest, the RX7. Nothing like a once proud sports car that now can get beaten by sportier cars like my 4-cylinder extended cab S10 or a 3-cylinder Geo Metro XFI, nevermind the even more awesome greatness of a standard issue brown UPS truck.
0-60 time? Let me bust out my sundial ...
@MarionCobretti: That you know that little rotary-on rotary SnappleFact makes you my hero.
@Acd: "The Isuzu diesel may hurt its performance but makes up for it in drivability over the rotary."
You know we've hit new depth of PCH when someone heralds a Chevette diesel as an improvement in drivability.
@Mad_Science: We've hit new depths of PCH, because this whole discussion is making me desire to own a diesel Chevette.
A place in real hell is reserved for the guy that put a diesel into a RX-7.
So, where is the Wankel powered Chevette this guy must have built to balance (nullify, counteract, redeem) his RX7 castration exercise?
51 horsepowering this RX7 is an act of vandalism / nee war akin to me and some chaps spraypainting the steps of the Whitehouse. However, doing a direct swap between both cars is worthy of several dozen kudos points.
And a beer.
I'm Amazed at a Mazda.
@Paul Y. is Going Dumb at the Sideshow: Pervert
RX-7 diesel, I think that Isuzu engine just throws the weight balance to hell that is why it needs struts. The Lnyx can be improved with the turbo setup from a Powerstroke engine. Hey it's all Ford stuff.
I saw a grey Mercury Lynx Diesel last year parked next to somsone's house, and I don't remember it having any rust or dents either.
I have to got with the RX-7 and convert it back to a Rotary to burn off some karmic debt. At that point the new engine can be converted to run off propane, LPG, or hydrogen if there is a need to go eco. By removing the Chevette curse a soul will have been saved.
My dad had a chevy luv with the izuzu diesel in it. It was slow no matter how hard you beat on it. I took it to a test and tune might......21 sec @ 61 mph was the best quarter mile pass I could pull off (WFO launch and every shift)
Having a sports car that slow gets you a free pass in the HOV lane to hell.
Perhaps the RX7 did something very bad in a previous life.
Well, that RX-diesel7 is pretty cool. Not as cool as a Lamborghini with a Fiero engine, but definitely cooler than a stock diesel Lynx.
This is going to be a rather lopsided victory for the Mazda-Isuzu-Chevette cadre.
The RX-7 had me at Chevette diesel engine. Not that a diesel sports car is such a bad thing; a light fun commuter car would be a great results. But for all the work needed to do such a one-off swap the PO picked one of the weirdest and weakest engines possible.
DX-7 FTW. But... The seller has several other eBay auctions going on, one of which is a salvage GM 6.2L diesel for sale. I'm thinking buy the Mazda and the extra engine, squeeze the 6.2 into the Mazda to get back something of the power to weight ratio it was born with.
And to finish off the project with style, mod the rear hatch area to accept a 5th wheel hitch (and a heavier axle maybe?), and you could be haulin' in style, baby!
I'm tempted to vote for the raped RX-7 just because it's so ghastly horrible - good Lord spare us! a Diesel where a Wankel ought to be - and after all horror is kind of what Project Car Hell is all about, but as a Mazda sports car owner myself, I just can't do it; it's too, too wrong. I must abstain.
Sorry! Maybe I don't have the grit to be a true Jalopnik, after all.
i think the RX7 would be more hellish, simply because torque and rx7s do not mix.
plus factory diesel is less hellish than a poor quality home diesel swap.
"what sounds like a front main seal leak"
I don't know about y'all, but any oil leak I can hear is hell! Merc it is.
Murliee you f'n rule. The random discorse this match-up has produced is a novelty in itself. Natch the sans-rotary -R(+D)X-7 FTW. I would redeem (restore?) the performance with a two or three stage turbo though. A rotary engine would shatter its apex seals at the thought of 100-150 PSI in the manifold. I love this blog.
Sorry, Murilee Martin,
and discourse.