trbomax
Well-known member
There was a thread on here a couple days ago about torpedos and fuel,Ive looked all over and cant find it. Someone posted that they mixed drain oil 1/4 with no 2 and burned it. I was rather skeptical so when one of mine ran out yesterday I performed an experiment of sorts. Now there is NO WAY I would dump drain oil int one of these,but for the sake of testing I mixed 1 qt of 15w/40 and 1 gal of no 2 off road(my regular fuel). It did start right up,but did not turn the cone bright red like straight no 2. It did surprise me that there was no odor though. I readjusted the air pressure up as high as 9psi,and down to 4 psi.It did not mwke any difference in the cone color. It was obvious that the btu output was less due to the color of the cone,just a red ring around the edge and a 4" black center.I also have 2 lawn chairs in front of it,one at 10' and one at 13'. Normally the one at 10' is borderline hot,and the 13 is just right,but not with the blended fuel. The 10' was just right and the 13' was only a room temp draft. This is a mr heater in its 3rd year,125k mod. It never did get the shop warm enough to shut down,with no 2 it will start to cycle after about 30 -40 minutes.It ran for almost 2 hrs on the mix and shut down. I refilled it with straight no 2 and it cranked right up,and had a full red cone at 6psi. The 13' chair was warm now too.After another 15-20 min. it began to cycle on the stat.
My conclusions are that,yes it will run on the mix,I still would NOT put drain oil in it,and the heat output with the mix is quite a bit lower. This would ,at first glance seem contradictary because heavyier fuel does contain more btu's,but the nozzel ,pump and fan pressure would need to be altered to take advantage of the heavier oil.There was no bad smell or any clue that it was not burning what it usually does,except for the reduced heat output.
So anyway, I had to try it and these are my results,yours may vary but I doubt it!
My conclusions are that,yes it will run on the mix,I still would NOT put drain oil in it,and the heat output with the mix is quite a bit lower. This would ,at first glance seem contradictary because heavyier fuel does contain more btu's,but the nozzel ,pump and fan pressure would need to be altered to take advantage of the heavier oil.There was no bad smell or any clue that it was not burning what it usually does,except for the reduced heat output.
So anyway, I had to try it and these are my results,yours may vary but I doubt it!
Last edited: