diesel engine as apu

[adamanderr]

vw 1.5 diesel as genny/compressor

Postby adamanderr » Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:14 pm
i have a spare engine for my daily driver 1980 vw rabbit which i plan on towing... instead of mounting my loud generator and a second gas engine to run my shop air compressor. my bus is more a rolling workshop than straight camper. my vw isnt that loud on agood day and barely works hard and isnt that heavy or big, two person lift. i was thinking a combo genny head and compressor belted off it. mounted in a vibration dampened frame behind the rear axle. same fuel as bus, run forever and can burn most anything. parts readily available? i felt smart but it may be overkill
????

[somewhereinusa]

Sounds like a good idea to me. Biggest problem I see is, how will you govern engine speed. You need to keep pretty close to 60 cycles for things to work right. Probably won't be all that fuel efficient. Even though you won't be working it hard, you're still pumping fuel into four cyls. I could also see running air conditioning from same unit. I built a unit using an industrial 2 cyl that I got cheap. It ran a 5000w ac and a 120a DC to do battery charging duties.

[lapeer20m]

I have thought about a similar idea as well. I drive a tdi jetta, but used to have a 1.5 diesel golf. You could also use the engine coolant for cabin heat, unless it was really cold outside. Vw diesel doesn't make enough heat to keep my Jetta at operating temperature when it is below ten degrees f, even with radiator 100 percent occluded.

I would like to connect the engine to a Honda eu generator that has a bad engine. That way you get clean efficient power with a wide range of rpm's.

Trying to get exactly 60 hz from a generator head would be difficult, also, the bearings for the crank probably would not tolerate running a large geni from a belt. Would need to direct drive the geni. You might get away with using the built in engine governor if you can adjust it down. 60hz is really important for certain items like electronics And motors. not so important for others like toasters, incandescent lights, or heating elements.

You will need an 1800 rpm geni head.

Alternators are not efficient, but you could turn a large alternator or series of alternators to charge batts and run an inverter, but you would be burning a lot of fuel.

In the end, I think it would be cheaper and easier to buy a Honda eu2000. Super quiet, reliable, and up to 15 hours in a single gallon of fuel.

However, if u r looking for adventure I would love to see your API made from vw diesel engine.