[Dave Whitmer]

I have a question for the big HP guys.

All of us probably started out with gas engines and we know the limitations of pump gas. Some of us have built high-compression engines using very high octane fuel. All old hat.

What if, as diesel tuners, you were presented with 70 cetane fuel instead of the 40-45 cetane stuff we run today? What would you change on the engine to take advantage of high cetane?

A diesel running 70 cetane fuel ought to start easily.
Would you retard injection timing?

I’ve never been confronted such a product but it could be just over the horizon (Fischer-Tropsch diesel).

 

[69W900A]

Too much centane could be a bad thing as too little octane in a gas engine is. Cetane is the fuels ability to autoignite, the higher the number the faster it will ignite. If the fuel is too easy to ignite you'll get the fuel burning as it comes out of the nozzle and you will not get an even controlled burn.

If you did retard the timing I don't think you would want to retard it much or EGTs would start going up.