If you’ve ever been curious to learn more about diesel and its uses, you’ve come to the right place. Read on to learn more about things like a diesel lift pump, how diesel works, and why diesel engines beat out the gasoline ones.
Understanding the Basics
We may think of just a few types of engines: regular fuel, those that have diesel fuel systems, and perhaps electric car engines. In reality, there are 50 different types of diesel engines alone. When speaking of internal combustion engines, though, we can basically narrow it down to two types powered by either diesel or gasoline. Both use chemical energy present in the fuel, harnessing it to make mechanical energy that drives the vehicle. Both types use the controlled combustion of the fuel to drive pistons which are connected are turned into rotary force that turns the car’s wheels.
A gasoline engine mixes the fuel with air, then compresses it with the pistons and sets it alight by a spark from the spark plugs. In a diesel engine, the air is first compressed and then fuel is injected into the compressed air. Because air gets hot when it’s compressed, this makes the fuel explode.
What Happens Next?
Both vehicles drive away, but that’s where the similarities end. On just one tank of a gas, a diesel engine can normally travel between 400 and 800 miles, for an estimated average of 45 miles to the gallon for diesel engines. The diesel engine is rated the highest in terms of efficient combustion: 40% more efficient than a gasoline engine. Yet for every 100 gasoline cars sold in America, only one diesel engine car is sold. This number is slightly better when it comes to trucks, with 10 diesel trucks sold for every 100 each year. This is in contrast to Europe, where diesel accounts for half of vehicle sales in a year, and in some places as much as 70%.
Why Don’t Americans Use Diesel?
In the past, diesel engines had a harder time complying with regulations for energy efficiency and emissions. That is no longer the case, yet the American market is hard for diesel engine car makers to crack. This is in part because the savings are harder to explain. Diesel fuel prices are higher than gasoline prices, and it takes a calculator and some patience to work out just how the efficiency of the engine translates into real dollar savings, even with higher prices at the pump. Additionally, diesel fuel is less expensive in Europe, where the government doesn’t impose so high a tax on the fuel as the U. S. federal government does.
Is There Any Downside to Diesel?
There are really very few, as diesel engines are not only more efficient, but also last longer, have more torque, and are simpler to fix. However, while a gasoline engine’s noise comes from the exhaust, which can be muffled, diesel noise comes from the engine and can be terrific. They’re also more expensive to buy at the beginning. Some people worry that diesel engines smell and smoke or have trouble starting in the winter. Those things were true of older engines, but not now. There are also lots of aftermarket items, such as a diesel lift pump, an oil filter distributor, a diesel filtration system, and Fass fuel filters that can improve engine efficiency and longevity. The diesel lift pump, for example, supplies low-pressure fuel in the tank to the injection pump. Because pressure is so important in
a diesel engine, this means that the injection pump has to work less hard to pull fuel from the tank. The diesel lift pump not only increases horsepower, but it also increases the lifespan of the injection pump.
There are a lot of good reasons to consider getting a modern diesel engine, and if you have one there are great aftermarket items, like the diesel lift pump, that can make the engine work even better and for longer. Maybe it’s time America took a lesson from Europe and embraced the modern diesel engine car.
