Hello All,
Cool site, this is my first post here. I’m writing because interested in restoring a 1968 mercury cougar to biodiesel. The car is just a shell at the moment with no engine, transmission, or interior. The body of the car is in great shape but the powertrain will need to be added from scratch.
With an eye looking towards the future and rising gas prices I’m interested in making the car biodiesel. I’m writing to find out if there Is there anyone else who has converted a cougar or other classic or muscle car to biodiesel and what issues or problems came up in the process.
Does anyone know of another powerful ford-Lincoln-mercury diesel engine that will fit correctly into this car without needing custom engine mounts? I read about some other guy who used a Mercedes Turbodiesel Engine but I’d rather stick with Ford / Mercury parts to keep some of the cars integrity in tact. I’ve been trying to figure out if the F series truck engines would fits since they used a 6.0 liter turbo diesel engine.
Two important elements is that I’m looking for are that:
- The car retains or adds more power over the original factory settings
&
- That the car has air conditioning
I have no interest in re-sale value as I plan on keeping the car for a long time and no intention of restoring it back to the factory settings. All I want is to eat Camaro’s for lunch and leave them in my dust…which smells like french fries…in a Hippy Hot Rod. 
If you know of anyone else who has restored a classic or muscle car to biodiesel please reply. I’d like to find out how it went and if you have any tips, advice, feedback. All would be appreciated.
Also copied from the other site
Let’s start with an assumption that, as it is not coming up to 1 April, that you are serious
I have been working with mt son-in-law on a bio-diesel project for his early model Landcruiser. Fortunately there are diesel engines already available to suit that car and the conversion has been done many time. The only diesel conversion in a Cougar that we know of is the Mercedes diesel out in California somewhere (I think)
You will be lucky to find a diesel that makes the power you are after without going to the new high pressure injection system and multiple turbos. To figure them out you need to be a diesel mechanic, have a good engineering degree and highly developed fabrication skills or deep pockets. I’m not sure if the new diesels will run on a bio mix without a lot of filtration. If you really want to make power in a diesel then you should also look at LPG injection.
I doubt you will find a truck diesel that bolts in or is lighter than a 428CJ. The light weight, efficient and powerful diesels are usually turbo V6 engines found in European vehicles. You might try a Jag diesel as the S-Type and a Lincoln shared a common platform a while back when Jaguar was owned by Ford. I doubt a V6/V8 turboed truck engine would fit under the hood of Cougar without serious modifications.
Good luck with your project. I think you need to do a lot more research to determine if it is feasible, if you have the skills and the time and the money and if you goals of power and hippiness are not mutually exclusive. Just don’t destroy another Cougar in the process
What Leon said.
The commercial truck engines are just too big. Look at the height of one compared to the 302 or FE engines your car came with from Ford.
If you run no hood, you could pull it off maybe, but then you have hundreds of pounds of weight on the front wheels that weren’t there with the stock application. As a comparison, the Cummins diesel holds 16+ quarts of oil. The 302 held 5.
The Mercedes is a better option, but the guys who are prepping for the shtf scenarios are buying up the Mercedes diesels and parts, so the engines are starting to go up in price as are all those little parts.
There’s no way you’re going to get this done without doing some fab work and spending some money.
I think this is a great idea!
Here is my take,
I’ve worked in an emissions program for 15 years here in the State of Georgia. I have seen plenty of these conversions in other vehicles and after seeing them wouldn’t touch one. Few reasons why…
1, Usually Biodiesel is more expensive.
2, It usually takes energy to convert fry oil or whatever you are using as the basis for fuel.
3, You WILL continually go through many fuel filters! A friend of mine did this conversion and it was every few thousand miles or so. Pain in the arse.
4, Is biodiesel available around you if you are not going to do it yourself?
5, Your NOX emissions will go up slightly.
Bottom line is that the infrastructure that is setup already is incredibly efficient. Gasoline and Diesel are manufactured in a way that is cheap and relatively clean. It would be a waste of time in my opinion and you would most likely tire of it but that is only my two cents!
Brian