Car and Driver: Stump-Puller to Tree-Hugger: My Power Stroke Diesel Bronco Now Runs on Biofuel

When I converted my ’93 Bronco to a 7.3-liter Power Stroke diesel, one of my goals was to eventually run it on biofuel. Of course, that wasn’t my main objective. Higher on the list were items like “get 500 pound-feet of torque” and “make loud turbo noises at all times.” But yes, also: sneer down contemptuously at Prius drivers and their dirty war fuel. I’d probably need a bumper sticker so everyone would know how morally superior I am. Something to the effect of, “This looks like a 12-mpg Bronco, but it’s actually got a diesel and furthermore it’s running 100-percent biodiesel (B100), which the California Air Resources Board recently determined can reduce ­carbon emissions as much as 81 percent compared with petroleum.” Unfortunately, I am physically incapable of applying a bumper sticker to my vehicle, on the grounds that bumper stickers correlate with mental frailty, mega­lomania, and probably poor personal hygiene. Perhaps sustainability and emissions weren’t my priorities at the outset, but running a 7.3 in an open-top vehicle makes you intimately familiar with that engine’s major shortcoming: It’s a foul thing, a 444-cubic-inch industrial zone. One day, sitting at red light in a Mazda, my three-year-old in the back seat declares, “I smell a Bronco!” Sure enough, there’s a ’90s Power Stroke pickup on the opposite side of the intersection. Time to find some carbon-cutting, sweet-smelling biodiesel. READ MORE ››

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