Maiden Voyage!

[waytallwhitey]

We did the conversion this weekend; fortunately for me my buddy Frazier has some experience with this conversion having done an older one on his F350 a couple of years ago, and my buddy Tom is a wizard with automotive electronics. The conversion was installed in ~ 10 hours give or take a couple of hours for various breaks.

Sunday I topped off the tank with filtered wvo and took 'er out for a cruise. Less that 3 miles from home the green light came on letting me know we had switched to wvo and all was good! No problems at all, not so much as a hiccup. I filled the diesel tank ($100.00 even! Ouch!) just so I could see how far I can get on the diesel. I put on about 70 miles yesterday and 172 today; that diesel fuel gauge hasn't moved! I've burned about between 1/2 and 3/4 of a tank of wvo.

I am one happy dude!

Now for some gripes -

The studs on the back of the fuel gauge were too long to allow the gauge to fit properly inside the pod; not a real big deal, a quick minute with a disc cutter and all was good, but for the $$$ it should have fit coreectly right out of the box





If you have a plastic bed liner make sure you pre-fit the tank BEFORE you cut the hole! The liner does not follow the contour of the bed too closely so the hole won't be where you think it will be when you cut it; consequently the rear tab of the tank had to be trimmed to clear the hole. This is no one's fault but my own, but I just thought I'd throw the warning out there to pre-fit the tank before you cut the hole!





My buddy Tom that handled the wiring says a schematic would have made it easier for him; this is not my gripe, I'm just passing this along for future installers

And finally, that green light is TOO BRIGHT! This morning I had to stop and tape a piece of paper over it to cut down on the glare from it; but it sure is nice to see it lit up!

All in all it was a painless install and I could not be happier with it! Than k you James and Jason and everyone here who offered advice and assistance!

[Clay]

congrats to your success!

[waytallwhitey]

congrats to your success!

Thank you!

One last gripe; that fuel gauge is all over the place! Driving through the Adirondacks sure makes it hard to tell how much fuel is in the tank

[frashdog]

Frank, you know that's not your last gripe.

I told him to write up a punch list with pictures. Frank and I probably would be some of the most critical customers you could have with our manufacturing experience.



This is a wicked slick kit to install!! :cheers:I'd put money down that after a few installs I could do everthing but the elctrical in under 5 hours, maybe less. I've assembled, inspected, tested, reassembled and documented thousands of mechanical and electrical assembly procedures in my day.

I would have liked to have seen detailed complete routing diagrams and electrical schematics. That would give techs a big picture. I could see how some one not familiar with routing, with respects to securing to prevent rubbing/chaffing issues and acceptable radius bends, might not complete the cleanest job allowing for issues down the road. Oh yea how about some way more/better items for securement of mention routings. A hand full of tie wraps does not seem to match the level of qualty the rest of the kit offers.

Frank how about those welds on the tank lidthey get a sad face for those. I know DFA outsources them, but they should know how bad those welds were.


Big final note!! If you are not used to wrenching around with your engine, don't learn here. Pay for the install. You really could do some harm, like snapping a fuel fitting off in the head, getting debris in the fuel rails, don't forget aboput debris or even some swarf or even better a small child in the intake plenum then what are you going to do?! Do it for the childern just, hire a certified installer.

[waytallwhitey]

Frank, you know that's not your last gripe.
Frank how about those welds on the tank lidthey get a sad face for those. I know DFA outsources them, but they should know how bad those welds were.

Yeah, as a CWI I must say I would have rejected the entire tank. I'll post pictures if anyone wants to see them

[Jack_Toepfer]

I'd like to see more pics of the tank.
It is unfortunate that everyone's biggest gripe is usually based on the tank. You'd think that one of RDS's largest contracts would make them more careful, but I guess there is just too much demand.


I also agree with the fuel gauge/tank setup. It does go all over the place, but the real gripe is the fact that it is not accurate. My next tank will be longer than it is wide so that there is much less sloshing. I'll also make sure the pickup is in the rear of the tank so that it doesn't suck air under load. Side to side sloshing wouldn't be as large of a concern because the tank wouldn't be 5' wide, it would be maybe 2'

[triplemoutdoors]

The studs on the back of the fuel gauge were too long to allow the gauge to fit properly inside the pod; not a real big deal, a quick minute with a disc cutter and all was good, but for the $$$ it should have fit coreectly right out of the box

Remember the fuel gauge and pod cover are off the shelf items and DFA did not have any input on design or application. If Jason and James were to design and manufacture a set specific for the V3 I am sure our price would go up.

[Fordnut74]

Thank you for all the feedback in a very respectful manner. There are a lot of minor detail items that we would like to get cleaned up, securing of the hoses being one of them, and the ever present battle with QC at RDS. Actually we are merely a blip on their radar screen for sales. James and I toured their place here recently and they are HUGE!. They have a LOT of military contracts as well. So it is a balancing act with them in trying to increase the quality, without becoming such a pain that they don't want to deal with us. As time goes on, it has gotten better and better. The gages are exactly that, universal. If we cut the studs from here, then those who mount them other than in a pod(happens a lot) won't be able to. So they will now be upset. The wiring diagrams are forthcoming and actually just about done. Same goes with the plumbing diagrams.

On another note, our electroncis control is among our highest prioritys. Trying to bring those into the 21st centruy is a must. Not to make excuses, but this is a company that started in a garage, has NO investors and has been started 100% from scratch. The only way we advance is by our customers support in buying our product. However because of that customer service and innovation are our two biggest advantages. We don't have the deep posckets some others do to be able to blow off customers or fix issues by throwing more money at it. - So we owe a HUGE thank you to all of our customers and will tell you that our future is looking good.

[FastCote]

...On another note, our electroncis control is among our highest prioritys. Trying to bring those into the 21st centruy is a must. Not to make excuses, but this is a company that started in a garage, has NO investors and has been started 100% from scratch. The only way we advance is by our customers support in buying our product. However because of that customer service and innovation are our two biggest advantages. We don't have the deep posckets some others do to be able to blow off customers or fix issues by throwing more money at it. - So we owe a HUGE thank you to all of our customers and will tell you that our future is looking good.

Jason,

I work for a company that does a ton of hardware/software development. I would love to talk with you about replacing your timer cards with an embedded processor. There are tons of options depending on your capabilities required and price point. I have no idea what you pay for your timer cards but I bet a micro based approach might be competitive. How nice would it be to plug in a laptop or PDA to tweak settings like purge and run times? Taken to an extreme, you might even drive a small LCD with the same micro there was interest.

I am not selling work for my company (they are WAY too expensive) just wanted to share some ideas and maybe offer some personal development time if required.

Ben