So Far So Good… My Second Tank of B20

I took a free moment out of my evening to scoot down for a fill up at the Delta Biodiesel Station which is just off Nordel Way & River Road in Delta. Officially, this will be my second full tank of B20 that I have ran in my TDI. I've pretty much had my fingers crossed as many have predicted my fuel filter to clog up. So far, I have encountered no problems or any significant changes. My TDI continues to run smoother than usual and my mileage is unaffected.

For those who are not aware, biodiesel acts like a natural solvant/degreaser. It is a fuel blend primarily made with different percentages of dino-diesel mixed with waste vegetable oils. In North America, oil from soy beans are primarily used.

The environmental benefits of biodiesel as an alternative fuel is astonishing. When using B100 grade, it is a purely renewable domestic product and contains no petroleum. It is biodegradable, non-toxic fuel which could be used in any diesel burning engine without modification. Most importantly Biodiesel of all grades results in lower emissions, which keeps our planet green. In addition, Biodiesel can potentially contribute to our independence when it comes to oil supply.

When used over a significant amount of time, it can attribute to a clogging of the fuel filter. This is primarily due to the poorly commericalized filtered/refined dino-diesel fuel which is available at any Mohawk, Husky, Shell or Esso Gas Stations. It has been proven that with the prolonged use of dino-diesel will increase the chances for contaminant build ups in your fuel system .

For instance, B5 = 5%; B10 = 10%; B20 = 20%; B50 = 50% and B99 or B100 = 100% ( X% = Soy Oil )

Running B20 is still viewed as quite environmentally friendly. It's the highest bio-diesel mixture which is most available through select commerical fuel companies. As long as I do not encounter any problems, I optimally would run a near 100% pure soy oil mixture on a consistent basis. The unfortunate part is that B100 is only available through two methods:

1. A special order is made from Cascadia Fuels and delivered in bulk amounts to a holding tank at your home,

2. B100 can be made through a quick home brewing process from used cooking oils which can be collected free of charge from your local restaurant.

The initial start up cost for a home brewing station will range from $1500 - 2000. Once your formula is perfected, bio-diesel can be produced as low as 3-10% of the current pump prices of commerical grade dino-diesel. There always is a downside to every good thing. Home brewing can be also risky. The refining quality can become inconsistent and much poorer to biodiesel available through an actual fuel company.

Currently, all commerically sold bio-diesel is made by Cascadia Fuel (http://www.cascadiabiofuels.com) and distrubuted through Autogas dealers, and Mohawk or Husky Fuel Stations are made through a high standard of refinement. Therefore the chances of contaminents is extremely low and you are more likely to have the lesser odds of running into problems.



And to think, the higher the percentage of bio-diesel you chose to run in your TDI, the less money goes into some billionaire oil barron. I rather give back my hard earned money back to those environmentally conscience soy bean farmers in the Mid-West United States or Central Canada.

Good Friends, Good Company, Poor Motor

"It's truly amazing how beautiful is it to watch how a person's life can change for the better with the addition of a child."

Yesterday afternoon, I took the opportunity to visit some long-time friends, Clayton and Kathleen Dyck. I met initially met Clayton during my late teenage years through the mutual interests with Volkswagens. Through the past 10 years of friendship, we've experienced many memorable and unforgettable times together. We've watched each other grow into the individuals which we are now and I've become more appreciative of our unspokened friendship.

Although he is one step ahead of me with the birth of his first child, I get the opportunity to see how my future may become. I see a future that I am eagerly anticipating. Everytime I see Clayton with his daughter, I see a proud and enlightened man with an unmistakable glow in his eyes. I see how beautiful it is to be a dad, happy with a family of his own.

Earlier in my visit, I was invited into Clayton's garage as he and some friends were attempting to diagnose a motor malfuntion in the turbocharged setup in his MKII VR6 conversion. I am always awestrucked when I see his MKII VR6 Golf. It brings back many memories of the good times we had, which includes many spirited drives together and watching countless quartermile races. I still remember my first ride in 1997 as he drove me down Hwy 99 Southbound and engaged a 75 shot of Nitrous Oxide. That was the most pivotal moment of my Volkswagen ownership which influenced two motor swaps, 2 different nitrous oxide set ups, and countless modifications of my Passat and two Golfs.

After pulling apart the motor, traces of heat damage was discovered in the block. I felt Clayton unspoken frustration as he appeared helplessly debating in his mind which direction should he persue in the rebuilding of the motor. Would he replace the entire block? Or would he attempt to rebuild it with hopes that the damage was minimal and unaffect the motor's performance.

Some photos of the motor:

Therapy Lies in a Patch of Grass

I have grown a second addition in life, the television show Scrubs. The storylines depicts the humourous side of working in a hospital. I could almost compare myself to the character depicted by Zach Braff (John "J.D." Dorian). Despite being often stressed at work, I still manage to have an extremely caring heart and uses humour to make a difference, one patient at a time.

Ironically, I also share a similar over-active imagination which tends to visualize worst-case scenarios of the funniest kind. Who would have known that at the age of 29 I would be solely responsible for the psychiatric services of my hospital.

I constantly watch patients being brought into the hospital, knowing that for many, they will never be visited by friends and family, never improve their prognosis or never leve. Work often leave me overly stressed from frequent inappropriate referrals, countless complicated assessments, pressure from physicians to make recommendations for treatment and constant worrying of my patients whether they are being admitted or discharged home.

Sometimes I just feel all alone while questioning myself after work, "Could I have made a better decision for my patient today?" Like John Dorian, there are days which I beg to escape the Emergency Department and lay on some grass in a beautiful park while enjoying the sight of clouds floating by. I learned from one episode that life is way too short, that I've got to let go of my worries for patients after I leave and enjoy my personal time off.



Many people I meet have this notion that my job is relatively easy and quite cushy. Funny, even when I am out for coffee, I sometimes sit there still worrying about each of my patients that I may have left overnight at my hospital.

My coping mechanisms:

1. Listen to my Scrubs CD Soundtrack while telling myself that everything will okay, everything happens for a reason.

2. Crack open the Scrubs Season DVD box set and allow laughter to be the best therapy,

3. Be grateful that you're not being chased by a herd of attack ostriches,

4. Seek support from my good friend at work, Turk (Jason),

5. Run home to the one person (my wife) in my life who understands me and constantly brightens my day.

My Return to Tim Hortons

Prior to today's Tim Hortons meet, a follow-up visit was made by Baggio to my garage to make some final adjustments to his coilovers. After a bit of tweaking to the height settings, I was pretty eager to follow suit and wind down my KW coilovers down a few rotations. With daylight, I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of the final height settings. Very sexy indeed!

Before:



After:





Since my wife will be at work tonight I decided to attend the semi-regular meet up at a local Tim Horton's for coffee, doughnuts. Normally, I never really got excited about coffee meet ups. I used to get easily boreds as many of the stories of the glory days were repeated over and over like a broken record. However tonight my excitability changed for two reasons:

1. I've found out that many of the old timer members were attending,

2. I was eager to see what people had done (car modifications) over the winter break.

I've been getting a lot of slack from many VW club members for my lack of attendance and involvement in various club events. My main excuse for having been so socially withdrawn has been due to the recent competion of our new home, increased responsibilites at work, my wife's pregancy including the countless related doctor appoinments. I've also been spending a lot of my weekends in Seattle which leaves me with the inability to attend events by the Volkswagen Drivers of Vancouver, VWVortex or TDIClub.

I know... excuses... excuses. I've tried to explain myself, but now that everything has settled out, I'm going to try to make it out more often.

I was unable to take any pictures of tonight's get together as I accidently left my digital camera's memory card at home. I'll try to find some photos taken by other enthusiast tomorrow and post them up.

The Dirty Suspension Job vs.The Garden Beast

My garage has been a busy place for the past few days. Since putting on my newly acquired 337 front valence, my garage has been visited non-stop by fellow VW enthusiasts who were seeking a place to replace their brakes/rotors, and the installation of coilovers.



After today's visit, I was left with a garage in a state of near disaster. I've never experienced this feeling before. After last weekend's brake job, my good friend (Remy) went the extra mile while cleaning up. I admit, I am a severe neat freak and love having everything organized. However, the garage was absolutely filthy, trash lying everywhere, floors unswept with uncleaned tools lying everywhere. I have to admit, I was a pretty peeved off, but managed to get everything claned and got the garage back to it's normal state in about 10-20 minutes.



I've learned one thing since opening up my garage to friends... discourage them walking around your home with their unwashed greasy hands and make sure they clean up after themselves. Next time, limits will be set!

On a much happier note, I thought I'd post some pictures of my recently acquired street machine: My new Sears Craftsman Lawn Mower. With this, I will rule the neighbourhood lawns. Since purchasing this garden beast last fall, I've restricted it to storage in my garage.

Since it had been so nice outside, I thought I would take the opportunity to break it in. Well... not really. Although tempted to turn the garden unleash the sheer mulching/cutting terror, I was told to wait until late-Spring/early-Summer to give the lawn it's first cut.

"The turf needs time to root itself," said the gardener.

Despite all the excitement and feeling like a kid at the candy store, I managed to hold myself back. I decided to de-virginize the lawnmowerby rolling it onto grass for the first time and took some mouth-watering pictures.



(I stuck on an H&R suspension decal for some extra laughs as I noticed the adjustability in the ride/cutting height)

My Field Trip In Seatch of the McBarge & VM Autohaus!

It's been two days now since filling my TDI with B20 Biodiesel. Everything including my normal fuel mileage seems to be in order. I've noticed no hesitations or power loss as many have claimed when running higher percentages of biodiesel.



I decided to take the opportunity of a bright sunny lunch break from the hospital to scoot out to VM Autohaus in Burnaby. I remembered sighting the MacDonalds McBarge 3-4 years ago anchored along the shorelines of the Barnet Inlet. I decided to take a few minutes and veered off course to look for some sort of road that would allow me to get up and personal it. I ended up spending 30-45 minutes weaving in and out of different streets near Holdom and Hastings Street and found a trail that appeared to lead towards the shoreline.



After parking the car, I grabbed my digital camera with high glee and ventured down the path. Unforuntately the path did not take me down to the shoreline, but I managed to get some semi-clear spyshots! It was a great feeling to see the McBarge again despite it's lack of regular maintenance while in storage.



Here is a brief history lesson for those who are too young to remember. During the World Exposition of 1986 in Vancouver, McDonalds built a restaurant on a barge and had it moored to a dock. It was a very popular attraction because of the floating restaurant concept.

I was forutnate that my family had an unlimited pass to the World's Fair and would make weekly visits.We visited the McBarge during each visit as a result of my annoying begging and arm bending towards my parents. Following the closing of Expo 86, the McBarge was towed away by tugboats to an unknown destination.





After spending a few minutes admiring the old restaurant, I returned to my car to continue my trek to VM Autohaus for some auto parts.



When I arrived, I was greeted by the regular sales-counter guy (Chris) who was cheerful as usual. I've recently become a regular to VM Autohaus for parts due to their honest pricing, great customer service, and their helpful sharing of knowledge regarding maintenance tips. We chatted briefly about VW gossip and I left very contently with a small box containing some OEM VW Automatic Transmission Fluid, a OEM Pollen/Dust Filter, and a new Bosche Fuel Filter.

The total damage: $100 CAN for all the items compared to the quoted $360+ CAN from the local dealership for the same parts plus labour.





After coming home from work, I'm now waiting the arrival of some fellow VW enthusiasts as we are doing yet another suspension installation in my garage. As many of you may have thought, my home has turned into the communal garage. It's just a little payback for the times people have lent me the use of their garage when I didn't have one.

My new weekend plan: Do my 60,000 km maintenance tune up!

Russia ousts Canada from Olympics

Although during the game I had to return to work, my colleagues allowed me to roll in a television into the conference room to watch the game. Nice people eh?

The outcome of today's game was not what I expected. Canada lost 2-0 against Russia in today's quarterfinals in Men's Olympic Ice Hockey. There is already a lot of blame floating around the media questioning Gretzky's dedication to the team and a constant lack of effort by the players.

As a proud supporter of our team, I refuse to play the blame game. I thought the game was very exciting to watch! I was so tempted to skip out on work this afternoon. When I returned to work, my colleagues allowed me to roll in a television into the hospital conference room to watch the game during our workshop/lecture. Nice eh?

Anyways, we went to Torino and gave it our best and it obviously was not enough. We'll have to try harder at Vancouver in 2010! Hopefully, I'll be able to physically attend the game.

On my way home after work, I popped into my local VW dealer: Westminster Volkswagen. Although they have gained a pretty nasty reputation over the past 5 years for poor customer service and prices. I thought I would mention something nice about them as I feel bad that they get slagged all the time.



The purpose of my visit was to buy some replacement light bulbs for my VW Golf. I was greeted at the service counter by a fellow VW enthusiast (Austin) who was very kind to supply me with the light bulbs for free. Kudos for your act of kindness!

http://www.westminstervw.com/en_CA/

Go Team CANADA!

Go Canada Go...



Today is the beginning of the quarter finals in Men's Ice Hockey! Elimination time...

Olympic Hockey is a great excuse to call in sick or ditch work early to watch. As a diehard hockey fan, I desparately scrambled home as quickly as I could during my lunch break to watch the game on my 100" projection screen at home! The unfortunate part is that my lunch break is almost over and I have to go back to work for a workshop this afternoon. Hmmm... do I skip out of work on a sick call?

Hope we can beat Russia this afternoon!

On a VW related note... I've managed to acumulate about 100 km since filling B20 bio-diesel in my TDI. I must admit, I've been a little anxious about the possibility that it may dislodge a lot of build up in my fuel system and clog up my fuel filter. By the grace of VW gods, I've encountered absolutely no problems yet. The car is still running very smoothly and I've noticed no loss or lagging when accelerating.

Because of today's exciting hockey game, I'll have to postpone my trip to VM Autohaus until tomorrow. Hockey comes first... even over Volkswagens!

4-Motion Envy...

The one thing that annoys me most are people who excessively babies their beloved cars and do not use them for it's fullest potential. Reminded me of when I used to have my MK3 Golf VR6, I built it for enthusiastic driving... not simply to sit there and look pretty. I built it to have fun! (Picture Below: DCI Annual Spring BBQ)



Anyways, the reason for this entry was how envious I was of a friend's brother who was having a blast in a East Coast snow storm with his R32.



Way to go R32Argent... work the 4-Motion system! Lately, I've seen so many people on Vortex complaining of rock chips and dirtying their R32s. I understand that the R32 (my all time favorite VW) was a limited production model... but come on... live a little eh!

Spyshots of my new TDI's bodykit!

I was tempted, but it was hard to keep this secret until the first VW club get togethers in late spring or summer. Here are a few sneak peak shots of my new body kit which I installed on Sunday in my driveway while friends used my garage bays for maintenance work on their MK3 Golfs.



The rest of the kit is in transit from San Francisco and should be arriving soon. I also managed to get my hands on a brand new 337 exhaust from Denon Performance. Now for my next mod... anyone got a used R32 powertrain for sale? LOL...



Later that evening, I took the opportunity to unwind my garden hose and wash down the garage bays. All the brake grease and dust just rinsed right out... god bless my friends who advised me to roll a few coats of industrial sealant which prevents stains and dirt setting into the concrete. I'll have to early summer to power wash my driveway to roll sealant on that too. Next garage item on my wishlist... a heavy duty heater to work in the cold.

Sharing my past...

After several attempts to edit the format of my corner, I've come to realise that I can't share my experiences with Volkswagens without sharing the projects that I have previously owned...

It would be a crime not to introduce my good ol' MK3 VR6 conversion. This project started in 1996 with her purchase in a barebones 1.8L CL model platform. After many years of upgrades, unnecessary modifications, and countless sets of new shoes... $60,00 revealed her ultimate prime and beauty! Oh... how I miss her so much!

In 2003, I purchased my second VW, a 1999 B5 Passat GLX from a fellow VW enthusiest, Stargazer.

This is my current project, a 2004 MK4 Golf TDI GLS with R32 Aristo wheels, KW Variant-1 coilovers, OEM GTI tail-lights, and Deisel Tuner Box. I have a OEM 337 Special Edition body kit and exhaust to compliment the wheels... I'll post pictures when it arrives!

I have big plans for my Golf TDI... as I eagerly await the expiry of her factory warranty.

My First Post & Tank of B20 Diesel!

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the Rob Tang Corner which I was inspired to create after following the web-blog of a very good friend named Stargazer. I watched how his blogs were informative, in helping other car enthusiasts with helpful tips.

I know that there are a lot of people on the great world called the internet constantly debating the ability to run B20 and higher B % with a Volkswagen PD motor. I thought, I'd keep a brief online log of my progress. I'd love to eventually run B50 or B100.



I just got back 15 minutes ago from filling my first tank of B20 in my 2005 Golf PD at the Husky Station, Delta GVRD. The attendants were very helpful and knowledgable about their product. The fuel is made by Cascadia Fuels and is a clean production process. I have been running B5 for the past few weeks with no problems despite warnings from VWOA and VW Canada that it could void my warranty.

As soon as I filled up and left the station, I noticed that the PD motor was a lot smoother, and significantly quieter. I have have a pre-existing Diesel Tuning Box in my car which is dialed to F-Mode (The highest setting: 165 hp). When I goosed the car with the B20, I felt no loss in power or torque. The car did not give out the smell or huge plume of black smoke.

I am planning to visit VW Autohaus on my lunch break tomorrow to buy two fuel filters. One to immediately replace the one in my car and a back up one (in case of filter clogging). I called my local dealer today and even with my discount, my cost was $56 CAN per filter. VM Autohaus's price was roughly $30 CAN.

Wish me luck and keep checking back for updates!