What do you get when you cross an entrepreneurial Aussie handyman with an environmental engineer? Answer: a business that can make a diesel car’s exhaust smell like an egg roll while dramatically cutting down on its carbon-dioxide emissions and dependence on petroleum. Marty Hanka (the engineer) and Phil Inman (the Australian) have been operating GoodOil Boys since 2005, and in that time they’ve converted approximately 40 vehicles to run on waste vegetable oil. Inman spoke with Louisville Magazine about the conversion kits they install and how they can benefit the environment and pocketbooks.
How did converting cars to run on vegetable oil become a feasible business idea?
Marty and I have been friends for many years, and I’ve been in Louisville for five years now. We were looking for ideas to conserve energy and save costs, and focused on our cars. We looked at ethanol and biodiesel, and hybrid cars. Then we came across this system that we just call a two-tank vegetable-oil system. Once we installed the kits into our own vehicles, we decided it was such a good idea that maybe we could set it up as a business.
What do you get when you cross an entrepreneurial Aussie handyman with an environmental engineer? Answer: a business that can make a diesel car’s exhaust smell like an egg roll while dramatically cutting down on its carbon-dioxide emissions and dependence on petroleum. Marty Hanka (the engineer) and Phil Inman (the Australian) have been operating GoodOil Boys since 2005, and in that time they’ve converted approximately 40 vehicles to run on waste vegetable oil. Inman spoke with Louisville Magazine about the conversion kits they install and how they can benefit the environment and pocketbooks.
Who makes a prime candidate for conversion?
Someone who has a diesel vehicle and drives more than 20 miles per day, like a delivery person or a fleet operator who has vehicles running around using diesel. The more miles you do, the more you’re going to save, and it will pay for your kit. Cars we’ve done vary from Volkswagen Jettas and Beetles to Isuzu box trucks, F-250s, F-450s, Mercedes — lots of Mercedes; they’re a popular one to convert.
What’s the most unusual side effect of the conversion?
The first one, when we didn’t really know what we were doing. We worked hard for a long time, studied, and hooked the system all up. The first day we started it up, we ran around to the back to smell the exhaust coming out — it smelled like french fries! We still run around to smell the exhaust every time we finish one.
What kinds of sacrifices are required of someone who wants to do this?
The only thing you have to do is make a choice between using diesel or vegetable oil once you’re in the car. You bring the temperature of the engine up and heat the vegetable oil to the viscosity of diesel to go through the fuel injectors and into the engine. Once it heats up — could be two city blocks to 10 city blocks — you have a switch on your dashboard, and you can flip from diesel to vegetable oil.
At the /files/storyimages/of the day you have to purge the system, or take the vegetable oil out of the fuel lines so it doesn’t congeal overnight and go hard, which is about a 15- to 30-second process. Really, there’s not a great deal of effort. People can buy oil from me; it’s $1.50 per gallon and includes tax. Or they can go to a restaurant themselves and ask for their waste oil.
