Excursion Vegistroke install, Full story

[greasy_Exc]

I started researching this project about two years ago, and finally had enough of this price gouging to get off my ass and make it happen. So i purchased a 2001 Excursion 7.3l powerstroke with 131k miles on it, got a pretty good deal too (walked out of the dealership $9100). This price included my trade in which the dealer graciously gave me $1500 more than KBB stated it was worth, and them coming down over $4000 off their asking price. After acquiring the truck, I began to look into the different kits that would fit my specific needs. After a lot of shopping around, I had narrowed it to the Excursion specific Golden Fuel Systems kit, and the very expensive Vegistroke kit. The GFS kit was winning, as it was cheaper (and more importantly the ONLY kit I found that offered a kit specifically designed for the Excursion 7.3l) plus I would not have to purchase a separate tank (the kit came with one). I was a click away from making that huge mistake… I was in negotiations with a company out of Oakland CA called VegRev, one of the proprietors, William was very helpful, introducing me to Brian Gharst (custom tank fabricator) and he told me about something called Polymerization. Unfortunately, that is where his helpfulness ended… I spoke with him several times over the phone and each time the price for the install went up, starting at $800 and eventually winding up at $1400 tentatively . I drove the truck to Oakland to have William take a look and hopefully get a better idea on the details of the install. From the moment he looked under my truck, my warm fuzzy got cold. He kept mentioning how this was going to be difficult the install was going to be (a contrary to everything I heard), and with enough money anything could be accomplished… Well I don’t know about the rest of you, but I didn’t embark on a vegi conversion because I am rolling in cash… As I said before, William did introduce me to a tank fabricator, which worked out very well, this guy did excellent work and at a very fair price. The exact opposite of his acquaintance, Brian gave me a very confident feeling that the tank I would be receiving would be great quality and at the price negotiated. The fun didn’t stop there, William of VegRev decided that because he introduced me to the tank fabricator, this was indeed a “sub-contract” and he was entitled to a $150 fee. Now keep in mind that my truck never entered this guys shop, we didn’t make it past the negotiation stage, thankfully Brian did not share Williams opinion, and refused to collect the fee on his behalf (at one time William demanded that Brian surrender the tank so that I would have to collect it from him).

William did recommend the Vegistroke (this is where I learned of polymerization) and educated me on the way GFS does their Excursion kit, and I thank him for that. This would have been a very bad end to an important project, as I am sure many of you went through the same skeptical replies from family members who did not know anything about WVO conversions, I did not want this to fail. I did more research into the Vegistroke kit and found that EVERYONE who installed this kit praised it, this was not the case with the GFS kit. There were lots of people who had purchased the GFS excursion kit, who after installing it had to uninstall it, only to start from scratch… Not a happy time after $2000 spent, I’m sure. I got on the phone with James from DFA, and he was very helpful had answers to all my questions, and even tolerated my thick skulled understanding of how the system worked.

Now, because I am not extremely handy with a wrench, I still required that someone install this kit so the search was on to find a qualified installer. A friend of mine recommended Shane from RoverHybrids in Redding CA after a cursory glance of his website he looked worth checking out. A few conversations later, I drove up to Redding and dropped the truck off, Shane was very professional, and had a vast knowledgebase to answer all my questions. I was quoted $1200, $1000 for the Vegistroke install and $200 for some other work I had done to the truck. Shane had never installed a Vegistroke kit before, and a lot more work goes into an excursion with a custom tank, than a F250 with a bed tank. GFS sold me their remote fuel port for $85 plus shipping, that was the worst atrocity of this entire project… I will post pictures of the “dual fill port” along with the tank and install photos. This piece of crap is composed of about $15 worth of materials found at home depot, and some half ass slapping together of said parts all packaged for $85. Now, this is a good idea; a nice clean filler for an Excursion so you don’t have to drill a hole in the side of your truck to access your vegi tank, but that is horse **** price. My suggestion is to make your own, or have a fabricator make one for you. Shane had to put more work into this project than he received compensation for, however, he remained true to his quote and did not charge me a penny more than promised. In addition to that he filled my tank with oil, and offered to drive the 150 miles to deliver it at no cost to me(he has family in the area). Talk about freaking awesome customer service! Shane is a very competent diesel mechanic, and I would recommend him to anyone who either does not know their way around a diesel engine, or is too busy to do it themselves.

So there you have it, my project is done, and I have burned approximately 80 gallons of oil at the time of this writing. I get funny looks from people at stop lights, and curious inquires in parking lots, this is looking to be the best investment I have made ever. So long as most people are too lazy to go through the trouble of having to collect the oil that is… I will post pictures either tonight or tomorrow of everything that was done. Take care.

[NCfarmboy]

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to post your experiences. I'm very interested in buying a vegistroke kit myself, and this only encourages me. Thanks!!

[Delwars]

Sounds good!!! I am currently looking for a Excursion for my girlfriend. I would love to see some pics of your install.

[greasy_Exc]

Sorry, I haven't had time to take the pics yet, I'll try to get them posted by tomorrow night... Thursday at the latest. Your welcome, if this helps you avoid the mistakes I made during this project (still ongoing by the bye) then it would have been worth my time.

[greasy_Exc]

Here are some pictures of the tank before it was installed, Ill add the after pics later. The hole on top is for my ISSPRO fuel sender, the bolted on piece is my heat exchanger/fuel pickup.

[PreservedSwine]

Who is "William" of Veg-Rev?

Sounds like a piece of work.

[Delwars]

Nice tank. Were did you mount it???

[greasy_Exc]

@swine
I didn't get the guys last name, there are only two people at VegRev and one is William. He was going to install my Vegistroke system. You got it man, he kept saying how he would like to pay his rent... This guy looked at me with $$ in his eyes. Honestly don't know what gave him the idea, I am a US Sailor... We don't make much.

@Delwars
Underneath the X, ill take pictures either tonight or tomorrow and post them. The tank pics above are before it went in.

[edoubleupvlx]

I also just installed a v3 in my 2001 ex. I fabbed up the tank out of cardboard and tape and took it to a tank builder. My heat exchanger is built in using 5/8 aluminum tubing runing 5 feet down and 5 feet back on the bottom of the tank for coolant. Everything went in easy on the vegistroke side but my tank took some extra work to mount up. The only thing that didnt go so nice was putting the switches in the excursion dash. There is not enough flat for the switches to look perfect. I should have realized before I cut but its now bad. Heres some Pics.

[greasy_Exc]

Here are the install pictures, sorry it took so long.

[greasy_Exc]

some more of the install pictures.

[wilson & Co]

thanks for the pics of the filler greasy!

[greasy_Exc]

no problem.

[Pancreas]

G,
Hows you milage on the SVO?
Where the best non fluff info on the SVO conversions and SVO fuels?

[greasy_Exc]

This site has lots of information, I got most of my research questions answered here. My mileage varies from when I drive to when my wife drives She gets about 13mpg on veggie, I get 11. It doesn't matter when the fuel is free though! My tank holds ~30gal I haven't measured it from empty to full, the installer (Shane@ Roverhybrids) filled my tank up before I picked the truck up. He said he didn't measure how much he put in either. As far as an excursion SVO conversion question, I can answer almost anything you ask! I can even hook you up with the Tank fabricator who did my tank, its pretty lightweight so shipping wouldn't kill you either. Let me know