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I've never actually had a vegetable oil powered diesel, but have seen and ridden in and driven Mercedes 300 series cars, both oil and diesel fuel powered. Power pretty much the same.
I don't remember there being a ton of extra room in the 240 Diesel's engine bay, and you will need some room to install the extra lines for the oil system and the pre-heater for the oil. There's plenty of room in the trunk for the veggie oil fuel tank, so no worries there. And you could do a very nice looking install of the veggie oil fuel level gauge and a rocker switch to control when you switch from diesel to veggie oil.
I know there are systems available (but I forget where and how) to allow you to run on vegetable oil from start-up to shut-off, but most systems have you start up on diesel until the oil is heated and ready to flow, and then have you switch to diesel a few minutes before you shut off the car, so that the oil does not cool, harden, and clog in the fuel lines. Sounds like even more of a pain than the shut-down idling for Turbos.
The MB diesels are pretty much bulletproof, and great motors, and also run well on vegetable oil. The VW diesels I know little about, so I would suggest you try to find someone running one on vegetable oil and see how it is working for them. But engine reliability aside, I think you could do a much cleaner installation into a 240 than any of the MB or Peugot conversions I have seen, with aux gauges and fuel lines and switches just bolted everwhere in the car.
I would love to see one of the 700 series Turbodiesels in a 240 body running vegetable oil. But I don't know if that is possible.
The environmental impact of converting a diesel to vegetable oil is much debated. You are using less petroleum than you would be otherwise, but many of the chemicals commonly mixed with the oil are incredibly bad for you and the environment. Bio-diesel is a very dangerous substance to be mixing in your backyard or basement, but some vendors do carry it now, so you might want to ask around at local filling stations. The commercial versions allow you to simply pump it just like normal diesel, no second tank and fuel lines, and no annoying start-up and shut-down procedures.
Any way you decide, good luck. It would be nice to see a 240 Diesel or two on the road, as long as I'm not stuck behind you... ;)
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Logan
1981 242GLTi 1967.5 122S Automatic (tempermental)
Seattle, WA
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