March 7th, 2009.
...While I know that it is the combustion chambers, and not the FDC that makes the engine a "Multifuel", I have also noticed that trucks that were
bypassed in the FDC ended up stencilled "Diesel Only"...., given the volatility of Diesel prices last year (and I bet when the economy recovers all around the world - it's gonna go up again), isn't it likely that the engines that aren't able to handle the different fuels are gonna be stuck with diesel only?...
The ability to run on (almost) anything is like you say, in the engine. The pump is "calibrated" on the fly by the FDC, setting the maximum horsepower output based on the fuel used. More specifically, the energy per gallon of fuel is estimated mechanically by FDC, based on the viscosity (thickness) of the fuel. Thicker fuel decreases the fuel rate, and thinner fuel increases the fuel rate. Among the authorized fuels this pretty closely follows the energy content. Among all the possible fuels... Well, there are certainly exceptions.
When you bypass the FDC, it goes to "default mode". During the process, the main (and now fixed) maximum fuel rate is adjusted to match the desired performane, based on diesel fuel. So now, if one were to run another fuel in this bypassed engine, the engine still wouldn't care, but the horsepower of the engine will not be correct.
With that in mind, my opinion on why they say "diesel Only"... Simply put, the truck doesn't meet it's performance specifications with any other fuel. Too much or too little horsepower is out of spec and needs to be fixed. The fix is to only use diesel fuel, and the performance is correct. Hence they say "Diesel Only".
(IMHO) outside of the military, Maybe it's a little quicker from zero to sixty on one fuel than on another. If you've keep a deuce for racing purposes, you're gonna need to change a lot more than the fuel settings.....