Greasy rider

Mark Wootton, an instructor at Currituck County High School in Barco, N.C., twists the key of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. But as the bike roars to life, the engine note is amiss. Suddenly, the garage's pungent smell of oil is replaced with the stomach-rumbling aroma of fried food.

This isn't your average Hog; this one is fueled by soybeans.

The bike holds two gallons of biofuel, half the amount of a gasoline-powered Harley, while returning 100 mpg. Its gas-powered counterpart would consume one of four gallons every 30 miles, meaning this green Harley will go more than 65 percent farther on half the fuel.

"I felt a little like a duck out of water when I first started the project because my forte was gasoline-powered engines and performance cars," said Wootton, who grew up in Houston during the muscle-car era.

But rising fuel prices, a tanking economy and growing ecological awareness affected his thinking.

"It was time for the old dog to learn some new tricks," said Wootton, an Automotive Service Excellence certified master technician.

Wootton's class commonly takes on projects for outside clients.

Usually, those projects have four wheels, such as a 1984 Buick Regal Grand National, a Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS and a vintage Dodge Brothers firetruck.

In this case, the customer was his brother, who wanted to build a biofuel autocross racer to showcase his business, Keystone Biofuels Inc. of Shiremanstown, Pa., just west of Harrisburg.

But when the parts proved too pricey, Wootton looked for an alternative. That's when he spotted this vehicle online.

"It was purple, it was ugly and it was beat," he said.

The bike had been built by another shop teacher, who installed a 22.2-horsepower Perkins three-cylinder diesel engine. But the bike had issues, despite having only 5,000 miles on the clock.

"The right running board was too far down," he said. "It wouldn't make a right turn - 5,000 miles and no right turn. The braking system was never up to par. I was scared to even drive it."

So the bike ended up being the students' next project. Wootton knew that motorcycle shows, such as TLC's "American Chopper," are popular.

"Kids always want to come to school and experience something like that," he said. "The whole experience you see on TV was played out here, except for the foul language. We don't do that here."

He found a receptive audience when the bike was delivered in January.

"When it came off the trailer, their jaws dropped," Wootton said. "It was as quiet as I've seen my students in the 14 years that I've been here."

So Wootton's students got the task of rebuilding the bike.

It runs on B100, a diesel fuel derived from organic sources such as animal fat, trash, seaweed or, in this case, soybeans.

According to Wootton, the fuel costs about the same as regular diesel, but temperatures limit its use. Below 32 degrees, the fuel starts to gel, so it must be cut with regular diesel fuel to lower its gelling point. And unlike a popular biodiesel alternative, french fry grease, B100 doesn't have to be preheated before it's used.

On the plus side, B100's lurbrication qualities extend oil-change intervals to 10,000 miles. And there's no need to buy fuel additives to clean out the injectors: B100's solvency does it for you.

Wootton finds that hands-on learning yields the best results. He should know: Before joining the staff 14 years ago, Wootton trained auto-repair center owners.

"My kids actually do the work," he said. "I set them

up with projects and break them off into teams of four or five kids, and they do everything."

Only the second automotive teacher in the high school program's 45-year existence, Wootton has taught alternative-fuel projects before. A previous class installed electric power in a Saturn SL2 sedan.

"It comes from the factory with a little 135-horsepower gas engine," he said. "When we got done, it had a 215-horsepower electric engine. You could put four full-size men in that thing and lay rubber for 20 feet every time you launched that thing. And it would do 75 miles per hour."

So, how good is the the latest project?

Officials from nearby Blackwater Worldwide have taken the motorcycle for a spin.

"They're also looking at alternative fuels," he said.

"There are entities trying to build self-contained biodiesel manufacturing plants that fit into a container box so they can be shipped anywhere in the world, picked up by most large helicopters and dropped in next to a bean field. In 24 hours, you have diesel fuel."