No real details yet, but Mazda is planning to bring a diesel to the U.S. by 2010. It’s anticipated that the motor will be 50 state legal, meeting the strict Tier2 Bin5 levels of states like California. Most likely this is an effort to complete with manufacturers like Volkswagen and Nissan who will have new clean diesels in the U.S. by then.

Mazda is doing other steps to be more “green” besides diesel such as a more fuel efficient auto tranny, a reworked Rotary engine design, hydrogen power, and lightening their cars altogether.

Source: Motor Trend

The maiden voyage of the Chili Pepper Racing B50 powered Jetta didn’t go so well, but there is always going to be kinks to work out of something new. I got the tip off one of the other blogs I read, Rich C’s My Desultory Blog, and here is the press release from CPR:

Chili Pepper Racing brings Bio-Diesel to SPEED World Challenge Series at Sebring

SCCA Pro Racing and Chili Pepper Racing changed the face of Motorsports

With the start of Round 1 SPEED World Challenge Touring Car Series Chili Pepper Racing became the first team to race a production based DIESEL powered car in US Touring car history. In addition, SCCA PRO Racing and Chili Pepper Racing made Motorsport history as the first to approve and race BIO-Diesel fuel in a production based Touring Car Series World Wide.

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Now I happen to think shooting flames from the tailpipe is cool, but I guess I just liked those old modified 50’s cars too much.

From the Associated Press.

Ford Motor Co. today told dealers to temporarily stop selling certain 2008 F-series Super Duty diesel pickups after receiving reports of flames shooting out of the truck’s tailpipe.

Ford said it was recalling 37,400 F-Series Super Duty trucks with 6.4-liter diesel engines. The majority of the pickups — 29,000 — were still on dealer lots, the automaker said.

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