Ultimate fuel additive?

Yes this is true, it even says so right on the can.

None the less the test still goes on.

This would have been a great episode for the show "Myth Busters". But since we can't wait for the show, we'll just bust the myth here.

 

Fair enough... I suppose that if I had purchased a TR over the summer instead of a $700,000 house, I'd be "in the club" - but since I *didnt'*, I'm not worthy of having an opinion in this thread. For the record, my opinion would be the same regardless of what kind of car was in the garage.

Until then, I guess I'll go back to my models...

P.S. - somebody PM Carbon and let him know he's not allowed to oppose anybody's opinion on this board who owns a Ferrari - the owners can stand up for themselves. In fact, make sure he just sticks to his black on black Enzo obsession, and discusses nothing more...

 

Do you add the additive EVERY TIME? Because the proper way to test is to change just ONE thing. Every variable counts and you likely just skewed your results.

 

I am adding ONLY the acetone, and ONLY using 87 octane.

 

You might be substituting one source of Acetone for another, if Tectron contains acetone, as many of these additives apparently do. You might be able to tell by smell if the label does not say so (usually they say something like "contains petroleum distillates, of which acetone is one).

Cheers
Warren

 

Hi Gary:

I know you didn't say acetone was new - I was rebutting the article you asked us to review. And it certainly tried to leave that impression. The problem with the article was the lack of knowlege of basic science. I didn't see anything I would even call a falsehood - that would imply deliberate intent to deceive rather than being misinformed about some scientific principles.
I support you and all the people who do research: how could I not, after spending most of my working life as a researcher.
My advice is to always start with basic principles. For the combustion process that is thermodynamics, which will govern how much power is produced for any set of conditions. And of course, more energy/power for a given fuel input let you get better mileage. That is pretty easy to test in the laboratory. You could also if you had a dyno and the associated equipment to measure the temperatures, pressures, and combustion products.
The issue of fuel additives and valve, injector, and cleaning of the entire fuel system, is more difficult, since it is so dependent on long term testing and you must be able to measure rather small differences.
Keep after it - but be skeptical in the scientific sense as you go.

Cheers
Warren

 

Every week there is another product that makes you younger, gives you 5 or 10 percent better gas milage, improves oil so as to diminish wear and get better fuel economy. 'These products come and go.

It may be that some day a panacea will emerge but it will be on the evening news, many magazines and the real tests will be at SAE and others.

For now I will use gas and oil without additives having hugh claims. This is safest for my cars. The day that a panacea comes out I will let you know and i will show you SAE and other articles to back up the claim.

aehaas

 

my god I thought you said on your car!! now my paint is all gooy!! This is terrible. Dont try this at home!!!

 

I do not see how acetone will diminish a built up carbon deposit. However, I can imagine that varnish build up on cylinder walls can be reduced over a long period of time. This would also assume that the source of the deposit was eliminated (use a better, newer gas and oil). The acetone may also result in oil dilution. This may increase your gas milage as a secondary effect.

This whole thing assumes a very dirty engine that may best be treated by an overhaul for real and instant results.

It sort of reminds me of the saying that if a little is good then a lot must be better. Vitamin B12 contains cyanide. A little is not only good but essential. A little more is bad. This is true of all additives making up the whole oil or gas product. Additives must be at just the right amount. An anti-wear oil additive may work as needed at one concentration but may actually be corrosive as an acid at a higher concentration.

I am one who never uses additives in my oil or gas. The chemistry is just too interactive.

An octane boost is only good if you can adjust the timing to take advantage of it.

aehaas

 

My guess, based on the acetone notes on wikipedia.org, is that the acetone is acting as a fuel-injector cleaner. Many of the things they see can be attributed to dirty/clogged injectors - poor gas mileage, smoother running, etc. Anything that helps eliminate the deposits that can clog injectors would help fuel mileage and power, and even help prevent detonation.

Just my $0.02

 

As a scientific test - to show that acetone (or any other additive) can boost gas mileage by 20 - 30%, you need data showing that a 20 to 30% decrease had taken place as the car aged.
Your hypothesis is that valves get dirty with age and mileage decreases - reversing this condition will restore mileage.
You need to confirm both parts of this hypothesis.

Cheers
Warren

 

We would also have to answer the question 20 to 30% over what. Over manufacturer's specifications, the particular user's experience, the vehicle's previous tank of fuel, etc.

 

Hi Gary:

I will stipulate that valves get dirty - I have seen quite a few myself. Think 100 K+ mile cars (prior to fuel injection) Also that additives TEND to keep then cleaner.
But I thought your hypothesis was that 20 to 30% mileage increase was possible by cleaning them. Actually a clean (no pun intended) experiment would be to take a dirty engine whose mileage has been checked over a period of time - pull the heads and clean the carbon from the valves, and put it back on the road with no other modifications.

Cheers
Warren

 

I'm shocked...I just can't believe that adding an insignificant amount of a chemical that mostly has completely evaporated within a day or 2 didn't improve your mileage....it's almost like moving the car requires a specific amount of energy regardless of what chemical the energy is coming from and the engines efficency is primarily a fuction of heat transfer rates, flow, friction, and compression ratio and doesn't much care about the fuel...weird.

 

Remember that the claim is of a 30% fuel economy increase. The parts of the page I read indicated that this guy's neon was getting ~50mpg city. He doesn't claim that it helps by cleaning valves, and dirty valves can't explain that mileage claim. This isn't about cleaning valves or varnish, it's supposed to improve fuel economy way beyond what the car was ever capable of. Should be easy to evaluate!

 

I knew I had just read about this...Autoweek, Denise McClugagge's column, recently.

Acetone alters the surface tension of the gasoline, allowing better dispersment during the combustion process.

It IS a heck of a solvent, we use it cleaning fibreglass resin, etc.......at this low concentration I don't think it's gonna remove existing carbon deposits...

 

the author recommended the additive.

quote form author:

"It has been reported that we only add acetone every other tankful. That was for test purposes only. We do the acetone every tankful. Then we add an equal amount of the Texaco/Chevron additive Techron right on top of the acetone. "
unquote

I feel that to properly conferm the author's claim, the test needs to be done exactly like he does it.

 

Checking out the acetone page on wikipedia shows that many people are making far smaller claims - 2 to 10% - for the use of acetone. Which raises questions of whether what they're seeing is statistically significant. The wiki page also talks about the problems with the surface tension claim (basically fuel has a pretty low surface tension to begin with and fuel in the cylinder is vaporized). But it makes sense as a detergent, though there are additives out there which will likely be better for engine plastics.

 

Perfusion did get a little aggressive in his tone, but I think Perfusion's point was that the motivation for someone to provide bad data on FChat would be primarily targetted against F-car owners. I don't think he was speaking "presumptiously" for owners by making that point. A lot of non-owner mechanics and specialists also frequent this board and the same comment you make could superficially apply to them if they interjected, but you probably wouldn't make it to them.

As far as experimental data, a search finds this link with test data for many more cars than here...

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Acetone_as_a_Fuel_Additive#Results.2C_Listed_Alphabetically_According_to_Manufacturer_--_Automobile

Note that results are all over the board (mileage decrease, no change, mileage increase). This suggests something going on that uncontrolled experiments won't resolve.

 

Gary I'm not sure you've got your terms correct. What you're looking at is not "surface tension" (which is a measure of the cohesive properties of a molecule) but viscous drag.

No matter, you're right, the effects viscous drag can produce atomized fuel (i.e. little droplets). My problem with an explanation that suggests that acetone reduces this lies in the fact that boundary layer drag is a product of three things: 1) the velocity of the gas/liquid in question 2) the viscosity of the gas/liquid in question and 3) the length over which the gas flows. Since 3 remains constant and 1) won't vary much, the only thing it is possible to change is the viscosity of the gas/fuel mixture. Given the small quantities in which it is added (0.15%) it doesn't seem to me that there would produce an appreciable change in the viscosity of the air/fuel mixture - or at least one that wouldn't be duplicated by atmospheric changes.

However, if it acted as a detergent and helped get rid of small deposits in the injectors that create turbulence in the airflow and increase the likelihood of droplets forming- that seems to me a better explanation of the effect.