Ultimate fuel additive?

Well it didn't send me packing.

So without further delay, episode #4 of "Acetone".

Okay kids hope you have your decoder rings ready, cause this is an exciting one. My trip odometer milage was 450.9. That's right 450 miles. However we do need to use our decoder rings for the corrected milage. Now using .03 error per mile on my odometer gives us a corrected milage of.............. 464.427 miles, out of that last tank of gas. Ah yes, how much fuel did I use? Well, the total amount of fuel this last tank was 12.614 gallons. Okay kids are you ready for the miles per gallon? The decoder ring gives us 36.818 mpg.

Oh isn't that just fantastic milage?

But wait....... there's a twist to this episode.

It had nothing to do with the acetone.

GASP!!!

Oh I did use .3 mil of acetone per gallon on the last tank. So what did I do different to get such great milage?

No I didn't add any special concoction to the tank.

Well if you go back and reread the info on the site, a little more than half way down, just below the graph, it gives away what I did. It said that they measured the fuel consumption at steady 50mph. Well no fricken DUH Sherlock! It is a know fact that if you slow down you will consume less gas. So I drove the Jimmy Carter "double nickle", 55mph, for this tank of gas.

Again this isn't the first time I have seen this gas milage. During the summer when the price of gas was over $3 per gallon I slowed down. I averaged 37mpg, with my record tank getting 40mph. But let me tell you I had to drive like a TURTLE to get that milage!

So for the sake of testing, this tank I will again observe 55mph. BUT, with out the use of the acetone. Yes kids, without the safety of a net.

So........

Tune in next fill up for another exciting episode of "Acetone", fact or fiction.

 

Thanks for the 4th data point ernie! Good work.

 

Gary

You are borderline insulting to those of us who do science! Suppose we dismissed your ability to recognize carbon deposits on valves. Same thing! And you would be justified at being annoyed, at least.

I think you are missing a basic principle of science. A hypothesis or theory is tested by trying to see if it can be disproven. This is common sense, not some arcane scientific quirk. Court cases have even turned on this principle. IT IS NOT A PERSONAL ISSUE, JUST THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.
Also the number of tests needed in a multiple component system is huge if science does not reject most of them a Priori.
Suppose the 4 components you list are to be tested to see if each is at its optimum level. This would take at least 3 levels of each - one lower and one higher that your baseline. That is 81 combinations, times the number of tanks of gasoline needed for each test. If other potential components like MEK or Toluene are to be tested (how do you know they won't work as well or better - other people have suggested them?) you have exceeded the number of FerrriChat members!

Warren

 

Sure to learn all the relationships, but to simply optimize we could do a taguchi and be done in 9 tests I think, I'd have to check my book, it might be 12.

It doesn't matter any way, Ernie found the lie. They preach something useless, then alter the test condition to include a well prove solution to show how well their snake-oil works

 

OOOOOOPS!!!! That was a typo. It should have read "40mpg", not "mph".

 

Ernie, I filled up today.

Did my milage improve?


No.



no noticeable difference.




I followed the authors directions as close as possiable. and as far as i'm concerned and not suprisingly, I consider the practice nothing more than another "snake oil" myth.

but hey, it was interesting none the less. and besides, it made me giggle at myself.

good luck

 

Okay kids is Acentone Time!!! This weeks espisode "Tank #5".

So at last fill-up I decided NOT to use any acetone at all. But I did decide to stick with driving slow. Man was that a pain in the neck, especially for a guy like me that likes to drive at a nice pace. But for the sake of our little test I drove slow.

I was able to drive about 65 miles at 45mph. I was able to do this because I was on the Pacific Cost Highway. However around 20 miles of that was on some back roads. The rest of the driving was totally on the freeway at 55mph, with about 50 miles stop and go traffic.

So are you ready for the milage?

The corrected milage for the last tank was.......drum roll.......488.55 miles! The total gallons used was 12.855, giving us a fuel economy of 38.022mpg!!!! That is WITH OUT the use of acetone.

So after going through 4 tanks of gasoline using acetone, and 1 tank without, I think it is safe to say this myth is BUSTED!!!! I saw no gain in my gas milage using it. I also saw no loss. The acetone did nothing to improve my gas milage.

The one way that was show to drasticly show an improvement of gas milage was to SLOW DOWN. I gained 7mpg by slowind down 10mph. On thet site they tested there fuel economy by driving a steady 50mph. I'll bet if I did the same thing I could pick up another 1-2mpg. Or based on my last tanks at 65mph, I got an extra 100 miles out of a tank driving 55mph.

The info on that site sure did sound convincing to read. But once it was put to the test it failed. Acetone giving better fuel economy is a bunch of mumbo jumbo as far as I'm concerned.

 

ooh but don't forget the residual effect!

 

Ernie,

Thanks for the latest report. It actually confirms something I read recently -- that the largest gains in fuel economy that you can make are by simply driving at moderate speed, using your cruise control whenever possible, and accelerating like you've got an egg better your shoe and the gas pedal. "Jack-rabbit" starts, excessive speed, and aburpt changes in speed (especially full throttle acceleration) kill fuel economy. Driving very smoothly, using cruise control to maintain a constant moderate speed and avoiding fast acceleration can produce "Hybrid-like" fuel economy on almost any car. While you disproved the acetone additive myth, you proved the old advise on achieving better fuel economy -- slow down and drive smooth.

Regards,
Steve

 

Well gentlemen, here it goes. As I've stated earlier in the thread , I was going to try the acetone in my Lincoln Navigator for a month to see what happens. Now before anyone begins typing thier fingers off about being non-scientific, or not a proper experiment, I already know this. This is just one persons results in one vehicle. I did try not to alter any of my normal driving routines in the process.
So to recap, vehicle is an 01 Navigator with approx. 80k on it. I usually run 87 octane unless towing then switch to 91.
At the start of the test average fuel milage was 12.4 MPG. Tank #1 was 12.6 MPG. Tank #2 was 12.8MPG. Tank #3 was 13.4MPG and Tank #4 was 13.9MPG. This to me is pretty significant. Also more important to me is the fact that the acetone seems to work as an octane booster. This allows me to run 87 octane without fear of detonation.
Along with the Navigator, I tried it in my Honda CR 500 dirt bike. Once again
I was able to run the bike on a lower grade of fuel with acetone and did not get any detonation. Normally the bike would detonate if it did not have 1/2 race fuel in it. I was able to run 91octane with acetone with good effect.
I think acetone works as a very cost effective octane booster.
Once again guys, I realise this is not a scientific study, but I do have a lot of experience with high performance race motors in cars and bikes, and if the motor is "happy" running super unleaded and acetone instead of super unleaded and race fuel, something has to be happening. And with leaded 112 octane race fuel at $7 a gallon, Ill be happy to add a bit of acetone.
Best Regards. Darrell.

 

Your data is interesting. Anti-knock benefits have also been highlighted elsewhere. If you keep using acetone, it would be worth knowing if your mileage ever fluctuates back down to your more usual 12.4 or if you consistently sustain the extra 10% into the mid-13's. If you sustain it, then stop using the acetone for a few tanks and see if the mileage decreases again. When you say "normal", you're saying there's no significant difference between speed of driving and use of A/C during this period versus prior, or does normal just mean you use it everyday and one tank might be more freeway and another tank more city and you're not paying much attention which?

 

Awe Darrell, cummon man. You should have logged the milage and usage each fill-up.

I'm still sort of running the test, I'm logging the miles and usage without it. So we can see a compairison of with and without.

Now I do trust that you are not getting detonation (pinging), but I am willing to bet that the increase in milages is due more to driving condition than the acetone. If you go back and reread my milage, there was an increase in milage with the acetone, but that was due to the speed and conditions, and I had seen those number before without it.

 

Gary, no one's taking potshots for the sake of taking potshots or suggesting that you can't experiment. All we've ever said is look at *all* the data, conduct *multiple* experiments and consider *both* positive and negative evidence.

If you've read my post above, you will see that I accepted dmoore's data and suggested some additional experiments he could run.

 

Most of my driving is a pretty even mix of city/highway. Occasional a/c use, and one otherthing, my wife who also drives the truck, never knew about the "experiment". I didn't want her to change her driving habits. I'm going to run one more tank through with acetone, then try without again to see if there will be a difference in milage.

 

I wasn't taking it personally, I was just using myself as an example of the group that's saying "experiment meaningfully".

 

HEY KIDS, DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?!!!!!

IT'S ACETONE TIME!!!!!!

This episode "Tank #6".

So, this last tank I again used no acetone. But this time I drove at 65mph. Well actually I drove pretty spirited. Only about 25 miles of this last tank was city driving the rest of it was all freeway. I drove around 120 miles of this last tank at 75-80mph, the rest of it was at 65mph, with around 60 miles of it stop and go traffic.

Okay now for the results. I used 12.898 gallons of gas. Just as a reminder I am only using 87 octane. The last tank was filled up at an ARCO station. Okay so now for the milage. The corrected milage was 409.01 miles, giving us a fuel economy of 31.71mpg. I said before, this is my average mpg I have been getting for the last 4 years.

This tank without acetone showed no less milage than the tank with it. However, the one thing I did notice this tank was that my fuel guage was reading correctly again. When I had the acetone in my tank I noticed that the guage was reading empty, when I still had enough gas to go another 50-60 miles. This time the guage showed that I was close to empty but still had a little bit left, and it was right.

Now I don't know for sure if the acetone was playing tricks on the gas tank float, but it did seem like it.

So that's all for this tank full. See you kids next fill-up.

 

Oh I was using 100% acetone. The can says "acetone", not contains.

The stuff does nothing to improve gas milage, as far as I'm concerned.