Acetone = better mileage?
1 - 20 of 151 Posts
Joined
·
453 Posts
just read the article, very interesting, curious to see what others think....
Joined
·
45 Posts
Questions asked of someone in the petroleum industry regarding ACETONE will often automatically trigger a string of negative reactions and perhaps false assertions. We may have heard them all. The mere mention of this additive represents such a threat to oil profits that you may get fabricated denials against the successful use of acetone in fuels.
The author has never found any valid reason for not using acetone in gasoline or diesel fuel. Plus it takes such a tiny amount to work. No wonder they fear this additive.
Political Action
You might Email this article to your government representative. After sufficient data has been collected, and that data supports the conclusions presented here, ACETONE should be ordered by Federal Law to be present in all fuels. While you're at it, request that vehicles be equipped with a MPG read-out to make it easier for consumers to know what is and is not working to improve their mileage.
Many products claiming to improve mileage are expensive and do not really help much. Others are fakes. For instance, a SMOOTH flow of air into a carburetor or injector is far better for mileage than turbulent air. Turbulence is bad. Yet many people deliberately introduce turbulent air into their engines. There are many silly myths floating around the car industry to fool the average person. Another is that cold intake air improves mileage. NO. Warm air improves mileage.
Using the ScanGauge at 50MPH, my best mileage was 48-52 in my Neon a few weeks ago. Then I stopped the acetone to do some reverse testing. The next four tanks of the same Texaco gas showed 42-43, 37-38, 33-34, 30-31. No acetone when each tank was filled at half-full. The drop was about 20 MPG overall. Recent tests at a steady 50 MPH show 61-63 MPG in the Neon. People report OVER 62 MPG in Toyota Prius vehicles with a tiny bit of acetone in the gas. The other person with me each time wrote down the results. Single source reporting is not a good idea.
The author has never found any valid reason for not using acetone in gasoline or diesel fuel. Plus it takes such a tiny amount to work. No wonder they fear this additive.
Political Action
You might Email this article to your government representative. After sufficient data has been collected, and that data supports the conclusions presented here, ACETONE should be ordered by Federal Law to be present in all fuels. While you're at it, request that vehicles be equipped with a MPG read-out to make it easier for consumers to know what is and is not working to improve their mileage.
Many products claiming to improve mileage are expensive and do not really help much. Others are fakes. For instance, a SMOOTH flow of air into a carburetor or injector is far better for mileage than turbulent air. Turbulence is bad. Yet many people deliberately introduce turbulent air into their engines. There are many silly myths floating around the car industry to fool the average person. Another is that cold intake air improves mileage. NO. Warm air improves mileage.
Using the ScanGauge at 50MPH, my best mileage was 48-52 in my Neon a few weeks ago. Then I stopped the acetone to do some reverse testing. The next four tanks of the same Texaco gas showed 42-43, 37-38, 33-34, 30-31. No acetone when each tank was filled at half-full. The drop was about 20 MPG overall. Recent tests at a steady 50 MPH show 61-63 MPG in the Neon. People report OVER 62 MPG in Toyota Prius vehicles with a tiny bit of acetone in the gas. The other person with me each time wrote down the results. Single source reporting is not a good idea.
Joined
·
832 Posts
You forgot the quotes.
Lucky you're here. Now the people that are unable to veiw links will know what part of the article says.
Lucky you're here. Now the people that are unable to veiw links will know what part of the article says.
Joined
·
4,295 Posts
A del Sol guy has been using acetone for about 6 months as a test, and it levelled off at about 12mpg more with than without. He is regularly going 400+ miles per tank, with about 10.5 gallons per fillup. There's definitely something to it.
Joined
·
832 Posts
Sounds like a good thing to try if that's true. I'll try it.
Joined
·
126 Posts
anyone gonna try??? i am thinking bout it
I'm going to try it.
The small amount of acetone needed I dont think can hurt the engine. My mom is wondering why I bought nail polish remover. But I'm still waiting to see what Lance says about this. If he doesn't give a good reason for not trying it, then acetone is going in my tank on my next refill.
The small amount of acetone needed I dont think can hurt the engine. My mom is wondering why I bought nail polish remover. But I'm still waiting to see what Lance says about this. If he doesn't give a good reason for not trying it, then acetone is going in my tank on my next refill.
Joined
·
12,467 Posts
The only thing I would do before introducing an untested chemical into a fuel system is buy a set of injector o-rings and soak them in the chemical. The OEMs had a hard time with alcohol because the materials they were using were not alcohol compatible some years ago. This is obviously no longer true. If the o-ring are undamaged by the new fuel component, then it's probably not harmful to the fuel system.
I am a skeptic, but I've never heard of using acetone. Toluene and xylene are well known octane boosters. The only negative about any of these three is they are considered "dry" meaning if you run any significant quantity of any of these you should add a small amount of oil to prevent fuel pump and fuel injector wear. At the concentrations suggested in the article, I would have no concerns at all about acetone's dryness.
Anyone who has done research into combustion chamber dynamics will tell you that fuel atomization is the biggest problem for all engines, and the biggest contributor to unburned HC in the exhaust. If the author's assertion that acetone reduces the surface tension of the fuel, then it can be nothing but a good thing, and I would agree that we should have a national mandate to add acetone to all transportation fuels to help slow the arrival of the end of the petroleum age (it IS coming, and sooner than we'd all like to think).
I could go into a long discussion about droplet size and its effect on combustion efficiency (it's one of the things about engines I find particularly fascinating), but that will need to be another day. It would be simple to test the author's assertion about surface tension with a carburetted engine. If it needs to be rejetted after adding acetone, then it is doing what he suggests. If not, the acetone is not affecting surface tension.
I'd also avoid using nail polish remover. They put a bunch of oil in it to help minimize skin damage. You can buy pure acetone at most home improvement stores in conveniently sized containers.
FWIW, there was a product I tried about 5 years ago that was a polymer additive. They claimed it normalized the droplet size in the fuel and improved thermal efficiency (gas mileage). I tried it for about 6 months and saw no change what-so-ever. Of course this was a patented product. Anyone over 18 can buy acetone freely in all the states (AFAIK).
It's certainly worth trying as long as it does no damage to the fuel seals.
I am a skeptic, but I've never heard of using acetone. Toluene and xylene are well known octane boosters. The only negative about any of these three is they are considered "dry" meaning if you run any significant quantity of any of these you should add a small amount of oil to prevent fuel pump and fuel injector wear. At the concentrations suggested in the article, I would have no concerns at all about acetone's dryness.
Anyone who has done research into combustion chamber dynamics will tell you that fuel atomization is the biggest problem for all engines, and the biggest contributor to unburned HC in the exhaust. If the author's assertion that acetone reduces the surface tension of the fuel, then it can be nothing but a good thing, and I would agree that we should have a national mandate to add acetone to all transportation fuels to help slow the arrival of the end of the petroleum age (it IS coming, and sooner than we'd all like to think).
I could go into a long discussion about droplet size and its effect on combustion efficiency (it's one of the things about engines I find particularly fascinating), but that will need to be another day. It would be simple to test the author's assertion about surface tension with a carburetted engine. If it needs to be rejetted after adding acetone, then it is doing what he suggests. If not, the acetone is not affecting surface tension.
I'd also avoid using nail polish remover. They put a bunch of oil in it to help minimize skin damage. You can buy pure acetone at most home improvement stores in conveniently sized containers.
FWIW, there was a product I tried about 5 years ago that was a polymer additive. They claimed it normalized the droplet size in the fuel and improved thermal efficiency (gas mileage). I tried it for about 6 months and saw no change what-so-ever. Of course this was a patented product. Anyone over 18 can buy acetone freely in all the states (AFAIK).
It's certainly worth trying as long as it does no damage to the fuel seals.
Joined
·
12,467 Posts
Yeah, they're pretty cheap. Usually about $1.50 a piece (or less).
That is cheap! Looks like I'll be doing some science experiments this summer. I love this kinda stuff. And lucky me, I've been keeping track of my MPG since I got my car, so I can start the acetone treatment right away (if all things turn out okay after teh o-ring test)
Joined
·
77 Posts
sounds very interesting. Tell us how it goes and if it works great and if it doesnt hopefully nothing bad happens
Joined
·
45 Posts
i talked to a pro today and he said he's never heard of the concept but that it wouldnt hurt the engine in such small amounts
experiment is under way. bought the acetone from home depot and got some o-rings from kragens. one is sitting in 100% acetone, and I taped it to my fan (which viberates) so that it's in constant motion. we'll see what happens to the o-ring over the next few days.
Joined
·
31 Posts
I've never heard of using acetone. I've used STP fuel additive in the past, and that did indeed increase my horsepower and gas mileage, I'd say about a mile or two per gallon. Not much improvement there but I definately felt the better horses. STP costs about a buck a bottle at Walmart. The bottle design keeps it off your car. That worries me most about using Acetone. It can mess up your paint real fast. I'm not sure what's in STP. It smells like deisel or tolulene.
Since the tC has a knock sensor it's hard to tell exactly what the engine will do. Probably no harm. The knock sensor will take care of that. Not too interested in experimenting with mine. If you're interested in horsepower just fill your tank with premium. Again, the knock sensor will retard the spark automatically resulting in more HP.
Steve
Since the tC has a knock sensor it's hard to tell exactly what the engine will do. Probably no harm. The knock sensor will take care of that. Not too interested in experimenting with mine. If you're interested in horsepower just fill your tank with premium. Again, the knock sensor will retard the spark automatically resulting in more HP.
Steve
1 - 20 of 151 Posts
Join the discussion
