intersting read acetone in fuel
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intersting read acetone in fuel
Subject: Acetone in Fuels (A Study of Dimethylketone or Propanone)
Author: Louis LaPointe
Date: February 11, 2005
(c) Copyright 1990-2005 Louis LaPointe All rights reserved
"Time is another word for change. It has a billion faces, yet all occur simultaneously."
Significantly Improved Mileage:
This article about acetone (CH3COCH3) probably draws conclusions that Big Oil and the American Car Manufacturers and others do NOT want you to know. They suffer from unlimited corporate GREED. They want bad mileage. The worse, the better as far as they are concerned. Acetone is a vaporization additive rather than a fuel additive per se. It is successful in very tiny amounts from about one part per 4000 to one part per 500. Mileage seems to taper off while HC emissions actually are greatly reduced with too much acetone. Acetone not only improves mileage but cuts pollution and gives longer life to engines. The peak gain in mileage comes between .03 of one-percent and .20 of one-percent acetone, depending on the actual vehicle which may be running gasoline or diesel. Note .781 cc per liter or .78 parts per 1000 or one part per 1280 is the same as one ounce per 10 gallons. Acetone operates on the unburned portion of the fuel through better vaporization to improve combustion efficiency. Acetone further operates like an electron absorber. It is the ideal additive for gasoline and diesel fuel. There are no bad effects whatsoever and every good reason to use acetone in your fuel. We have driven hundreds of thousands of miles across this country, Canada and Mexico during the past 50 years with only good results from acetone. During all that time, something abnormal would have shown up. The fuel characteristics during combustion remain exactly the same as those of the original fuel. It just burns more completely with insignificant amounts of acetone in the fuel. This phenomenon happens to reduce pollution as well as improve mileage.
Note the amount of acetone has been misrepresented in other sites by 100 times too much--probably to discourage its use. Stick to the correct values given here. Please disregard information on other sites by non-experts. All devices or additives that improve mileage are liable to be attacked by those who stand to lose big money if your engine lasts too long. Mileage and long engine life go together. For instance the car dealers are afraid of losing new car sales. Mechanics are afraid of losing repair work. Gas stations are afraid of losing gasoline and diesel fuel sales. It is sad that the Nation's urgent need for better fuel economy is not considered important by many. No matter, at least our friends' and family cars have doubled their MPG. We get a lot of smug satisfaction from that very nice fact.
A reader in New York in early 2004 filled three bottles with: pure acetone, half acetone/gasoline and straight gasoline. He carefully miked a number of O-rings, pump diaphragms, pieces of fuel hose and other n-buna stuff--then placed those parts into the bottles. A couple of months later, he dried and miked the parts again, finding the growth in some parts to be about two to five-percent in all three bottles. After six months in 10-percent, he checked all the parts again and found nothing abnormal. I suggest a mix of one-percent and five-percent for a realistic compatibility study only. That is 20 and 100 times too much acetone with the fuel. He basically repeated my old compatibility tests from the 50s and 60s. In his opinion, people who worry about these things should do their own tests and not trust the words of others. Please read the companion article Science and Testing Methods in the SmartGas articles. We are quite willing to show people HOW to conduct valid tests. Also see Practical Mileage in SmartGas.net. The latest addition to the articles is "When the Machines Stop" that deals with the end of oil in 2020.
Please do not think there is just one thing to do for great mileage. A number of things must be done and these are outlined in other SmartGas articles. The right spark plugs are NGK. The right oil is Torco. The right thermostat is 195. The right oil filter is Baldwin, etc. Find the best gasoline station in your area. THEN we add a little acetone to the fuel. Or these items may be done concurrently. You will not get good mileage by putting acetone in bad gas. At least we never have. So that is the methodology we regularly use. We cannot speak about things we have not actually tried. The first thing you notice with acetone is smoother running, easier starts and a little more power. Those are the qualitative aspects of a good additive. A quantitative aspect is the numerical MPG, which will take time and effort to determine because you need an accurate history of your old parameters and previous MPG so you have something to compare against. Most people have no idea what a control device might be or understand proper testing methods. That control can be done in two ways. You obtain a baseline and history without the item being tested (acetone) and with. If you prefer to wait, then test what you have now and find the best gas station. Most people cannot wait and breathlessly jump into the acetone right away, eager to find huge jumps in mileage. However you are looking for patterns when you test. You check only one thing against another. You keep an unbiased record and you are consistent.
There is no question that acetone improves MPG. The real question is how much?
So try a little acetone. Acetone is the secret additive for mileage. Containers labeled acetone from a hardware store are usually okay and pure enough to put in your fuel. We prefer cans or bottles that say 100% pure. The acetone in gallons or pints we get from Fleet Farm are labeled 100% pure. Never use clear plastic to hold gasoline or acetone. The plastic acetone bottles from Walgreen say 100% pure. Then we reuse these bottles over and over. Never use solvents such as paint thinners or unknown stuff in your gas. Toluene, benzene and xylene are okay if they are pure but may not raise mileage except when mixed with acetone. Such additives are recently being sold. The author has used ACETONE in gasoline and diesel fuel and in jet fuel (JP-4) for 50 years. He has tested fuels independently and is an authority on this important subject. For instance a tiny bit of acetone in diesel fuel can stop the black smoke when the rack is all the way at full throttle. We recently proved that Carb Medic from Gunk (and other GUNK products) can raise mileage when 1 to 3 oz. are used with 2 or 3 oz. of acetone per 10 gallons of gasoline, especially in cold weather. Sometimes I use one oz.of Torco MPZ red Engine Assembly Lube in the 16-oz. acetone bottle. Normally cold arctic air prevents accurate mileage testing in the winter. And never allow skin contact with any of these additives. Nor should you breathe this stuff. Read the directions on the can.
We recently heard from a former submarine engineer who used acetone in the diesel fuel so the engines would start easier. We hear from marine people whose boats run badly or flat quit due to alcohol in the fuel. We tell them to go to Wisconsin and get Cenex gasoline that has NO alcohol and delivers good mileage. Many readers have given positive comments, some have given negative comments but without doing any tests. The pattern seems to be that engineers and researchers are nearly all in favor of acetone while mechanics are split or afraid to try for reasons based on myths. The negative comments mainly come from those fearful of acetone for some imagined or invalid reason. Engineers are familiar with chemicals and testing procedures while backyard mechanics are usually not. It makes no sense to throw some chemical into a gas tank, drive a few miles and try the same thing the next day, only to report it did not work. That is not a test. The guys who have tried it with intelligence for a month or two months report favorably. Many of them have ScanGauges. This is not a popularity contest where the most numerous opinion wins. Think of the inflation situation our Nation is facing. Do fair testing. You cannot go to a station with bad gas or mix different gasolines and be fair. You should realize there are 55 major variants in gasoline, 220 different ingredients and certain side-restrictions exist where the transport trucker puts in different additive packages at the terminals. Most additive packages work really well with acetone and some may not. That is why the ScanGauge is crucial. You must test the gas station first. That will take time. Then DO NOT use too much acetone. Work slowly up to 3 ounces per ten gallons. Keep accurate records. Use a 2 or 4-ounce measuring cup. And above all, BE CONSISTENT. Find an accurate pattern.
Questions asked of someone in the petroleum industry regarding ACETONE will automatically trigger a string of negative reactions and perhaps false assertions. 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. For this reason, test the stuff for yourself. 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. They do not fear other additives like they do acetone. And the reason is that IT WORKS. Of course you might Email this article to your congressman because clearly ACETONE should be ordered by Federal Law to be present in all fuels. This is the consensus of ALL fuel researchers who have contacted us in recent months regarding acetone and other additives that we are still evaluating. Certain individuals are willing to share their fuel technology with us. It will all prove interesting.
There is a great little device available to check your exact gas mileage and more. See ScanGauge.com for a very timely instrument that fits any car 1996 or newer on gasoline or diesel. Watch your real-time MPG, inlet temperature and many more details as you drive. This inexpensive tool should end a lot of debate over what works for mileage and what does not. We use the TRIP function to average the MPG at a steady 50 MPH both ways. Since every gas station offers differing MPG, the ScanGauge is an essential tool. It simply grants the Truth to be obvious because there are over 50 different gasolines sold in the United States. Then there exist a wide variety of additive choices at the terminals that affect quality. Trucks then distribute gasolines to the gas stations. There are more changes according to what month it is. For some unknown reason, the industry insists on claiming all gasolines are the same. The same? Okay, then why does my ScanGauge mislead me by such a wide spread? It is reasonable that a mileage device should be required on every car in every state in the country. The time for Truth in mileage has come.
There are of course other additives that improve mileage but these have been black-balled by the petroleum industry. The industry could easily add these ingredients into gasoline and diesel fuel. But will they dare to improve your mileage? NO. I am further informed they are taking out certain good additives from gas. You just have to stumble onto the fuel mileage secrets all by yourself, like we have. Certain octane improvers for example also aid mileage. But unfortunately 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. 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.
Test for yourself. Take a mileage check for each and every tank of gas or diesel fuel like we do. Your actual mileage is NOT that of a single tankful but the average of perhaps five tanks worth. To be accurate, you should not miss any checks. This takes discipline to get reliable results. Someday your car will do it for you with an MPG gauge on the dash. But for now, YOU ought to keep tabs on your mileage for all our sakes. The ideal auto would save the MPG of your last tank of gas on your instruments. Be consistent where you buy your gasoline because different gasolines vary tremendously. The best gas and the worst gas in your neighborhood will likely have a 30-percent spread in mileage, according to the author's experience. Same for diesel fuel. Try to keep down the number of variables wherever you gas up by using the same station, same pump, same grade or same octane before testing. In almost all cases, the lowest octane is best for mileage. Most modern vehicles do not have high enough compression to justify using high octane fuels. The testing indicates best mileage is usually obtained with 85 or 87 octane gasoline. Too much octane causes a loss of power and economy. BUT too little octane causes the same things plus knocking. Best mileage points to the correct octane when the engine is properly tuned. Pure acetone was rated in 1920 by Sir Harry Ricardo at 150-octane. Plus acetone turned out to be an excellent additive to reduce exhaust emissions in both gas and diesel engines as well as to improve combustion and lengthen engine life.
The question we often hear is, "Will it harm my engine?" We feel like saying, "YES, it will blow up." But instead we patiently explain how over five decades, we have never seen a problem with acetone. Would anyone use something more than once if it were harmful? Think about that. We are asking you to test accurately. Only an oil company stooge would say anything negative about this nice additive. Or perhaps a naive person with no experience with testing procedures. The engine still thinks it is running straight gasoline. The amount of acetone is extremely tiny and only affects the vaporization characteristics. Furthermore the acetone in fuel does not evaporate out of it. Gasoline itself tends to evaporate readily. Your modern car does not allow vapors to escape. The strong solubility of acetone keeps the acetone in the fuel unless the base fuel evaporates. Once the tiny concentration of acetone is in the fuel, it stays there.
The MYTH of piston damage is the latest rumor the mongers have dreamed up. This one popped up just a week or so after the acetone news became known to the general public. It is amazing that it took so little time. One wonders how such long range testing was accomplished so quickly. Was a test lab sitting somewhere with nothing to do? But I am not gullible and require specific data. Which part of the piston goes bad? The skirt that is quite well lubricated and often gets too much oil? The pins that receive more than ample oil? The ring lands and grooves that are normally bathed in gasoline in the absense of acetone? I wonder if they mean not part of the piston but the cylinder walls that are harmed. Maybe the rings and walls are getting damaged from acetone. Well, let's see. If the acetone is in the gasoline, then gasoline has to reach the part in question. But gasoline will never reach these parts if acetone is present because acetone forces the fuel in the chamber to combust rather than saturate the rings and pistons. So that means acetone and the fuel that carries the acetone must leave the rings the hell alone. Only if the fuel does NOT contain acetone will the fuel swamp the rings and pistons. Thus acetone and piston damage are mutually exclusive. So people who spread these rumors are just plain stupid.
In 1990, I took my 1964 Ford Econoline engine apart after it died in minus 80-degree windchill when the water pump froze. That engine had digested more acetone than any other of my vehicles before or since. After 567,000 miles, the engine had a whopping .004 to .007 wear on the cylinder walls. That does not sound like it suffered any piston or valve damage in 20 years of my prolific driving all over creation. In ten years of extensive driving with my Neon, some signs would have shown up by now but the thing just keeps running like a new car. Car after car after car would have shown something from the use of acetone. Wait, something did show up. The use of acetone greatly improves mileage AND engine life.
The MYTH of valve burning and its reasons had roots back when older cars were tuned by hand and mechanics did lots of things wrong when they adjusted the settings. The popular myth might have its origin after seeing an acetylene torch cut through steel. Not stainless though. A torch won't normally cut stainless. Lead in the gas prevented damage to valves back then. Experience on dynos show a lean mixture might lead to misfires that occur every other cycle and give a tell-tale bang out the exhaust. It is well known that a lean mixture COOLS combustion chamber temperatures and delays peak pressures. The peak temperature near TDC happens when the cylinder is running at or slightly richer than a stoichiometric mixture. Too rich or too lean drops the peak temps. Lean mixes and/or late timing can cause slow combustion and overheating of the coolant and perhaps the exhaust valves. Late timing can lead to valve burning but your computer prevents late timing. Modern exhaust valve steels and induction hardened seats are designed to withstand warting and last forever without lead in the gas. But the slow burns from lean mixtures may exit past the exhaust valve still burning and ignite unburned fuel in the pipe, muffler or cat-con. Note that a diesel engine idles at 100:1 AFR. Now THAT is lean. At part throttle, a diesel may have 50:1 AFR. They do not burn valves with these lean ratios that are many times leaner than a gas engine. There is no harm to diesel pistons or other engine parts from running such ultra lean mixtures.
What DOES hurt engine parts is late timing or running cold thermostats. But distributors are gone now. Modern cars have computers to adjust mixture and engine parameters without human help. Many sensors feed their data to the computer and the computer does what it is programmed to do. Unless someone tampers with a car computer or the sensors, the engine will behave properly. There is a strong relationship between good mileage and engine performance. For example, too lean of a mixture would NOT give good mileage. How could it? Fuel can go unburned out the exhaust with lean mixtures. When your ScanGauge says you are getting excellent mileage, your engine will last the longest possible. SO it is NOT possible to damage valves or anything else at peak mileage. Back in San Pedro, we ran engines for days at a time under load with acetone. We kept them at peak economy without problems in both gas and diesel engines. These quite obvious details should be known. Please, had any problems showed up during decades of testing, this material would not exist and YOU would not be reading this. So please do your own testing? Do not take self-serving opinions seriously.
If we had found engine damage, it would be mentioned. Never have. Not from using acetone because the engines last longer. We had lots of bad valves and pistons while using nitromethane in fuelers and nitropropane in race cars. That was to be expected. But we know exactly what the cause was in every case. Those are dangerous fuels. Acetone is rather safe unless you breathe it or drink it. In fact with these tiny, itsy-bitsy, extremely minute amounts, the engine still thinks it is running straight gasoline. Apparently some people are releasing mileage additives into stores that contain acetone. These new products might not be patented, due to the fact acetone is in the public domain.
In general, engine parts CANNOT be affected when you actually have great MPG. High mileage actually prevents engine wear. Your fuel mixture is not changed with acetone. Lubrication is improved due to less wasted fuel being available around the rings and pistons. The compression ratio and timing are not changed. The basic fuel is not changed. The computer settings are not altered. The engine parameters remain as they were. The engine operating temp is still the same. The general RPM is still in the same range. The valve clearances are the same. The same hydraulic lifters and camshaft are still there.
My old Ford van went 567,000 miles BECAUSE tons of acetone went through it during 20 years, until December 1989. The cylinder wear was .004 to .007 inches when we removed the head a few months later. My 1995 Neon has run lots of acetone (and Torco Oil) and still is like new at 140,000 miles, except for a little oil leak. Numerous cars have been run with acetone during the past 40 years and NO damage was ever caused except for accidents such as fires and driving off cliffs. The list is too long to mention. Plus there is the ethics involved in stating only the honest Truth. Just the facts.
Pure acetone or propanone is an extremely clean burning fuel that burns in air with a pretty blue smokeless flame. Acetone is a highly flammable liquid. It also removes paint. Do not get it on your paint and do not take it near a flame or spark. Acetone can reduce hydrocarbon emissions up to 60-percent. In some older cars, the HC readings with acetone went from 440 PPM to 195, as just one example. Acetone is toxic to breathe and should be stored outside, not inside your house. Gasoline by itself is also highly toxic, so treat them both with respect and great care. Just a precaution. The author has soaked carburetor parts in acetone for months and even years to see if there is any deterioration. None. Gasoline and/or acetone will dissolve paint and cheap plastics. Any parts made to run with gasoline will work with acetone just fine. Besides we are using tiny amounts per gallon. Just a few ounces per ten gallons of gas. Alcohol has been shown to be corrosive in an engine yet they put THAT garbage into gasoline. Alcohol in general is anti-mileage but the oil company stooges claim it is wonderful. Most of the alcohol that enters your gas came here from Europe as stale wine. The myth of renewable energy has been milked by the Big Guys as much as possible. They know that alcohol is no good in fuels. Look at what happened in Brazil. Millions of engines and fuel systems were ruined in that country by alcohol. But do the Big Guys want your engines to last? No, of course not. They want you to buy new vehicles.
acetone.jpg (13884 bytes)
Shown is the percentage MILEAGE GAIN when a tiny amount of acetone is added to fuel. The curves A B C show the effect on three different cars using different gasolines. Some engines respond better than others to acetone. It is important to use the same gasoline from the same gas station when testing mileage otherwise you have too many variables and get undependable results. The D curve is for diesel fuel. Too much acetone will decrease mileage slightly due to adding too much octane to the fuel. Too much also upsets the mixture ratio because acetone (like alcohol) is a light molecule. Acetone helps the fuel become a vapor more easily inside the chamber and minimizes wasted fuel. All it does is offer total combustion of fuel in any kind of engine. The A curve is with a 1995 Neon. The B curve is with a 1986 GMC. The C curve is with two Caravans, 1990 and 1997.
After you find the right amount for your car per ten gallons, and you are happy with your newfound mileage, you may one day cease using acetone for a couple of tanks. Watch the drop in mileage. It will amaze you. That reverse technique is one of the biggest eye openers concerning the use of acetone in fuel. For example in recent weeks I stopped using acetone in my Neon. At a steady 50 MPH, my MPG delivered 48-52 per my ScanGauge averages. That was the maximum with acetone. Then the next four fills at half empty gradually came down to 43-44, 37-38, 33--34 and 30-31. The last is slightly higher than what the car delivered originally or 27-29. Same gas. The trouble with consistent mileage tests is the cold weather. This reverse test method will be repeated in the spring with new oil and some other additives in the acetone that I am working on. No trick mileage stuff was used in this particular exercise. Just straight Texaco 87-octane gasoline. The lesson here is to TEST, TEST and RETEST.
Complete vaporization of normal fuel is far from perfect in today's cars. A certain amount of fuel in most engines remains liquid in the hot chamber and slides past the rings into the oil. Of course the liquid fuel then ruins the rings and walls as it enters the crankcase to further damage the lubricating ability of the oil. In order to become a true gas and be fully combusted, fuel must undergo a phase change. Still, fuel needs a kick of some kind to transform from big globs into a full vapor. The acetone provides that kick with its rapid inherent molecular vibration that prevents fuel from escaping the combustion process and going through unburned. In the chart above, we see how little acetone in ten gallons it takes to help combust nearly all your fuel. Vacuum is the best friend your engine has to get your fuel fully vaporized. At part throttle the manifold vacuum reaches 20 to 25 inches of mercury. This important vacuum aids in breaking up the larger fuel particles and overcoming some of the disadvantages of surface tension. Remember a slight amount of heat amplifies the surface tension of the fuel molecules because the heat is spread across the outside of the large clumps of fuel. This draws the clumps and blobs tighter together. Just look how drops form. But a large amount of heat will not reach the inside molecules within many of the clumps. The insides of all the clumps must be broken up for complete combustion.
Most fuel molecules are sluggish when bundled inside a fuel particle. For instance the energy barrier from surface tension can sometimes force some water molecules to reach 300 degrees before they vaporize. Similarly with gasoline, alcohol and water. So any amount of water in the fuel is a killer to achieving proper combustion. Fuel is commonly forced to reach excessive temperatures to vaporize. Your jump in mileage with acetone comes from the (former excess) fuel that now gets burned and no longer winds up in the crankcase. You stop the waste and end engine wear. That excess fuel was previously wasted past the rings or sent out the tailpipe but now (with acetone) it gets burned. Conventional fuels are not designed to fully vaporize or fully combust. This simple fact appears to be deliberate on the part of the oil companies although some companies such as Texaco, Chevron and Canadian Shell deliver excellent gasoline mileage (in the opinion of the author) and in view of repeated test results. On numerous trips across the country in a 1995 Neon, his son calculated the mileage and they had a consistent 49 MPG with Texaco, Shell or Chevron. Often they get 45-50 MPG in town driving. With a special FOG Inducer device in the Neon, they reached 51-52 in city driving. A new Bright Enterprises version exists that may raise the mileage over 70 MPG in 2005. In fact we are testing numerous versions to gain big mileage. The highest ever was 73 MPG in 2005 in Wisconsin when two such devices were combined. But the testing still continues.
Please note better gasolines may work better with acetone. We try to find the best gas in our area and depend on a ScanGauge to do that job. THEN we introduce acetone in small amounts until the mileage peaks. BTW a four-cylinder engine is capable of producing better MPG than a six or eight. This is due to the longer TIME for combustion allowed by fewer cylinders for better efficiency. The longer time for the burning process in a four is twice that of an eight. Thus an eight is inherently more wasteful of fuel in theory than a four or six. This simple fact is not well known. More cylinders shorten the time that combustion has to finish the total job of burning all the fuel.
Many years ago the author used a 1948 Hudson and later a 1949 Olds to test fuels and immediately found that 100-percent acetone had way too much octane. About 150. So he eventually wound up with a fuel mixture around half acetone and half kerosene at the end of that experiment. By no means is this any recommendation. Nor did he simply start mixing chemicals without careful research and calculations beforehand. He knew enough about organic chemistry, physics and math to investigate fuels on paper prior to pouring anything into a test tube or fuel tank.He started his university training at age 13 and is devoted to science and its procedures. Each test is carefully considered and examined beforehand to avoid a waste of time but also to prevent harm. It is important to have some reasonable prediction of the final results. Furthermore the author modified his own carburetors, made carbs from scratch and tailored MANY different fuel mixtures for test purposes. A natural-born experimenter, he has been doing it ever since. And those results are now yours for free.
During extensive fuel testing on engine dynos in Wilmington, we evaluated the effects of three additives on performance and economy. The three additives sprayed into the intake were water, alcohol and acetone. The individual pressurized sprays entered just below the carburetor. Performance and economy improved with each reduction of the alcohol and/or water content of the spray mixture. But each and every increase in the acetone content improved performance and economy and reduced emissions. This correlation was true up to a point because only a tiny amount of acetone (a fraction of one-percent) proved helpful. In other tests, acetone in gasoline cut emissions by an honest 50-percent or more. But that test was 1/3 of one-percent and way too much for good mileage. These dyno tests were tedious but uncomplicated and verifiable.
It is a similar story when testing diesel fuels and acetone. A tiny bit of acetone in the fuel proved beneficial. The idle RPM goes up slightly by about 150 and the truck gains power and torque. It also runs more smoothly with much better economy. The difference is obvious. The reason is that unburned fuel gets suddenly combusted and that raises the speed at idle. The vehicles run smoother and you go more days between fills. Plus you find a little more power. The sooty exhaust smoke becomes a thing of the past. These things become obvious.
Alcohol was introduced into our commercial fuels in recent years. But alcohol related problems such as corrosion and water absorption have systematically been kept from the public. A very real cover-up has occurred for greed and political reasons. Mileage drops as high as 50-percent are real (in our own testing) for instance. It make us angry that the oil companies killed acetone for as long as they have. The biggest problem with alcohol in fuel is due to surface tension. Surface tension (ST) is seen when you place a drop of fuel, alcohol or water on a hot plate. It collects into ***** and dances around without vaporizing. Ordinary fuel does not vaporize readily because of ST. Instead fuel ***** up and dances around on the hot plate. Surface tension is like glue between fragments inside the fuel. So within an engine, fuel (gasoline or diesel fuel) resists being finely atomized due to ST. Complete atomization is essential to good combustion but you are DENIED that with alcohol. Gasoline needs injectors to produce a very fine spray into the air stream. Unfortunately the sprayed fuel tends to recombine into larger, persistent droplets because of surface tension. New injectors usually improve combustion because of making a finer spray pattern. With alcohol, gasoline and diesel fuel droplets may fall out of the airstream onto the walls of the manifold. Even in the most modern combustion chambers, some alcohol in (mixed) fuels may not start to burn until the chamber temperature reaches many hundreds of degrees. Good efficiency and ST are diametrically opposed. Thus particle size remains high when ST is prevalent. The real object should always be to REDUCE particle size and increase the number of fuel particles.
The best way to fight many problems with fuels (such as ST) is to add just tiny amounts of acetone to better operate your gas engines and/or diesel engines. Acetone works wonders for engine Thermal Efficiency, cleanliness and long life. Gasoline engines get about 20 to 25-percent TE. Diesel engines can get 35-percent--until the black smoke starts to blow. Then TE dies to below 30-percent. The author has used this additive since 1956 with great success. The pure acetone label is the only additive suggested and is easily available from most Walgreens stores in 16-ounce plastic bottles and in one-gallon containers from some large Fleet Farm supply stores. But any acetone source is better than none. In a 10-gallon tank of gasoline, the author has generally used one to three ounces of pure acetone to obtain excellent mileage improvements. In a 20-gallon tank, the author has used about four to six ounces of acetone with the gasoline. In a ten-gallon tank of diesel fuel, the author has used from 1 to 2 ounces of acetone and noticed that exhaust soot was greatly reduced as fuel mileage rose significantly. Performance went up too. A half-teaspoon of acetone in the fuel mix (one gallon) of a 2-cycle lawnmower or in the tank of a 4-cycle snowblower is what the author normally uses, often with an eye-dropper. Nice crisp sound can be expected from these engines. But do not use too much. Less is more. We are getting reports of big improvements to motorcycle engines with tiny amounts of acetone in the gasoline.
The author suggests not to continuously add acetone to each and every tank of fuel, rather only to every other tankful. The slightest amount of acetone seems to be highly effective for mileage and significant emissions reduction. Most diesel fuel is oily and a tiny amount of acetone has zero effect on injectors--in case that is a worry. Any such problems would have shown up after nearly five decades. In the past we have added the Torco two-cycle GP7 smokeless synthetic gasoline additive to diesel fuel to make the fuel even more slippery--or the red MPZ Engine Assembly Lube from Torco International in with the acetone.
If you own a construction or trucking company with heavy equipment and lots of gasoline and diesel engines, how would you like to save roughly 30-percent on your fuel costs? How would you like your engines to last twice as long? How would you like to get 15-percent more power from your engines? We have nearly a half century of experimentation with fuels and oils that you might find useful. Our approach is simply to eliminate the waste that you normally blow out the exhaust. That's it. Just stop the wasted fuel. Keep it away from your rings. That is why we use Torco Oil and acetone and our other tips.
Ordinary gas or diesel fuel allows a portion of the unburned fuel to bypass the combustion process to escape in various forms of partial combustion products and go out the blackened tailpipe. Some unburned fuel enters the engine oil past the piston rings. The incomplete combustion creates smog, pollution and poor economy from wasted fuel. The surface tension of water is about three times that of alcohol and most gasoline components. A few drops of moisture in the gas causes the ST of the fuel to zoom and not vaporize. Hence the partial products cause wasteful results. Unfortunately many gas stations have too high a tolerance for water in their underground tanks. It only takes a tiny amount of water to ruin even the best gasoline. We need tighter laws against water in stored fuel. Placing acetone in the gasoline or diesel fuel helps greatly to break up the water and alcohol. This bad mix would cause any vehicle to run poorly and waste fuel. There is an increase in water in the exhaust of an engine running a tiny amount of acetone in the fuel due to improved combustion. The more fuel you successfully burn, the more water and carbon dioxide you produce. For each gallon of gasoline you burn, you produce one and 1/3 gallons of water.
The acetone molecule works physically to vigorously shake up every drop of fuel. It acts like an internal vibrator to shake up each tiny bit of fuel so the fuel does NOT ball up or glue together into large aggregate particles. Instead this important additive guarantees more complete vaporization of fuel inside the combustion chamber where it really matters to defeat surface tension. Acetone allows gasoline to behave more like the ideal automotive fuel which is PROPANE. The degree of improved mileage depends on how much unburned fuel you are presently wasting. Thus you might gain 15 to 35-percent better economy from the use of acetone. Sometimes even more. Winter is very hard on mileage. Cold weather kills good mileage due to the severe reduction in Thermal Efficiency. For this reason, the author only conducts outside economy tests in the summer months.
Remember that acetone, alcohol, gasoline and all fuels in general are extremely flammable. Fuels in general should never be allowed near a flame or spark source. Fuels can also dissolve asphalt, most plastics and paint. They can damage skin and clothing. They should be kept in properly ventilated storage and not mixed with unknown substances. Keep children away from all dangerous chemicals. Do not bring dangerous fuels inside your home. A safe garage is typically a common place for such chemicals.
Why has the author recently revealed the benefits of acetone in cars and trucks? To keep our money in the U.S. even though the oil industry will do anything to prevent better mileage. They will do anything to prevent engines from lasting a long time. Why have they suppressed acetone and propane for many decades? We must assume it is ON PURPOSE. Simple GREED. Better mileage causes engines to last longer due to less unburned fuel going past the rings, thus keeping the rings and engine oil in far better condition. But the biggest reason to conceal this additive from you is that bad mileage gives the oil and car industries higher profits that comes right from your pockets, ruins the air and throws our children and our Nation into future debt. Do we want this insanity and uncontrolled greed to continue? Tell your Senator that we need acetone added to our gasoline.
There is a basic premise behind mileage learned from a great teacher, Jack Henry, long ago. "Mileage and power go hand in hand. An engine at its best MPG is mechanically in the best possible condition." National Schools, L.A. 1954.
Any person can easily verify that acetone improves fuel mileage. This is a no-brainer. Besides this is something YOU can do for your country. Send this page to your Senator. A simple way to determine the way acetone increases MPG is to document the number of days it takes going to work before you need to refill. With the right amount of acetone, you will go more days per tankful.
In conclusion, alcohol in fuel attracts water. Water acts like a fire extinguisher. It's not a smart thing to put in cars or trucks. Some cars may run badly and even quit due to the incombustible nature of the water laden fuel. We know of a dozen cars that recently stopped running due to water in the alcohol and gas mixture. They used the same Blue Planet gasoline. (One of those was my 1986 Jimmy). The gas tank was removed and drained. Look at the existing SUV situation with horrible mileage. In cold weather (below zero), the water and alcohol form nasty (abrasive) icy particles that can damage fuel pumps. BUT acetone helps to fight the ice crystals. By adding acetone for better mileage, fewer total emissions per mile get blown into the atmosphere. Plus you can drive much farther with less pollution. How sad that in the 21st Century, a new 30,000 dollar vehicle gets an unholy 10 to 16 miles per gallon. Hey folks, my 1936 Dodge did better than that. What have the (mighty and powerful) car and oil industries been doing since 1936? Not to mention the ineffective job the DOE is doing. It seems they are in bed together: DOE, car makers, researchers, Big Oil, API and some members of Congress. And why have conservationists such as the touted Sierra Club not recognized the value of acetone in the combustion process? Why have they not recognized that good mileage automatically means lower emissions? What gives?
If John Wayne were alive, he would probably tell you, "Hell yes, run acetone in your car. Who do those SOBs think they are?"
We would like to hear from car owners whose cars have quit after filling up with gas-alcohol fuel. It is a common problem. The author knows it is a trivial thing to obtain great mileage. He has done it over and over for 50 years by many different methods. The essential question is, "Why won't THEY?"
I hereby swear all stated above is true and factual
Author: Louis LaPointe
Date: February 11, 2005
(c) Copyright 1990-2005 Louis LaPointe All rights reserved
"Time is another word for change. It has a billion faces, yet all occur simultaneously."
Significantly Improved Mileage:
This article about acetone (CH3COCH3) probably draws conclusions that Big Oil and the American Car Manufacturers and others do NOT want you to know. They suffer from unlimited corporate GREED. They want bad mileage. The worse, the better as far as they are concerned. Acetone is a vaporization additive rather than a fuel additive per se. It is successful in very tiny amounts from about one part per 4000 to one part per 500. Mileage seems to taper off while HC emissions actually are greatly reduced with too much acetone. Acetone not only improves mileage but cuts pollution and gives longer life to engines. The peak gain in mileage comes between .03 of one-percent and .20 of one-percent acetone, depending on the actual vehicle which may be running gasoline or diesel. Note .781 cc per liter or .78 parts per 1000 or one part per 1280 is the same as one ounce per 10 gallons. Acetone operates on the unburned portion of the fuel through better vaporization to improve combustion efficiency. Acetone further operates like an electron absorber. It is the ideal additive for gasoline and diesel fuel. There are no bad effects whatsoever and every good reason to use acetone in your fuel. We have driven hundreds of thousands of miles across this country, Canada and Mexico during the past 50 years with only good results from acetone. During all that time, something abnormal would have shown up. The fuel characteristics during combustion remain exactly the same as those of the original fuel. It just burns more completely with insignificant amounts of acetone in the fuel. This phenomenon happens to reduce pollution as well as improve mileage.
Note the amount of acetone has been misrepresented in other sites by 100 times too much--probably to discourage its use. Stick to the correct values given here. Please disregard information on other sites by non-experts. All devices or additives that improve mileage are liable to be attacked by those who stand to lose big money if your engine lasts too long. Mileage and long engine life go together. For instance the car dealers are afraid of losing new car sales. Mechanics are afraid of losing repair work. Gas stations are afraid of losing gasoline and diesel fuel sales. It is sad that the Nation's urgent need for better fuel economy is not considered important by many. No matter, at least our friends' and family cars have doubled their MPG. We get a lot of smug satisfaction from that very nice fact.
A reader in New York in early 2004 filled three bottles with: pure acetone, half acetone/gasoline and straight gasoline. He carefully miked a number of O-rings, pump diaphragms, pieces of fuel hose and other n-buna stuff--then placed those parts into the bottles. A couple of months later, he dried and miked the parts again, finding the growth in some parts to be about two to five-percent in all three bottles. After six months in 10-percent, he checked all the parts again and found nothing abnormal. I suggest a mix of one-percent and five-percent for a realistic compatibility study only. That is 20 and 100 times too much acetone with the fuel. He basically repeated my old compatibility tests from the 50s and 60s. In his opinion, people who worry about these things should do their own tests and not trust the words of others. Please read the companion article Science and Testing Methods in the SmartGas articles. We are quite willing to show people HOW to conduct valid tests. Also see Practical Mileage in SmartGas.net. The latest addition to the articles is "When the Machines Stop" that deals with the end of oil in 2020.
Please do not think there is just one thing to do for great mileage. A number of things must be done and these are outlined in other SmartGas articles. The right spark plugs are NGK. The right oil is Torco. The right thermostat is 195. The right oil filter is Baldwin, etc. Find the best gasoline station in your area. THEN we add a little acetone to the fuel. Or these items may be done concurrently. You will not get good mileage by putting acetone in bad gas. At least we never have. So that is the methodology we regularly use. We cannot speak about things we have not actually tried. The first thing you notice with acetone is smoother running, easier starts and a little more power. Those are the qualitative aspects of a good additive. A quantitative aspect is the numerical MPG, which will take time and effort to determine because you need an accurate history of your old parameters and previous MPG so you have something to compare against. Most people have no idea what a control device might be or understand proper testing methods. That control can be done in two ways. You obtain a baseline and history without the item being tested (acetone) and with. If you prefer to wait, then test what you have now and find the best gas station. Most people cannot wait and breathlessly jump into the acetone right away, eager to find huge jumps in mileage. However you are looking for patterns when you test. You check only one thing against another. You keep an unbiased record and you are consistent.
There is no question that acetone improves MPG. The real question is how much?
So try a little acetone. Acetone is the secret additive for mileage. Containers labeled acetone from a hardware store are usually okay and pure enough to put in your fuel. We prefer cans or bottles that say 100% pure. The acetone in gallons or pints we get from Fleet Farm are labeled 100% pure. Never use clear plastic to hold gasoline or acetone. The plastic acetone bottles from Walgreen say 100% pure. Then we reuse these bottles over and over. Never use solvents such as paint thinners or unknown stuff in your gas. Toluene, benzene and xylene are okay if they are pure but may not raise mileage except when mixed with acetone. Such additives are recently being sold. The author has used ACETONE in gasoline and diesel fuel and in jet fuel (JP-4) for 50 years. He has tested fuels independently and is an authority on this important subject. For instance a tiny bit of acetone in diesel fuel can stop the black smoke when the rack is all the way at full throttle. We recently proved that Carb Medic from Gunk (and other GUNK products) can raise mileage when 1 to 3 oz. are used with 2 or 3 oz. of acetone per 10 gallons of gasoline, especially in cold weather. Sometimes I use one oz.of Torco MPZ red Engine Assembly Lube in the 16-oz. acetone bottle. Normally cold arctic air prevents accurate mileage testing in the winter. And never allow skin contact with any of these additives. Nor should you breathe this stuff. Read the directions on the can.
We recently heard from a former submarine engineer who used acetone in the diesel fuel so the engines would start easier. We hear from marine people whose boats run badly or flat quit due to alcohol in the fuel. We tell them to go to Wisconsin and get Cenex gasoline that has NO alcohol and delivers good mileage. Many readers have given positive comments, some have given negative comments but without doing any tests. The pattern seems to be that engineers and researchers are nearly all in favor of acetone while mechanics are split or afraid to try for reasons based on myths. The negative comments mainly come from those fearful of acetone for some imagined or invalid reason. Engineers are familiar with chemicals and testing procedures while backyard mechanics are usually not. It makes no sense to throw some chemical into a gas tank, drive a few miles and try the same thing the next day, only to report it did not work. That is not a test. The guys who have tried it with intelligence for a month or two months report favorably. Many of them have ScanGauges. This is not a popularity contest where the most numerous opinion wins. Think of the inflation situation our Nation is facing. Do fair testing. You cannot go to a station with bad gas or mix different gasolines and be fair. You should realize there are 55 major variants in gasoline, 220 different ingredients and certain side-restrictions exist where the transport trucker puts in different additive packages at the terminals. Most additive packages work really well with acetone and some may not. That is why the ScanGauge is crucial. You must test the gas station first. That will take time. Then DO NOT use too much acetone. Work slowly up to 3 ounces per ten gallons. Keep accurate records. Use a 2 or 4-ounce measuring cup. And above all, BE CONSISTENT. Find an accurate pattern.
Questions asked of someone in the petroleum industry regarding ACETONE will automatically trigger a string of negative reactions and perhaps false assertions. 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. For this reason, test the stuff for yourself. 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. They do not fear other additives like they do acetone. And the reason is that IT WORKS. Of course you might Email this article to your congressman because clearly ACETONE should be ordered by Federal Law to be present in all fuels. This is the consensus of ALL fuel researchers who have contacted us in recent months regarding acetone and other additives that we are still evaluating. Certain individuals are willing to share their fuel technology with us. It will all prove interesting.
There is a great little device available to check your exact gas mileage and more. See ScanGauge.com for a very timely instrument that fits any car 1996 or newer on gasoline or diesel. Watch your real-time MPG, inlet temperature and many more details as you drive. This inexpensive tool should end a lot of debate over what works for mileage and what does not. We use the TRIP function to average the MPG at a steady 50 MPH both ways. Since every gas station offers differing MPG, the ScanGauge is an essential tool. It simply grants the Truth to be obvious because there are over 50 different gasolines sold in the United States. Then there exist a wide variety of additive choices at the terminals that affect quality. Trucks then distribute gasolines to the gas stations. There are more changes according to what month it is. For some unknown reason, the industry insists on claiming all gasolines are the same. The same? Okay, then why does my ScanGauge mislead me by such a wide spread? It is reasonable that a mileage device should be required on every car in every state in the country. The time for Truth in mileage has come.
There are of course other additives that improve mileage but these have been black-balled by the petroleum industry. The industry could easily add these ingredients into gasoline and diesel fuel. But will they dare to improve your mileage? NO. I am further informed they are taking out certain good additives from gas. You just have to stumble onto the fuel mileage secrets all by yourself, like we have. Certain octane improvers for example also aid mileage. But unfortunately 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. 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.
Test for yourself. Take a mileage check for each and every tank of gas or diesel fuel like we do. Your actual mileage is NOT that of a single tankful but the average of perhaps five tanks worth. To be accurate, you should not miss any checks. This takes discipline to get reliable results. Someday your car will do it for you with an MPG gauge on the dash. But for now, YOU ought to keep tabs on your mileage for all our sakes. The ideal auto would save the MPG of your last tank of gas on your instruments. Be consistent where you buy your gasoline because different gasolines vary tremendously. The best gas and the worst gas in your neighborhood will likely have a 30-percent spread in mileage, according to the author's experience. Same for diesel fuel. Try to keep down the number of variables wherever you gas up by using the same station, same pump, same grade or same octane before testing. In almost all cases, the lowest octane is best for mileage. Most modern vehicles do not have high enough compression to justify using high octane fuels. The testing indicates best mileage is usually obtained with 85 or 87 octane gasoline. Too much octane causes a loss of power and economy. BUT too little octane causes the same things plus knocking. Best mileage points to the correct octane when the engine is properly tuned. Pure acetone was rated in 1920 by Sir Harry Ricardo at 150-octane. Plus acetone turned out to be an excellent additive to reduce exhaust emissions in both gas and diesel engines as well as to improve combustion and lengthen engine life.
The question we often hear is, "Will it harm my engine?" We feel like saying, "YES, it will blow up." But instead we patiently explain how over five decades, we have never seen a problem with acetone. Would anyone use something more than once if it were harmful? Think about that. We are asking you to test accurately. Only an oil company stooge would say anything negative about this nice additive. Or perhaps a naive person with no experience with testing procedures. The engine still thinks it is running straight gasoline. The amount of acetone is extremely tiny and only affects the vaporization characteristics. Furthermore the acetone in fuel does not evaporate out of it. Gasoline itself tends to evaporate readily. Your modern car does not allow vapors to escape. The strong solubility of acetone keeps the acetone in the fuel unless the base fuel evaporates. Once the tiny concentration of acetone is in the fuel, it stays there.
The MYTH of piston damage is the latest rumor the mongers have dreamed up. This one popped up just a week or so after the acetone news became known to the general public. It is amazing that it took so little time. One wonders how such long range testing was accomplished so quickly. Was a test lab sitting somewhere with nothing to do? But I am not gullible and require specific data. Which part of the piston goes bad? The skirt that is quite well lubricated and often gets too much oil? The pins that receive more than ample oil? The ring lands and grooves that are normally bathed in gasoline in the absense of acetone? I wonder if they mean not part of the piston but the cylinder walls that are harmed. Maybe the rings and walls are getting damaged from acetone. Well, let's see. If the acetone is in the gasoline, then gasoline has to reach the part in question. But gasoline will never reach these parts if acetone is present because acetone forces the fuel in the chamber to combust rather than saturate the rings and pistons. So that means acetone and the fuel that carries the acetone must leave the rings the hell alone. Only if the fuel does NOT contain acetone will the fuel swamp the rings and pistons. Thus acetone and piston damage are mutually exclusive. So people who spread these rumors are just plain stupid.
In 1990, I took my 1964 Ford Econoline engine apart after it died in minus 80-degree windchill when the water pump froze. That engine had digested more acetone than any other of my vehicles before or since. After 567,000 miles, the engine had a whopping .004 to .007 wear on the cylinder walls. That does not sound like it suffered any piston or valve damage in 20 years of my prolific driving all over creation. In ten years of extensive driving with my Neon, some signs would have shown up by now but the thing just keeps running like a new car. Car after car after car would have shown something from the use of acetone. Wait, something did show up. The use of acetone greatly improves mileage AND engine life.
The MYTH of valve burning and its reasons had roots back when older cars were tuned by hand and mechanics did lots of things wrong when they adjusted the settings. The popular myth might have its origin after seeing an acetylene torch cut through steel. Not stainless though. A torch won't normally cut stainless. Lead in the gas prevented damage to valves back then. Experience on dynos show a lean mixture might lead to misfires that occur every other cycle and give a tell-tale bang out the exhaust. It is well known that a lean mixture COOLS combustion chamber temperatures and delays peak pressures. The peak temperature near TDC happens when the cylinder is running at or slightly richer than a stoichiometric mixture. Too rich or too lean drops the peak temps. Lean mixes and/or late timing can cause slow combustion and overheating of the coolant and perhaps the exhaust valves. Late timing can lead to valve burning but your computer prevents late timing. Modern exhaust valve steels and induction hardened seats are designed to withstand warting and last forever without lead in the gas. But the slow burns from lean mixtures may exit past the exhaust valve still burning and ignite unburned fuel in the pipe, muffler or cat-con. Note that a diesel engine idles at 100:1 AFR. Now THAT is lean. At part throttle, a diesel may have 50:1 AFR. They do not burn valves with these lean ratios that are many times leaner than a gas engine. There is no harm to diesel pistons or other engine parts from running such ultra lean mixtures.
What DOES hurt engine parts is late timing or running cold thermostats. But distributors are gone now. Modern cars have computers to adjust mixture and engine parameters without human help. Many sensors feed their data to the computer and the computer does what it is programmed to do. Unless someone tampers with a car computer or the sensors, the engine will behave properly. There is a strong relationship between good mileage and engine performance. For example, too lean of a mixture would NOT give good mileage. How could it? Fuel can go unburned out the exhaust with lean mixtures. When your ScanGauge says you are getting excellent mileage, your engine will last the longest possible. SO it is NOT possible to damage valves or anything else at peak mileage. Back in San Pedro, we ran engines for days at a time under load with acetone. We kept them at peak economy without problems in both gas and diesel engines. These quite obvious details should be known. Please, had any problems showed up during decades of testing, this material would not exist and YOU would not be reading this. So please do your own testing? Do not take self-serving opinions seriously.
If we had found engine damage, it would be mentioned. Never have. Not from using acetone because the engines last longer. We had lots of bad valves and pistons while using nitromethane in fuelers and nitropropane in race cars. That was to be expected. But we know exactly what the cause was in every case. Those are dangerous fuels. Acetone is rather safe unless you breathe it or drink it. In fact with these tiny, itsy-bitsy, extremely minute amounts, the engine still thinks it is running straight gasoline. Apparently some people are releasing mileage additives into stores that contain acetone. These new products might not be patented, due to the fact acetone is in the public domain.
In general, engine parts CANNOT be affected when you actually have great MPG. High mileage actually prevents engine wear. Your fuel mixture is not changed with acetone. Lubrication is improved due to less wasted fuel being available around the rings and pistons. The compression ratio and timing are not changed. The basic fuel is not changed. The computer settings are not altered. The engine parameters remain as they were. The engine operating temp is still the same. The general RPM is still in the same range. The valve clearances are the same. The same hydraulic lifters and camshaft are still there.
My old Ford van went 567,000 miles BECAUSE tons of acetone went through it during 20 years, until December 1989. The cylinder wear was .004 to .007 inches when we removed the head a few months later. My 1995 Neon has run lots of acetone (and Torco Oil) and still is like new at 140,000 miles, except for a little oil leak. Numerous cars have been run with acetone during the past 40 years and NO damage was ever caused except for accidents such as fires and driving off cliffs. The list is too long to mention. Plus there is the ethics involved in stating only the honest Truth. Just the facts.
Pure acetone or propanone is an extremely clean burning fuel that burns in air with a pretty blue smokeless flame. Acetone is a highly flammable liquid. It also removes paint. Do not get it on your paint and do not take it near a flame or spark. Acetone can reduce hydrocarbon emissions up to 60-percent. In some older cars, the HC readings with acetone went from 440 PPM to 195, as just one example. Acetone is toxic to breathe and should be stored outside, not inside your house. Gasoline by itself is also highly toxic, so treat them both with respect and great care. Just a precaution. The author has soaked carburetor parts in acetone for months and even years to see if there is any deterioration. None. Gasoline and/or acetone will dissolve paint and cheap plastics. Any parts made to run with gasoline will work with acetone just fine. Besides we are using tiny amounts per gallon. Just a few ounces per ten gallons of gas. Alcohol has been shown to be corrosive in an engine yet they put THAT garbage into gasoline. Alcohol in general is anti-mileage but the oil company stooges claim it is wonderful. Most of the alcohol that enters your gas came here from Europe as stale wine. The myth of renewable energy has been milked by the Big Guys as much as possible. They know that alcohol is no good in fuels. Look at what happened in Brazil. Millions of engines and fuel systems were ruined in that country by alcohol. But do the Big Guys want your engines to last? No, of course not. They want you to buy new vehicles.
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Shown is the percentage MILEAGE GAIN when a tiny amount of acetone is added to fuel. The curves A B C show the effect on three different cars using different gasolines. Some engines respond better than others to acetone. It is important to use the same gasoline from the same gas station when testing mileage otherwise you have too many variables and get undependable results. The D curve is for diesel fuel. Too much acetone will decrease mileage slightly due to adding too much octane to the fuel. Too much also upsets the mixture ratio because acetone (like alcohol) is a light molecule. Acetone helps the fuel become a vapor more easily inside the chamber and minimizes wasted fuel. All it does is offer total combustion of fuel in any kind of engine. The A curve is with a 1995 Neon. The B curve is with a 1986 GMC. The C curve is with two Caravans, 1990 and 1997.
After you find the right amount for your car per ten gallons, and you are happy with your newfound mileage, you may one day cease using acetone for a couple of tanks. Watch the drop in mileage. It will amaze you. That reverse technique is one of the biggest eye openers concerning the use of acetone in fuel. For example in recent weeks I stopped using acetone in my Neon. At a steady 50 MPH, my MPG delivered 48-52 per my ScanGauge averages. That was the maximum with acetone. Then the next four fills at half empty gradually came down to 43-44, 37-38, 33--34 and 30-31. The last is slightly higher than what the car delivered originally or 27-29. Same gas. The trouble with consistent mileage tests is the cold weather. This reverse test method will be repeated in the spring with new oil and some other additives in the acetone that I am working on. No trick mileage stuff was used in this particular exercise. Just straight Texaco 87-octane gasoline. The lesson here is to TEST, TEST and RETEST.
Complete vaporization of normal fuel is far from perfect in today's cars. A certain amount of fuel in most engines remains liquid in the hot chamber and slides past the rings into the oil. Of course the liquid fuel then ruins the rings and walls as it enters the crankcase to further damage the lubricating ability of the oil. In order to become a true gas and be fully combusted, fuel must undergo a phase change. Still, fuel needs a kick of some kind to transform from big globs into a full vapor. The acetone provides that kick with its rapid inherent molecular vibration that prevents fuel from escaping the combustion process and going through unburned. In the chart above, we see how little acetone in ten gallons it takes to help combust nearly all your fuel. Vacuum is the best friend your engine has to get your fuel fully vaporized. At part throttle the manifold vacuum reaches 20 to 25 inches of mercury. This important vacuum aids in breaking up the larger fuel particles and overcoming some of the disadvantages of surface tension. Remember a slight amount of heat amplifies the surface tension of the fuel molecules because the heat is spread across the outside of the large clumps of fuel. This draws the clumps and blobs tighter together. Just look how drops form. But a large amount of heat will not reach the inside molecules within many of the clumps. The insides of all the clumps must be broken up for complete combustion.
Most fuel molecules are sluggish when bundled inside a fuel particle. For instance the energy barrier from surface tension can sometimes force some water molecules to reach 300 degrees before they vaporize. Similarly with gasoline, alcohol and water. So any amount of water in the fuel is a killer to achieving proper combustion. Fuel is commonly forced to reach excessive temperatures to vaporize. Your jump in mileage with acetone comes from the (former excess) fuel that now gets burned and no longer winds up in the crankcase. You stop the waste and end engine wear. That excess fuel was previously wasted past the rings or sent out the tailpipe but now (with acetone) it gets burned. Conventional fuels are not designed to fully vaporize or fully combust. This simple fact appears to be deliberate on the part of the oil companies although some companies such as Texaco, Chevron and Canadian Shell deliver excellent gasoline mileage (in the opinion of the author) and in view of repeated test results. On numerous trips across the country in a 1995 Neon, his son calculated the mileage and they had a consistent 49 MPG with Texaco, Shell or Chevron. Often they get 45-50 MPG in town driving. With a special FOG Inducer device in the Neon, they reached 51-52 in city driving. A new Bright Enterprises version exists that may raise the mileage over 70 MPG in 2005. In fact we are testing numerous versions to gain big mileage. The highest ever was 73 MPG in 2005 in Wisconsin when two such devices were combined. But the testing still continues.
Please note better gasolines may work better with acetone. We try to find the best gas in our area and depend on a ScanGauge to do that job. THEN we introduce acetone in small amounts until the mileage peaks. BTW a four-cylinder engine is capable of producing better MPG than a six or eight. This is due to the longer TIME for combustion allowed by fewer cylinders for better efficiency. The longer time for the burning process in a four is twice that of an eight. Thus an eight is inherently more wasteful of fuel in theory than a four or six. This simple fact is not well known. More cylinders shorten the time that combustion has to finish the total job of burning all the fuel.
Many years ago the author used a 1948 Hudson and later a 1949 Olds to test fuels and immediately found that 100-percent acetone had way too much octane. About 150. So he eventually wound up with a fuel mixture around half acetone and half kerosene at the end of that experiment. By no means is this any recommendation. Nor did he simply start mixing chemicals without careful research and calculations beforehand. He knew enough about organic chemistry, physics and math to investigate fuels on paper prior to pouring anything into a test tube or fuel tank.He started his university training at age 13 and is devoted to science and its procedures. Each test is carefully considered and examined beforehand to avoid a waste of time but also to prevent harm. It is important to have some reasonable prediction of the final results. Furthermore the author modified his own carburetors, made carbs from scratch and tailored MANY different fuel mixtures for test purposes. A natural-born experimenter, he has been doing it ever since. And those results are now yours for free.
During extensive fuel testing on engine dynos in Wilmington, we evaluated the effects of three additives on performance and economy. The three additives sprayed into the intake were water, alcohol and acetone. The individual pressurized sprays entered just below the carburetor. Performance and economy improved with each reduction of the alcohol and/or water content of the spray mixture. But each and every increase in the acetone content improved performance and economy and reduced emissions. This correlation was true up to a point because only a tiny amount of acetone (a fraction of one-percent) proved helpful. In other tests, acetone in gasoline cut emissions by an honest 50-percent or more. But that test was 1/3 of one-percent and way too much for good mileage. These dyno tests were tedious but uncomplicated and verifiable.
It is a similar story when testing diesel fuels and acetone. A tiny bit of acetone in the fuel proved beneficial. The idle RPM goes up slightly by about 150 and the truck gains power and torque. It also runs more smoothly with much better economy. The difference is obvious. The reason is that unburned fuel gets suddenly combusted and that raises the speed at idle. The vehicles run smoother and you go more days between fills. Plus you find a little more power. The sooty exhaust smoke becomes a thing of the past. These things become obvious.
Alcohol was introduced into our commercial fuels in recent years. But alcohol related problems such as corrosion and water absorption have systematically been kept from the public. A very real cover-up has occurred for greed and political reasons. Mileage drops as high as 50-percent are real (in our own testing) for instance. It make us angry that the oil companies killed acetone for as long as they have. The biggest problem with alcohol in fuel is due to surface tension. Surface tension (ST) is seen when you place a drop of fuel, alcohol or water on a hot plate. It collects into ***** and dances around without vaporizing. Ordinary fuel does not vaporize readily because of ST. Instead fuel ***** up and dances around on the hot plate. Surface tension is like glue between fragments inside the fuel. So within an engine, fuel (gasoline or diesel fuel) resists being finely atomized due to ST. Complete atomization is essential to good combustion but you are DENIED that with alcohol. Gasoline needs injectors to produce a very fine spray into the air stream. Unfortunately the sprayed fuel tends to recombine into larger, persistent droplets because of surface tension. New injectors usually improve combustion because of making a finer spray pattern. With alcohol, gasoline and diesel fuel droplets may fall out of the airstream onto the walls of the manifold. Even in the most modern combustion chambers, some alcohol in (mixed) fuels may not start to burn until the chamber temperature reaches many hundreds of degrees. Good efficiency and ST are diametrically opposed. Thus particle size remains high when ST is prevalent. The real object should always be to REDUCE particle size and increase the number of fuel particles.
The best way to fight many problems with fuels (such as ST) is to add just tiny amounts of acetone to better operate your gas engines and/or diesel engines. Acetone works wonders for engine Thermal Efficiency, cleanliness and long life. Gasoline engines get about 20 to 25-percent TE. Diesel engines can get 35-percent--until the black smoke starts to blow. Then TE dies to below 30-percent. The author has used this additive since 1956 with great success. The pure acetone label is the only additive suggested and is easily available from most Walgreens stores in 16-ounce plastic bottles and in one-gallon containers from some large Fleet Farm supply stores. But any acetone source is better than none. In a 10-gallon tank of gasoline, the author has generally used one to three ounces of pure acetone to obtain excellent mileage improvements. In a 20-gallon tank, the author has used about four to six ounces of acetone with the gasoline. In a ten-gallon tank of diesel fuel, the author has used from 1 to 2 ounces of acetone and noticed that exhaust soot was greatly reduced as fuel mileage rose significantly. Performance went up too. A half-teaspoon of acetone in the fuel mix (one gallon) of a 2-cycle lawnmower or in the tank of a 4-cycle snowblower is what the author normally uses, often with an eye-dropper. Nice crisp sound can be expected from these engines. But do not use too much. Less is more. We are getting reports of big improvements to motorcycle engines with tiny amounts of acetone in the gasoline.
The author suggests not to continuously add acetone to each and every tank of fuel, rather only to every other tankful. The slightest amount of acetone seems to be highly effective for mileage and significant emissions reduction. Most diesel fuel is oily and a tiny amount of acetone has zero effect on injectors--in case that is a worry. Any such problems would have shown up after nearly five decades. In the past we have added the Torco two-cycle GP7 smokeless synthetic gasoline additive to diesel fuel to make the fuel even more slippery--or the red MPZ Engine Assembly Lube from Torco International in with the acetone.
If you own a construction or trucking company with heavy equipment and lots of gasoline and diesel engines, how would you like to save roughly 30-percent on your fuel costs? How would you like your engines to last twice as long? How would you like to get 15-percent more power from your engines? We have nearly a half century of experimentation with fuels and oils that you might find useful. Our approach is simply to eliminate the waste that you normally blow out the exhaust. That's it. Just stop the wasted fuel. Keep it away from your rings. That is why we use Torco Oil and acetone and our other tips.
Ordinary gas or diesel fuel allows a portion of the unburned fuel to bypass the combustion process to escape in various forms of partial combustion products and go out the blackened tailpipe. Some unburned fuel enters the engine oil past the piston rings. The incomplete combustion creates smog, pollution and poor economy from wasted fuel. The surface tension of water is about three times that of alcohol and most gasoline components. A few drops of moisture in the gas causes the ST of the fuel to zoom and not vaporize. Hence the partial products cause wasteful results. Unfortunately many gas stations have too high a tolerance for water in their underground tanks. It only takes a tiny amount of water to ruin even the best gasoline. We need tighter laws against water in stored fuel. Placing acetone in the gasoline or diesel fuel helps greatly to break up the water and alcohol. This bad mix would cause any vehicle to run poorly and waste fuel. There is an increase in water in the exhaust of an engine running a tiny amount of acetone in the fuel due to improved combustion. The more fuel you successfully burn, the more water and carbon dioxide you produce. For each gallon of gasoline you burn, you produce one and 1/3 gallons of water.
The acetone molecule works physically to vigorously shake up every drop of fuel. It acts like an internal vibrator to shake up each tiny bit of fuel so the fuel does NOT ball up or glue together into large aggregate particles. Instead this important additive guarantees more complete vaporization of fuel inside the combustion chamber where it really matters to defeat surface tension. Acetone allows gasoline to behave more like the ideal automotive fuel which is PROPANE. The degree of improved mileage depends on how much unburned fuel you are presently wasting. Thus you might gain 15 to 35-percent better economy from the use of acetone. Sometimes even more. Winter is very hard on mileage. Cold weather kills good mileage due to the severe reduction in Thermal Efficiency. For this reason, the author only conducts outside economy tests in the summer months.
Remember that acetone, alcohol, gasoline and all fuels in general are extremely flammable. Fuels in general should never be allowed near a flame or spark source. Fuels can also dissolve asphalt, most plastics and paint. They can damage skin and clothing. They should be kept in properly ventilated storage and not mixed with unknown substances. Keep children away from all dangerous chemicals. Do not bring dangerous fuels inside your home. A safe garage is typically a common place for such chemicals.
Why has the author recently revealed the benefits of acetone in cars and trucks? To keep our money in the U.S. even though the oil industry will do anything to prevent better mileage. They will do anything to prevent engines from lasting a long time. Why have they suppressed acetone and propane for many decades? We must assume it is ON PURPOSE. Simple GREED. Better mileage causes engines to last longer due to less unburned fuel going past the rings, thus keeping the rings and engine oil in far better condition. But the biggest reason to conceal this additive from you is that bad mileage gives the oil and car industries higher profits that comes right from your pockets, ruins the air and throws our children and our Nation into future debt. Do we want this insanity and uncontrolled greed to continue? Tell your Senator that we need acetone added to our gasoline.
There is a basic premise behind mileage learned from a great teacher, Jack Henry, long ago. "Mileage and power go hand in hand. An engine at its best MPG is mechanically in the best possible condition." National Schools, L.A. 1954.
Any person can easily verify that acetone improves fuel mileage. This is a no-brainer. Besides this is something YOU can do for your country. Send this page to your Senator. A simple way to determine the way acetone increases MPG is to document the number of days it takes going to work before you need to refill. With the right amount of acetone, you will go more days per tankful.
In conclusion, alcohol in fuel attracts water. Water acts like a fire extinguisher. It's not a smart thing to put in cars or trucks. Some cars may run badly and even quit due to the incombustible nature of the water laden fuel. We know of a dozen cars that recently stopped running due to water in the alcohol and gas mixture. They used the same Blue Planet gasoline. (One of those was my 1986 Jimmy). The gas tank was removed and drained. Look at the existing SUV situation with horrible mileage. In cold weather (below zero), the water and alcohol form nasty (abrasive) icy particles that can damage fuel pumps. BUT acetone helps to fight the ice crystals. By adding acetone for better mileage, fewer total emissions per mile get blown into the atmosphere. Plus you can drive much farther with less pollution. How sad that in the 21st Century, a new 30,000 dollar vehicle gets an unholy 10 to 16 miles per gallon. Hey folks, my 1936 Dodge did better than that. What have the (mighty and powerful) car and oil industries been doing since 1936? Not to mention the ineffective job the DOE is doing. It seems they are in bed together: DOE, car makers, researchers, Big Oil, API and some members of Congress. And why have conservationists such as the touted Sierra Club not recognized the value of acetone in the combustion process? Why have they not recognized that good mileage automatically means lower emissions? What gives?
If John Wayne were alive, he would probably tell you, "Hell yes, run acetone in your car. Who do those SOBs think they are?"
We would like to hear from car owners whose cars have quit after filling up with gas-alcohol fuel. It is a common problem. The author knows it is a trivial thing to obtain great mileage. He has done it over and over for 50 years by many different methods. The essential question is, "Why won't THEY?"
I hereby swear all stated above is true and factual
