Acetone in gas... 2+mpg do it!
Administrator
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 24,686
Likes: 21
From: South Georgia/East Florida
I am anxious to know what you find out, I was going to try it, but am glad you chose to be the guinea pig. Don't know what you'll see on the first tank though, if I'm not mistaken the article I read said that initially you need a couple of tanks to let it fully get into the system and "work it's magic"...
Champion
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,313
Likes: 8
MPG of a Ram pickup will naturally jump around
from at least 13.3 to 15.7
even if you are trying to do the same 'daily driving'.
If a sniper tries out a new scope for his rifle
by firing one single bullet at a target this week,
then changes scopes,
waits a week,
and fires another single bullet with the different scope,
will the two bullets hit different spots on the target
because of the scopes
or because of the different temperature,
different wind and
unavoidably different physical and mental state of the sniper
one week apart?
There is so much 'scatter' or 'noise'
in Ram pickup tank to tank MPG
that you need a total of at least 8 tank fillups
with 4 tanks using the mod
IN BETWEEN
4 tanks in not using the mod
to ACCURATELY find
small differences due to the mod.
If you don't have tanks without the mod
in between tanks with the mod
then you mess yourself up
by seeing changes in air temperature and winds
and the oil companies changing the seasonal gasoline blend
or the common situation where
some tanker loads of gasoline having 10% ethanol in them,
and some just pure 'dino' gasoline.
Want to see this in 'real world'
Ram pickup MPG tests?
See old post below:
====
Here's the results of several tanks of gasoline I kept track of with the OD
either on or off in city driving. After each tank fill up, I alternated
keeping the OD on or off.
I have since made 3 more 300 mile long mpg tests in city driving since i
posted the original 6 tests. My test results now look like this:
-----------
OD turned off runs:
7-19-00 14.32 mpg Amoco87
7-29-00 15.17 mpg Amoco87
8-08-00 14.23 mpg Amoco87
9-08-00 13.53 mpg Amoco87
---------------------------------
average 14.31 mpg
Standard Deviation =0.67
OD turned on runs:
(these were run inbetween the runs above)
7-12-00 14.16 mpg Exxon87
8-17-00 14.25 mpg Amoco87
8-24-00 15.49 mpg Amoco87
9-01-00 15.03 mpg Amoco87
9-12-00 14.35 mpg Amoco87
-------------------------------
average 14.66 mpg
As you can see, so far the OD on/off difference seems to be small with a
slight 0.3 MPG edge to leaving OD on while in city driving.
That is about a 2% difference and may be due to 'scatter.'
The difference between driving with OD on, or OD off, is that with
OD off the auto trans will quickly 'lock up' the torque converter clutch in 3rd gear,
but with OD on in daily driving 3rd gear will be with a slipping torque converter and the TCC won't lock until you get in 4th OD gear above 50 mph.
Note also how much the MPG jumps around.
All realworld tests have 'random variation.'
The Standard Deviation of all 9 tanks of gasoline = 0.61
and the average of all 9 tanks was 14.50
so that 98% of the time
the MPG will 'naturally' be expected to jump around
in a range from 13.3 to 15.7
If I had done just two tests, and had by chance gotten the low 14.16 for the
OD on, and the high 15.17 for OD off, I would have falsely concluded that OD
on really hurts in city driving.
To get more reliable MPG numbers for Rams in city driving you need to do
multiple tests in a before/after/before/after sequence.
Even better would be to do
SAE/TMC type IV testing with two or more vehicles following one another
'convoy' style. Using this testing technique you can get accurate results in a single day with just two long trips.
Most fraudulent MPG improvement devices continue to sell because of this
'jump around' MPG during normal driving.
If a MPG device DOES NOTHING AT ALL,
out of 100 people who try it,
50 will find that their next tank of gasoline got them better MPG,
and they will then boast what a wonderful device they just bought.
Out of the 50 who get worse MPG on the next tank, quite a few will be a little
ashamed they got gypted and stay quiet, and only a few will be brave enough to
post that the device is a fraud. Some of these will say: "Maybe I did
something wrong and I will check the MPG on the next tank and will drive more
carefully." Half of these will "by chance" find better MPG on the second tank
and get the percentage reporting better MPG with the worthless device up to
75% !
from at least 13.3 to 15.7
even if you are trying to do the same 'daily driving'.
If a sniper tries out a new scope for his rifle
by firing one single bullet at a target this week,
then changes scopes,
waits a week,
and fires another single bullet with the different scope,
will the two bullets hit different spots on the target
because of the scopes
or because of the different temperature,
different wind and
unavoidably different physical and mental state of the sniper
one week apart?
There is so much 'scatter' or 'noise'
in Ram pickup tank to tank MPG
that you need a total of at least 8 tank fillups
with 4 tanks using the mod
IN BETWEEN
4 tanks in not using the mod
to ACCURATELY find
small differences due to the mod.
If you don't have tanks without the mod
in between tanks with the mod
then you mess yourself up
by seeing changes in air temperature and winds
and the oil companies changing the seasonal gasoline blend
or the common situation where
some tanker loads of gasoline having 10% ethanol in them,
and some just pure 'dino' gasoline.
Want to see this in 'real world'
Ram pickup MPG tests?
See old post below:
====
Here's the results of several tanks of gasoline I kept track of with the OD
either on or off in city driving. After each tank fill up, I alternated
keeping the OD on or off.
I have since made 3 more 300 mile long mpg tests in city driving since i
posted the original 6 tests. My test results now look like this:
-----------
OD turned off runs:
7-19-00 14.32 mpg Amoco87
7-29-00 15.17 mpg Amoco87
8-08-00 14.23 mpg Amoco87
9-08-00 13.53 mpg Amoco87
---------------------------------
average 14.31 mpg
Standard Deviation =0.67
OD turned on runs:
(these were run inbetween the runs above)
7-12-00 14.16 mpg Exxon87
8-17-00 14.25 mpg Amoco87
8-24-00 15.49 mpg Amoco87
9-01-00 15.03 mpg Amoco87
9-12-00 14.35 mpg Amoco87
-------------------------------
average 14.66 mpg
As you can see, so far the OD on/off difference seems to be small with a
slight 0.3 MPG edge to leaving OD on while in city driving.
That is about a 2% difference and may be due to 'scatter.'
The difference between driving with OD on, or OD off, is that with
OD off the auto trans will quickly 'lock up' the torque converter clutch in 3rd gear,
but with OD on in daily driving 3rd gear will be with a slipping torque converter and the TCC won't lock until you get in 4th OD gear above 50 mph.
Note also how much the MPG jumps around.
All realworld tests have 'random variation.'
The Standard Deviation of all 9 tanks of gasoline = 0.61
and the average of all 9 tanks was 14.50
so that 98% of the time
the MPG will 'naturally' be expected to jump around
in a range from 13.3 to 15.7
If I had done just two tests, and had by chance gotten the low 14.16 for the
OD on, and the high 15.17 for OD off, I would have falsely concluded that OD
on really hurts in city driving.
To get more reliable MPG numbers for Rams in city driving you need to do
multiple tests in a before/after/before/after sequence.
Even better would be to do
SAE/TMC type IV testing with two or more vehicles following one another
'convoy' style. Using this testing technique you can get accurate results in a single day with just two long trips.
Most fraudulent MPG improvement devices continue to sell because of this
'jump around' MPG during normal driving.
If a MPG device DOES NOTHING AT ALL,
out of 100 people who try it,
50 will find that their next tank of gasoline got them better MPG,
and they will then boast what a wonderful device they just bought.
Out of the 50 who get worse MPG on the next tank, quite a few will be a little
ashamed they got gypted and stay quiet, and only a few will be brave enough to
post that the device is a fraud. Some of these will say: "Maybe I did
something wrong and I will check the MPG on the next tank and will drive more
carefully." Half of these will "by chance" find better MPG on the second tank
and get the percentage reporting better MPG with the worthless device up to
75% !
Muscle Car Moderator
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 569
Likes: 0
From: Smells like New Jersey
Mythbusters looked into this also, and it was busted. They found an actual decrease in fuel economy with the gate down. But the did find that drafting a semi at 10 feet and 55 mph in a Magnum will increase economy by 49%.
Rookie
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 63
Likes: 0
From: IL
I'm not disputing that it might improve mpg. If you've seen results that are positive, congrats! (i'd never put it in my fuel though). But what proof do you have that it cleans your engine and prevents carbon build-up (other then that you read it on the internet, which is not proof at all)? Have you disassembled your engine since you started using it to verify that there is no carbon build-up and that your engine is cleaner? I call BS on this claim alone simply because you likely have no proof that it does any such thing.
Hall Of Fame
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 12,946
Likes: 309
look at my mpg thread in my sig... alot of testing with different settings on the TST has given me some great data to use as a baseline.
Legend
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 7,843
Likes: 13
From: DFW, Texas
I've heard the theory of the air bubble in the bed that actually makes it more fuel efficient to keep the gate on, but then why does a tonneau cover increase MPG's? And I wonder if the air bubble theory is different for a short bed vs. long bed?
Hall Of Fame
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 12,946
Likes: 309
the 1st tank of the test I had no tonneau cover & got into the 18's, once I put it on it seemed like it was hard to duplicate the mpg number I got out of the 1st test. the cover I have is a snugtop sl2 and it is pretty heavy (100 lbs or more). which may have contributed to the drop in mileage after that. right now the cover is off and it seems like I get better mileage these days. with it being a diesel however, mileage will increase as it ages so it's hard to say what change is affecting it. the only way to really test it would be to go back and run the same setup again now and compare against it.
Champion
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,313
Likes: 8
http://web.archive.org/web/200304142...er/Tonneau.htm
SEMA comments on the above student work
http://www.sema.org/Main/SemaOrgHome.aspx?ID=52546
SEMA comments below on a more recent tonneau test on GM, Ford and Dodge pickups at a CA racetrack, but unfortunately at a 45 mph test speed required because the trucks did not have rollcages. At higher speeds the tonneau's would have shown more gains.
http://www.sema.org/main/semaorghome.aspx?id=55785
above SEMA link to 45 mph test corrected
Ford Engineer says tonneaus improve MPG 5 to 10%
http://web.archive.org/web/200611221..._save_fuel.htm
SEMA comments on the above student work
http://www.sema.org/Main/SemaOrgHome.aspx?ID=52546
SEMA comments below on a more recent tonneau test on GM, Ford and Dodge pickups at a CA racetrack, but unfortunately at a 45 mph test speed required because the trucks did not have rollcages. At higher speeds the tonneau's would have shown more gains.
http://www.sema.org/main/semaorghome.aspx?id=55785
above SEMA link to 45 mph test corrected
Ford Engineer says tonneaus improve MPG 5 to 10%
http://web.archive.org/web/200611221..._save_fuel.htm
Last edited by HankL; Aug 12, 2008 at 05:27 AM.