It is indeed possible to double your mileage on most cars:
This article about acetone (CH3COCH3) draws conclusions that Big Oil and the American Car Manufacturers and their politicians do NOT want you to know. They apparently suffer from unlimited corporate GREED. They want bad mileage. It seems that way because if they wanted good mileage, we would all have excellent mileage. We get worse fuel, not better fuel. We get overly rich mixtures. Just look at the SUV and pickup mileage situation. They have tried to squash the widespread use of acetone in diesel fuel and gasoline. The opposition stories deny the benefits of acetone, xylene and other additives to improve your mileage. They make silly claims of acetone being harmful. At the very least, one would think they would feel shame for blasting a good and noble cause like this one.
How do I learn these things? Knowledge comes from constant testing. From my readers who test. From hundreds of letters and calls from people who know better. And from papers such as The Wall Street Journal or magazines like Utne Reader. I am a truthful person. I would never publish a false technical statement deliberately. YUK. Yet that is the implication some persons like to give. Nor would I publish anything I have not verified over and over and over. Plus they give no motive or reason for me to lie. It sure is not for cash as I give many of my discoveries away to the public. However it is now well known that only pure acetone works, such as from beauty supply stores. A fake test would not use the good stuff but would come from a tainted source. I found a nice boost in MPG from tert butanol, with or without acetone.
The above title says you can double your mileage. That is quite true. However, acetone alone will not do it. You need a good engine and a good vehicle. Pickups and SUVs are not a good start. This website explores numerous ways to get better mileage and each of these tips donates its share of mileage gains until the total becomes double the MPG you started with. In many cases, we have tripled mileage with these suggestions. There are no miracles. Great mileage takes work and the cooperation of a good open-minded mechanic in your area. Preferably an older mechanic who remembers what it was like to work on real cars.
To be blunt, I do not care who uses our suggested mileage ingredients and who does not. A researcher simply presents his or her facts and lets the wind take that information wherever it goes. This is not about any particular chemical or procedure. It is about you, the public, taking a hand in your own destiny and doing a little trial testing on your own if you are so inclined. Maybe you can discover things that may save our country a lot of dollars and help the quality of our air in the process. There are obstructionists who deny whatever they can for no real reason other than their huge egos, tiny brains and lack of shame. They should never try acetone or my other hints. I prefer that nice, intelligent people take the suggestions and verify to their own satisfaction what works for them and what does not. There is nothing to argue about.with words and counter words. There is a lesson to be learned however, that existing fuel lacks the quality we need for good mileage. You have the ability now to make your gasoline and diesel fuel much better. It will save you money and help the air we all must breathe. It can be like recycling so we are at least trying to make a better world for ourselves and our kids and their kids.
When the fake claims mentioned above did not pan out, they said acetone causes gasoline to burn faster and thereby loses mileage. This is false, of course. Pure acetone does not cause fuel to burn faster but to burn BETTER. Acetone, xylene, neohexane and other methyl carrying hydrocarbons are among the slowest burning chemicals known to man. Here is how they operate. These survive the heat of combustion for a very long time although they vaporize readily. Still they burn slowly. By their fierce vibrations, they break apart the massive fuel fragments that surround them. Thus they encourage great vaporization, the key to mileage. The oil industry seems determined to halt the use of acetone and to stop sites such as this one that operate non-profit and are a public service to boost mileage and lower pollution and halt atmospheric warming. Why is the industry corrupt in this respect? Why lie and spread fake rumors regarding acetone and mileage in general? Because the threat of acetone (the 'A' word) has been feared by the oil industry for many years. They most likely fear that good mileage will cost them billions. They are fighting a losing battle however. They will have to stop acetone AND xylene AND iso-octane and a dozen other chemicals that can supply the methyl ion CH3 into gasoline. Plus they will have to shoot down several Fog devices that create fantastic vaporization. But they will undoubtedly try because of the billions involved. Those are YOUR billions they want. They remain committed to taking your money from you. Possibly because they know petroleum is a dwindling commodity and they want to get all the loot they can before the stuff runs out. And it WILL run out. The Peak Oil point has aleady been passed. Demand is rising as easy availability is dropping. Those of you who studied economics are well aware of this.
The biggest probable reason for the grief and fear caused by good mileage to the oil companies and auto companies is overproduction. There is no shortage of car production lines or refineries. They simply fear that the production lines are not being utilized enough, according to the Wall Street Journal. People who own cars with good mileage tend to keep them. Cars with good mileage stay on the road until they fall apart. The companies fear that a drop in oil usage due to high mileage will cause them to enter a lower demand and overproduction phase and car prices may drop. It is obvious they want to keep those refineries and car factories busy and productive regardless of the consequences. Thus they love ethanol. Good mileage is their worst enemy, so their agenda is to kill mileage. Not Toyota or Honda of course. The American companies care nothing for the masses or for engine efficiency or good mileage or ideals for saving the Earth. They care only for money--lots of it. The corporate mind cares nothing about the future or the disasters that are around the corner due to their massive greed. What the car and oil creeps are doing is a disgrace and should be stopped. I basically do not like the unethical way the car and oil people make money. Do you? So it angers me and I write about it. At least in this country, I have a free voice. So does Chris Paine who wrote and directed Who Killed the Electric Car? The movie is a scathing exposure of the brutal arrogance of American car and oil companies, American politicians and the slick corporate manipulation of the American public to keep rising profits the way they are. Utne Reader is a magazine that tells about the ethanol fiasco. Sicko is a movie that goes into our rotten health system--if it can be called a system.
Pure acetone is a stable vaporization additive rather than a fuel additive per se. As such I do not consider acetone a fuel. It is successful in very tiny amounts from about 1/4 of one percent to 1/3 of one percent. Mileage seems to taper off at larger amounts while HC emissions actually are greatly reduced with too much acetone. Acetone not only improves mileage but cuts pollution dramatically and gives longer life to engines. The peak gain in mileage comes between .20 of one-percent and .35 of one-percent acetone, depending on the actual vehicle which may be running gasoline or diesel fuel. This is the roughly the same as 2 to 3 oz. per 10 gallons. I prefer three. Note .781 ml per liter or .78 parts per 1000 or one part per 1280 is the same as one ounce per ten US gallons. Another way of getting the correct mix for motorcycles is to add 1/4 to 1/3 oz. of acetone per gallon of gasoline. Acetone is not the only additive to boost your mileage. Xylene (xylol) and trimethylbenzene do the same thing. There are three variations of xylene that depend on how the pair of methyl ions in the benzene ring are distributed. These are the meta, the ortho and the para molecules of xylene. A doctorate student at Clemson University in South Carolina is checking the mileage boost from the four types of xylene. Xylol (the fourth type) is the mix of the first three. So far they have verified that acetone yields 3 or 4 better MPG and that o-xylene can yield another 2-3 MPG..
I do not just dump additives into gasoline and casually drive around town. I only go by test results and am highly critical of my findings. I live by empirical results. Preparation is half the battle. I prepare for short trips of about 75 miles in one direction and carry my own base fuel. When I have tested a fuel additive, I run all the additive out and go at least another tank with just plain gas--but a good gas that I know is dependable and consistent. Without a solid baseline, all my efforts would be wasted. So I get more baselines and drive the same route again adding a small amount of the additive at a time until I reach a predetermined level. Then I again remove the additive and get a fresh baseline and repeat the whole thing again and again. There is no rush to judgment and no hurry. I started doing this in 1953. When I state a conclusion, it is pretty damn solid. True, not all cars are equal and I have not tested all the cars or engines in the world. I am extremely careful with fuel as I carry many burn scars and wounds on this body and do not wish to receive more, so am fearful of mistakes. That is why we are building a dyno facility with three engines to do fuel testing and testing of Fog devices. We will have solid proof via video--compelling recorded evidence. Our tests are conducted very much like a forensic investigation to derive compelling evidence of the results whereby only one conclusion is possible--to the exclusion of all others. We do not rely on one test or even several tests. We conduct tests over and over ad nauseum. Some testing goes on for years. That is the nature of science--to include all possible parameters. We feel a sincere responsibility to give the public the facts we discover so mileage will truly improve. See my article on A Word or Two About Testing.
Acetone has been used in race cars since about 1930. It was found to improve octane and give slightly better HP when added to fuel but only in very small amounts. Nobody has ever tried to run acetone by itself because the slow burn rate that would require a 17:1 or 18:1 compression ratio. This additive always helps any fuel to burn more completely. This is most helpful with alcohols that combust somewhat sluggishly back when methanol was the fuel of choice at places like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Racers discovered that the absolute maximum amount of acetone to use in fuel was much less than one-percent. They found acetone burns rather slowly with a high octane rating. Xylene has also been used in race cars for many years but now we suspect it is a boost to mileage when used together with acetone in equal amounts. Acetone is very helpful during second stage combustion while the piston is going down the power stroke, promoting reverse adiabatic cooling. It is common for combustion to stall during this second stage of combustion and thus leave a lot of the fuel fragments incompletely burned. This is the normal situation. With acetone, the combustion stays lit and more fuel is completely converted into water and carbon dioxide. Thus more work is done and the engine runs efficiently. Acetone certainly does not speed up combustion but keeps it from dying on the vine. Keeping combustion alive and more efficient is not the same as making it proceed faster. The base fuel and its chemistry dominates the combustion process, not the addition of some teeny amount of an additive. Acetone improves the vaporization process and allows good burning to continue without lapses during the latter phase of second stage where cylinder volume is rapidly increasing. This additive generates a very smooth and complete burn. No ping. No hesitation. No jerking. No stalling. No wasted fuel. Read the new article WILD COMBUSTION and the one on Dangerous Fuels.
Acetone operates on the unburned portion of the fuel through better vaporization to improve combustion efficiency. It improves the probability of successful combustion. It bumps the Thermal Efficiency of all engines--over 25% for gasoline and over 35% for diesel. Acetone and xylene further operate like electron absorbers to protect against detonation or rough running and against water in the fuel. It is the ideal additive for gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel. There are no bad effects whatsoever and there is every good reason to use acetone in your fuel. We have driven over one million miles across this country, Canada and Mexico during the past 50 years with excellent results from acetone. Wonderful results. During all that time, anything abnormal would have shown up. Not one single problem has appeared or I would say so. The base fuel characteristics during combustion remain exactly the same as those of the original fuel because the gasoline (for instance) stays 99.70-percent gasoline. The fuel retains the same basic heat value in BTUs. The fuel just burns more completely with insignificant amounts of acetone in the fuel. This phenomenon happens to reduce pollution as well as improve mileage. Engines love it. Your pocketbook will love it and you will probably never stop using the stuff.
However the acetone purity is not all the same when you buy it at stores. I and others have found the best acetone for mileage is nearly 100-percent pure. While we often get technical grade from a chemical supply house, we rely on the brands at beauty supply stores labeled 100-percent pure. Actually these are 99.4% pure. But we cannot conveniently find better than that. What happens with impure acetone, even that which is labeled falsely as 100-percent pure? The engine runs rough. You mileage will not improve. Look at the label for undesirable ingredients, such as benzoate. Water in the acetone will also make it go bad. If your car has bad plugs or faulty ignition wires or the engine needs work, you will not gain a mileage boost. Do not buy acetone from drug stores. I recently tried bad acetone with good gasoline in two of my cars. Both suffered a small decline in MPG from their normal mileage. Ran all that gas out and went back to the beauty acetone. The cars' mileage recovered to what it had been.
Years ago I was fortunate to stand on the shoulders of automotive giants. One was Jack Henry at National Schools. Another was Harold Daigh. Another was Bob Lancaster. Mr. Henry and Harold had been mechanics at Indy under Clay Smith. Mr. Henry told me several times that the fewer cylinders in an engine, the more efficiency the engine was liable to have. He said V-8 engines tended to be fuel hogs and needed bigger tanks to run the course at Indy and other tracks. He compared the fabulous Offenhauser four to the Novi V-8 when both were run normally aspirated. We even drove to see these engines disassembled side by side in East LA. The Offy pistons looked like buckets compared with the Novi pistons. That was in 1954. In 1974, I asked Harold to explain in more detail what Mr. Henry meant. The two men knew and respected each other. Harold pointed out that two engines of the same displacement but with a different number of cylinders behaved quite characteristically NOT the same. The V-8 needed to be revved nearly twice as high and tended to output less torque and needed steeper gears. It also needed longer cam timing. The Offy for instance made gobs of torque and was great for pulling through the corners. He explained the longer stroke and bigger bore of the Offy did not need extreme RPM to do its job and that in general it preferred perhaps half the RPM for peak torque compared to a V-8 of the same displacement. This gave the 4-cylinder engine a longer time to consume fuel during the power stroke. Indeed all the cycles were twice as long in seconds--for the same displacement. Each cylinder of the four-banger had twice the capacity of a V-8 of the same total displacement. Harold then carried the point further, stating that a 2-cylinder engine had twice the time available to burn its fuel and air as a 4-cylinder of the same displacement because its torque came in at roughly half the RPM of the four and at 1/4 the RPM of the eight. Harold cared more about torque than HP. So the longer the engine has to burn its fuel, the greater will be its inherent efficiency. This is proved easily as Harold and I did it in San Pedro on his engine dynos. We especially had fun playing with his single cylinder Research Engine with variable compression to measure octane. Harold made racing gas. So if you see a mention of a four being more efficient with fuel, it is with the same displacement--not at the same RPM. I have wished many times to own one of the Offy engines today. I wish. You can still see them at the Racing Museum at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
There is a down side to longer burn periods. The burn starts with the spark plug or when the diesel injection begins. It should continue until the exhaust valve(s) open. If the fuel is not high enough in octane rating and the time of the burn is long, it could detonate because of the appearance of a secondary flame front. In a diesel, knock is avoided with little or no lag time by using fuel that combusts easily--the opposite of a gasoline engine. In some cases more than one flame front can appear. This is called abnormal combustion. It must be avoided through proper combustion chamber design and good fuel characteristics. But the longer burn time allows all of the mixture to be consumed and maybe produce higher Thermal Efficiency. At least with longer durations in seconds, the probability is there that most or all the fuel will get burned correctly. A lot of randomness prevails in the combustion chamber. No two burns are exactly the same. Engine design can be argued but in the final analysis, you build one and see what happens. Right now I am putting together a pair of one-cylinder research engines to test fuels. Plus a Neon 4-banger to evaluate mileage products. I would like to get a diesel eventually.
The way to do proofs of the above items is to measure the SFC or specific fuel consumption on several engines. This is the right way to test fuels. If done correctly, fewer cylinders give more dependable SFC readings than engines with more cylinders. The engine dyno facility we are building will have two single-cylinder engines and at least one four-banger. No V-8 engines. All the tests will be read on camera and the data fed to a computer for immediate analysis. A history will be kept for some period of time, including fuel properties, additive properties, air and climate readings, torque, HP, speed, load and any special devices being examined. We will investigate ethanol and give you the truth. We will try to make very exact conclusions that can be repeated if necessary at a later time. Using a V-8 would be a waste of time.
Thus what you will find in real life is that 4-cylinder engines with stick shifts are more likely to grant better mileage than six or eight-cylinder engines. An automatic tranny eats up fuel and is down at least 5 MPG in some cars. A good 4-banger is what you should buy for mileage. We just acquired a one-cylinder test engine for fuels. You will hear more about this later when we conclude tests with tetramethylbenzene. My personal ideal engine configuration is an O-2 or 2-cylinder opposed with no valves, no removable cylinder head and many other beautiful innovations. None of the components would be made from the common automotive materials we have today. Such an engine would test the extreme limits of Thermal Efficiency. And it would run very different fuels. Stuff you have never dreamed of.
We prefer 2-3 oz. acetone per ten US gallons in gasoline and 2 oz. per ten US gallons in diesel fuel. We place this amount in our cars and suggest friends use the same amount for every tankful. It has been reported that we only add acetone every other tankful. That was for test purposes only. We normally do the acetone every tankful. There exists a condition called persistence where some effect remains despite the removal of the primary cause. We have a pyrex measuring bowl for all the ingredients to mix before pouring it into the tank. The mix should include a tiny amount of xylene (XYLOL) at about 1 oz. per 10 gallons of gasoline. We are currently using the same amount of acetone and xylene per 10 gal. of gas after much verification by many people. But please test for yourself. To carry this concept further, we finished tests with the BrightGreen Fog Squirter to automatically inject the correct amount of additive into the engine. This means you need not put additives into the gas tank. This excellent device is being sold for cars and trucks. Call 612-345-5085 or see BrightGreen.Us.
Note the amount of acetone to use has been misrepresented in other sites by 100 to 200 times too much--probably to discourage its use. Stick to the correct values given here. Please disregard information on other sites by non-experts or by unscrupulous persons. All devices or additives that improve mileage are liable to be attacked by those who stand to lose big money if engines last 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. Oil companies 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 in power. Global Warming is being totally ignored. No matter, at least our friends' and family cars have doubled their MPG and greatly reduced pollution. We get a lot of smug satisfaction from these very nice facts. You have a limited time to act, Folks. After that it will be too late.
A few years ago there was one solitary site talking about acetone. Just one. This one. Now there are suddenly 80,000+ sites promoting acetone and mileage in general. They have copied much of my material but in the course of copying my copyrighted text, they try to make word changes and damage the original meaning as they introduce their own peculiar inaccuracies into the highly technical and accurate original writing. If it comes from a different source, it might not be correct and might be untrue. Beware of that fact. Check with the original. Plus we make frequent changes to this material as we keep on testing. See the article APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS.
Some unreliable and perhaps crooked persons have called me names and ridiculed my technical statements on their own sites BECAUSE they have products they are selling and consider my writing to be a threat or competition. So they resort to cheap nonsense just to make money. The worst part is their products are likely to be in the 98% the EPA says are worthless. Their language may superficially look like mine, but it was ripped off. DO NOT fall for the hype, especially when their language is loaded with misspelled words and phony pseudo-technical explanations.
A reader in New York in early 2004 filled bottles with varying amounts of 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. We duplicated these tests and found swelling with 100-percent. But with 10-percent and lower, there was no swelling and no problems. Nobody should ever attempt running 100-percent acetone. I constantly test parts outside in various mixes of chemicals that remain in bottles for long periods. And it is totally pointless to test parts in 100-percent of anything. Nobody runs 100-percent. It is always a mix. After six months in 10-percent acetone, the New Yorker checked all the parts again and found nothing abnormal. I suggest a mix of one-percent and five-percent for a realistic compatibility study. Still, that is 3 to 15 times too much acetone. You would never actually use that much. He basically repeated my old compatibility tests from the 50s and 60s. In our opinion, people who worry about these things should do their own tests and not trust the words of others. Bad gasoline is our enemy and we must search for ways to fight bad gas. Read my article on Dangerous Fuels. The quality of gasoline has dropped in recent years and now includes traces of sulfur that can make your gas gauge not read correctly.
The government of Vietnam banned the use of acetone in their fuels. They claimed it damaged the rubber in fuel systems. But there is no rubber in fuel systems. In tires and coolant systems, yes. But fuel systems have n-buna and neoprene that resist over 200 ingredients in gasoline, including acetone. They wanted to stop people from getting a slight increase in mileage and hurt their profits--just like a capitalist oil company. Their oil industry is owned by the state. So they lied. They lied a lot in the past, you recall. In recent days, I heard comments that are just plain silly lies. Acetone is corrosive and will eat up metal parts. That one made me laugh. Acetone will speed up combustion and wreck your engine. That one is the opposite of the truth. Acetone will wear out your engine. Hilarious, because my 1964 Ford Econoline van went 567,285 miles after digesting more acetone than any other of my vehicles over a 25 year period. Acetone will damage engine parts and cause them to leak. That is odd because I have never noticed any leakage or smelled it in over 50 years. The guy who tried to tell me this stuff worked for an ethanol producer. One cannot help but wonder where he received his training, if any.
An excellent way for us to team up against bad gas is to force a vote in each state of this democracy so the voters can decide if they want ethanol in the gasoline and diesel fuel. You do not want ADM or Cargill making that decision. We cannot let politicians make that decision for us. These guys are lawyers, not engineers. Thus far they have sold us down the river of alcohol. The lobbyists for the Corn Growers Association have bought and paid for the existing rulings in favor of ethanol. The vote is a powerful device in this supposedly free country. Use it. But WHY do so many in government want ethanol? It seems to be for profit. There is enormous profit to be made if you jump on the business bandwagon for ethanol. There are HUGE subsidies from government to produce ethanol or to import ethanol from abroad. Profit is the main reason why we are forced to use this lousy product in our cars, not because it is any good.
Face it. YOU are to blame for the high prices. YOU are to blame for the poor mileage. YOU are to blame for the ethanol. Who else is there? Why do you tolerate it? When was the last time you wrote to your senator and complained about bad mileage? When was the last time you organized a writing campaign to protest the mileage situation? Because it WILL get worse and fuel IS running out. Are you going to wait until the glaciers are licking at your doorstep? It is now open knowledge that 75-percent of the farmland in Minnesota is down to 58-percent moisture content due to the heat that seems to get worse every year. Soybeans and corn are becoming harder and harder to grow to maturity. The yields are way down from what they were ten years ago. The paper ran a story today on how bad the crops are becoming each year. This is real. This is happening. The U/M in St. Paul released a story last week of how ethanol is not the answer and that corn is becoming a very unlikely crop as a source of fuel. On top of that, half of the ethanol we use is being imported from Europe, according to the Wall Street Journal. Plans are afoot to import ethanol from Brazil and destroy more of the forests. This helps who?
Please read the companion articles Science and Testing Methods in the SmartGas series. We are quite willing to show people HOW to conduct valid tests. Many people condemn my findings without ever conducting a single test. That is not logical. Proper test methods are far from obvious. Good testing is half the battle. Also see Practical Mileage in SmartGas.net. The latest additions to the articles is "When the Cars and Machines will Stop" from 1952 that deals with the end of oil in 2020 and the "Future of Fuels."
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 or Donaldson. Find the best gasoline station in your area--preferably one without alcohol. THEN we add a little acetone to the fuel. Or these items may be done concurrently. I fear you will not get great mileage by putting acetone in bad gas. At least we never have. So that is the general methodology we regularly use. We try things over and over. We cannot speak about things we have not actually tried. The first thing you notice with acetone is much 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 and then with. 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--not miracles. You check only one thing against another. One thing at one time. You keep an unbiased record and you are consistent. A ScanGauge is a necessary improvement in road testing.
There is no question that acetone improves MPG. The real question is how much?
Acetone is the secret additive for mileage. Containers labeled acetone from a hardware store are usually NOT okay to put in your fuel. We prefer cans or bottles that say 100% pure. But stay away from containers that have BENZOATE in the acetone or anything else. This ester is used to prevent vaporization in the bathroom. Not good for MPG. The very best place to buy pure acetone is at any beauty supply store. At partrs stores look for the Dupli-Color brand in quart cans. Never use clear plastic to hold gasoline or acetone. The plastic isopropyl bottles we use to hold acetone are great. We reuse the ONYX bottles over and over. The Torco 12 oz. EAL plastic bottles are nice for holding acetone. But never use an engine oil bottle. The best bottles for this purpose are never clear or cheap plastic. We refill these 16 oz. and 12 oz. bottles and keep them handy. The beauty supply bottles are very easy to pour. We also buy xylene (xylol) in gallon and quart cans. The gallon cans should have a spout from a hardware store to pour easier. NEVER use solvents such as paint thinners, kerosene or unknown stuff in your gas as that can foul the plugs. When filling bottles with gasoline or any fuel, keep a fire extinguisher handy. We do. Never use chlorinated hydrocarbons inside any engine. They can dissolve metal parts. Toluene, benzene and xylene are okay if they are pure but may not raise mileage except when mixed with acetone. The author has used ACETONE in gasoline and diesel fuel and in jet fuel (JP-4) 50 years ago. He was the first to do so for mileage and has tested fuels independently and is an authority on this important subject.
Acetone broadens (widens) the limits of combustibility of a fuel. This means the fuel will burn at a leaner mix as well as with a richer mix than with the previous fuel sans acetone. And when it burns, the acetone mix does NOT burn faster than the base fuel but it will burn far more completely and leaves far less unburned fuel when the exhaust valve opens. Plus the ignition sequence will initiate first stage combustion with a wider flame front for a more positive combustion. The positive combustion translates into greater Thermal Efficiency. Acetone is not the only chemical that performs this well on MPG. There are other chemicals that do this job too. It's just that acetone is readily available in hardware and paint stores. Because acetone burns so slowly, it can in tiny amounts raise the octane level of the gasoline. Your car's computer is no dummy. It may detect that the fuel is burning with insufficient flame velocity if you add too much acetone. But then the computer may advance the spark timing to compensate and power will pick up, as well as MPG. The process takes time to get the timing optimized again. Our dyno facility will use engines with manual distributors with TBI or floatless carburetors to avoid typical computer problems. We will test fuel saving devices and fuel additives. We will test oils on our lube testers, not our engines. Several engines have been donated to us. Two one-cylinder engines and a four-cylinder engine--all for fuel testing. This is a great start. See the article on Dangerous Fuels.
A tiny bit of acetone in diesel fuel WILL stop the black smoke when the rack is all the way at full throttle. Good acetone will greatly reduce emissions in any vehicle. Diesels can benefit from Emissions Credits. We proved that acetone can raise mileage with 3 oz. of acetone per 10 gallons of gasoline, especially in cold weather. So will GP-7. Shake the bottles really well before adding to gas tank. The Torco GP-7 is completely soluble in gasoline or diesel but has partial solubility with acetone. So we add a tiny bit of xylene to the mix. Once in the gas tank, the contents will blend completely with the fuel. Please be aware that cold arctic air or heavy rain conditions prevent accurate mileage testing in the winter. Warm air is great for mileage. Power may increase in cold air for a different reason that has to do with viscosity. Cold air has low viscosity and flows much more readily that hot sticky air. It is the opposite for liquids where cold increases viscosity. Cold or wet air takes heat away from the engine and fuel lines and thus lowers engine efficiency. It shows on the ScanGauge. So you cannot compare testing made in warm weather with testing made during cold weather. You cannot compare tests made under high atmospheric density with tests made under low air density. We cannot compare results where the air temps spread over 30 degrees or when too many variables changed. And never allow skin contact with any of these additives. Nor should you breathe any of this stuff. Read the directions on the can. And of course please use a long ATF funnel to keep these additives off the paint. When we finish our dyno facility, you will see what real data looks like. Honest data.
We heard from a former submarine engineer who used acetone in the diesel fuel so the sub 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 87-octane gasoline that has NO alcohol and delivers good mileage. In the Dakotas, Wal-Mart, Cenex and Sam's Club 87-octane gas may have no alcohol. In Illinois use Casey gas. Many readers have given us 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. Engineers know how to test correctly. 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. Opinions are worthless without data. Think of the inflation situation due to the looming fuel cost our Nation is facing. Do fair testing. You cannot go to a station offering 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 three ounces per ten gallons. Keep accurate records. Mix the acetone with a little xylene and/or GP-7. The remarkable news about GP-7 (TFE) is the extent to which it reduces emissions by 70-percent or more. This super slippery lube is an amazing product that protects rings and walls like nothing else. It mixes with unburned fuel and forces it to burn efficiently.
Questions asked of someone in the petroleum industry and/or Corn Growers Association regarding ACETONE will automatically trigger a string of negative reactions and perhaps false assertions. The mere mention of this nice additive represents such a threat to fuel profits that you may get fabricated denials against the successful use of acetone in fuels. They are by no means honest. 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 cheap and common additive. They do not fear other additives like they do acetone. And the reason is that IT WORKS so well while others may not. 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 technical individuals have been willing to share their fuel technology with us. And we agree. It will all prove interesting by the end of summer.
Beware of PILLS that are supposed to dissolve in gasoline. NEVER put solid materials into your gas tank. Not all will dissolve. That means the abrasive stuff will ruin your fuel pump, clog your filters, wreck your injector nozzles and turn your oil into grinding compound. Besides, the moth balls and similar abrasives do NOT improve mileage. Nor do magnets improve mileage as this is one of the most common scams these days. Ever since I was a kid there have been various magnet scams turning up or cars that run on water or employ water sprays or other silly notions. Beware of gasoline additives that make your engine KNOCK or THUD. I tried one such additive (FFT) a year or so ago and it nearly ruined my engine from the explosions it created at low speeds. I had to drain the gas tank.
There is a great little device available to check your exact gas mileage, diesel mileage, coolant temperature and more. See ScanGauge.com for a very timely instrument that fits any car 1995 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. It works like a lie detector. We can check gas stations with the ScanGauge because we only need several gallons to see how that fuel behaves for MPG. Not a complete gas tank worth is needed. Then we run it dry and start over at a different gas station. We use the TRIP function to average the MPG at a steady 50 MPH both ways on the same day on the same road within one hour. Since every gas station offers differing MPG, the ScanGauge is an essential tool. It simply grants the Truth to become 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 further choices 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 like this 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 internally black-listed by the petroleum industry because anything that improves mileage is automatically forbidden. Propane, xylene, GP-7, mesitylene, neohexane and neopentane are excellent MPG additives. With any of these are in your gas, you can feel the difference. The industry could easily add these ingredients into gasoline and diesel fuel. But will they dare to improve your mileage? NO. Our few good senators have to be the ones to force the industry to start putting these ingredients into fuel for the sake of halting Global Warming. I am further informed they are taking out other good additives from gasoline.
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 outright 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 swirling, turbulent air into their engines. This approach will reduce MPG. There are many silly myths floating around the car industry to fool the average person. Another is that cold intake air improves mileage. NOT SO. The magnet craze is plain absurd. Warm air and/or warm fuel improves mileage. Cold air might increase power but not mileage. Warm air raises the Thermal Efficiency (TE) of the engine whereas cold air causes a drop in Thermal Efficiency. TE is the key to mileage. Diesels get over 33% TE. Gasoline engines may get 25% but with ethanol in the fuel, the TE drops to below 20%. Diesel has 139,000 BTU per gallon. Good gasoline has 124,000 BTU per gallon or more. Ethanol has 71,000 to 73,500 BTU per gallon. These facts are not well known. Nevertheless, BTU content and the degree of vaporization mostly determine MPG.
We can stop Global Warming. Getting TWICE the existing mileage is the key to greatly reduce the runaway heating effect from carbon dioxide being pumped across the Earth. Just remember this simple fact. Mileage = conservation = low pollution.
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. Readers report the same experiences. 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 87-octane gasoline. Too much octane causes a loss of power and economy. BUT too little octane causes the same misbehavior 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. 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. At this moment I have a 50-50 mix of acetone and gasoline outside for five days in a can to clean some parts. It has been 100-degrees out there and the mix is still fairly clean and has not evaporated. The smell of the acetone is still strong and the parts are clean.
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 piston skirt is quite well lubricated and often gets too much oil. The pins receive more than ample oil. The ring lands and grooves are normally bathed in gasoline in the absence of acetone. Gasoline floods the cylinder walls that are harmed. Maybe the rings and walls are getting damaged from acetone. Well, let's see. If acetone is in the gasoline, then gasoline would have 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 fully combust rather than saturate the rings and pistons. This means acetone and the fuel that carries the acetone will leave the rings alone. Only if the fuel does NOT contain acetone will the fuel swamp the rings and pistons to cause damage. Thus acetone and piston damage are mutually exclusive. People who spread these rumors are just plain stupid in my opinion. And I wonder why they do it. Would it not make more sense to try to improve mileage and engine life? If they are simply confused, all they have to do is call. Especially with gasoline at three bucks a gallon and climbing. The fact remains that no engine can be efficient unless the fuel contains some acetone.
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 eleven 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 improved 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. Now computers try to do that job. 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 shows 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 these days 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 catcon. 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. Hmmmm.
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. You need the RIGHT mixture. 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 while testing specific fuel consumption rates. 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 here. But we never have. Not from using acetone because the engines last longer and run much smoother. 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 now in the public domain.
In general, engine parts CANNOT be affected when you actually have great MPG. High mileage actually prevents engine wear. High mileage is the ideal state for long engine life due to burning the fuel completely. 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. The gasoline remains 99.70% gasoline.
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 a mere .004 to .007 inches when we removed the head a few months after the engine froze during minus 80-degree wind chill. My 1995 Neon has run lots of acetone (and Torco Oil) and still is like new at 150,000 miles, except for a little oil leak at the head gasket. Numerous cars of mine and friends 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 and other mishaps. The list is too long to mention. My Neon is by far the best car I have ever owned for MPG. It has superb high speed handling and comfort. That is the honest Truth. Just the facts are given here.
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 most 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 such as my 1986 GMC, the HC readings with acetone dropped 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 gasoline/acetone mixes 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. Ethanol 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 to keep their production lines productive. Now it appears that greedy strategy may have backfired on them. People want cars with better MPG. People want Neons, Toyotas and Hondas. Not Hummers. Hummers are bummers WRT mileage.
One detail in modern cars needs attention. The computers on some cars are apparently sabotaged against an increase in MPG. There is some number constant in the computer memory that when the car attempts to exceed that value, the computer enriches the mixture to defeat the mileage boost. This is a form of robbery of the public. Many instances of an inability to exceed a fixed MPG might be traced to this subtle sabotage. I hear from guys who bragged to their mechanic or service manager that they were getting great mileage, but when they picked up the car after simple maintainence, the MPG was down by 5 or more. That is a rotten abuse by the dealer, if the stories are true. Why might this be a real policy? Because with better MPG, the longer the engine lasts--and the less likely the owner will trade for a new car. We are trying to track cars that do not respond to acetone for this very reason.
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 may decrease mileage slightly due to adding too much octane to the fuel. Acetone helps the fuel become a vapor more easily inside the chamber and minimizes wasted fuel. Acetone helps gasoline that contains ethanol. Acetone offers 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 old 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. Now of course I use Cenex. The lesson here is to TEST, TEST and RETEST.
What can we do? For one, do not buy a new car. Instead fix your old car if it is in reasonably good shape. Do not trade it in because you get nothing for it. Fix your cars according to our tips and double your mileage. It is easy to do. I have done it many, many times. See our articles on Mileage Tips and MPG Quickies.
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.
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 may reach 20 inches of mercury. This important vacuum aids in breaking up the larger fuel particles and overcoming some of the disadvantages of surface tension and the London Effect. 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 on a hot plate. But a large amount of heat may not reach the inner-most molecules within many of the clumps. The insides of all the clumps must be broken up for complete combustion. Acetone does that chore. But acetone is not alone. Tert butanol looks really good.
The other hints and tips we give you are also important for great MPG.
A hot plate is a good way to test for water in your gasoline. Water, ethanol and gasoline have high surface tension that causes drops of these liquids from an eyedropper to ball up and dance around on the surface of the hot plate. Bob Lancaster (Torco) showed me this little trick back in 1968. There is some microscopic moisture in all fuel and oil. But the less, the better. You might expect the fallen drops to vaporize on the hot plate. But they do not. Instead they ball up to conserve their energy. When they finally vaporize, they cool and lose energy to the medium they are in, such as air. So a tiny bit of acetone will prevent the balling up and you see instant vaporization with drops of fuel. With lubricating oil, the balling up effect (when there is water present) still goes on but you will see a lighter color of the oil balls with more water content present. If the discoloration is severe, do not use that oil in your engine. Water in the oil can KILL the lubricating ability of the oil and do harm to the engine parts. Guess what? Alcohol in the gasoline always winds up in the crankcase oil along with the water it pals up with. So alcohol in gasoline leads to engine damage as well as bad MPG. You can smell the alcohol in gasoline. Alcohol makes the fuel smell weird. Good gas has a far less nasty odor and smells cleaner.
Most fuel molecules are sluggish when bundled inside a fuel particle. For instance the energy barrier from surface tension (along with the London Effect) 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. Water soaks up the heat that otherwise would operate on the fuel and air to generate a reaction. 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 Cenex 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, my son calculated the mileage and we ran a consistent 49 MPG with Texaco, Shell or Chevron. Often we had 45-50 MPG in town driving. With a special MAX WARMER device in the Neon, we reached 51-56 in city driving. In fact we are testing several versions of different devices in our new dyno facility. The testing will always continue. If you are interested in the BrightGreen MAX Warmer call or Email to BrightGreen. Write for information to milespergallon@gmail.com. These devices work with gasoline and diesel engines and have shown a boost of 11 MPG in the latest tests on a Mazda pickup and 1996 Olds--both getting over 44 MPG. Other vehicles we work on are able to get over 50. BrightGreen Inc. is in Minneapolis MN. See www.brightgreen.us.
Please note better gasolines will work better with acetone. We try to find the best gas in our area (Cenex) and depend on a ScanGauge to do that job. This gas (no ethanol) is in Wisconsin near the Twin Cities. THEN we introduce acetone in small increments until the mileage peaks. The better condition an engine is in, the better improvement you will see in MPG from the changes proposed here. A poor engine will not show much, if any, gain.
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, machined 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. See the article Approaching Footsteps.
During extensive fuel testing on engine dynos in Wilmington, we evaluated the effects of three additives on performance and economy. The three main additives sprayed into the intake were water, alcohol and acetone. The individual finely 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. That test was way too much acetone for good mileage but great for emissions. These dyno tests were tedious but uncomplicated and verifiable. Yet the EPA and DOE are not testing acetone for emissions control. Why not? It works wonders.
It is a similar story when testing diesel fuels with acetone. A tiny bit of acetone in the fuel proves beneficial. The idle RPM goes up slightly by about 50 to 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 with acetone 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. This is all true for both straight diesel fuels and fuels with veggie oils. Furthermore gum, varnish and shellac problems with veggie fuel may become less with the addition of small amounts of acetone.
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 makes us angry that the oil companies killed acetone for as long as they have. They deliberately buried this valuable additive and hoped nobody would find out. The biggest problem with alcohol in fuel is due to surface tension and the London Effect. Surface tension (ST) is seen when you place a drop of fuel, alcohol or water on a hot plate. It collects into balls and dances around without vaporizing. Ordinary fuel does not vaporize readily because of ST. Instead the fuel balls up and dances around. Surface tension is like glue between fragments inside the fuel. So within an engine, gasoline or diesel fuel resist being finely atomized due to ST. Complete atomization is essential to good combustion but you are DENIED that with ethanol. Gasoline needs injectors to produce a very fine spray into the air stream of each port. Unfortunately the sprayed fuel cools and tends to recombine into larger, persistent droplets because of surface tension. Injectors wear out. 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 engine. 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. See articles on COMBUSTION and VAPORIZATION and DETROIT FEVER.
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. Propane can be added to gasoline to improve vaporization and therefore improve MPG. In fact propane IS added to gasoline but they do not add enough. You can add your own propane if you know how to do it in safety.
The author formerly suggested to add acetone but not to each and every tank of fuel, rather only to every other tankful. That was for test purposes while we found the correct mix for a car. We found something called persistence, a phenomena whereby the effects of an additive apparently linger even after the additive has been halted. Yes, it is best to do it for each tankful. But test this for yourself. 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 these five decades. In the past we have added the Torco two-cycle GP-7 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. But we prefer the GP-7.
Read about persistence in the article on Science and Testing Methods.
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? Or if you own a cab company, 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 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 for gas and diesel. Briefly, it is just out that BrightGreen has a mileage additive for diesels that is now patent pending. It is called GammaFuel-D. YES, it is better than acetone.
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 easily. Hence the partial products cause wasteful results. Unfortunately many gas stations have too high a water content in their underground tanks. It only takes a tiny amount of water to ruin even the best gasoline. We need tighter laws against water and sulfur in stored fuel. Placing acetone in the gasoline or diesel fuel helps greatly to undo some of the bad effects of the water and alcohol. This bad mix immediately causes any vehicle to run poorly and waste fuel. The engine may cough and chug and jump like it has gone berserk from too much water and alcohol. 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 an engine burns, it produces one and 1/3 gallons of water because oxygen plus fuel yields water and carbon dioxide.
The acetone molecule works physically to vigorously shake up every drop of fuel. It acts like an internal vibrator to vibrate each tiny bit of fuel so the fuel fragments do 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 and perhaps xylene. Sometimes more. Winter is very hard on mileage. Cold or wet 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. And that is a reason why we are putting together our important dyno facility.
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 such as gasoline 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 help the average driver. To keep our money in the U.S. even though the oil industry will do anything to prevent better mileage. The oil companies own all the means of moving oil. They own the ships that transport oil to our country. They ship ethanol from Europe and Brazil to our country while you are told it is all being grown here. Roughly half the ethanol comes from abroad. Soon that imported ethanol will greatly increase. Very little is actually grown here. And due to climate change, less corn is available every year from the heat killing the corn yields.
The car companies will do anything to prevent engines from lasting a long time. They want your car in the dealership garage. They have warehouses full of parts to sell you. 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 at the refineries. Tell them to double our mileage from gasoline. It is easy to do..
There is a basic premise behind good mileage--learned from several great teachers, Jack Henry or Mister Henry and Mister George, long ago. "Power and economy go hand in hand," they said. "An engine at its best MPG is mechanically in the best possible condition," said Mister George. National Schools, L.A. 1954.
Any person can easily verify that acetone improves fuel mileage. This is a no-brainer. Simple testing is done with a ScanGauge. 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. About double if you follow our tips. And check out ScanGauge.com.
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. The laws that compel us to use ethanol appear to be unconstitutional and should be stopped. 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. It was a mess due to an accidental use of the wrong gas. The gas tank had to be removed and drained. The fuel lines were blown out and the filter replaced. Ethanol is terrible stuff to put in gasoline. 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, corn growers 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?
Now in 2007, we have discovered a list of 10 proprietary additives to improve mileage. One such additive for gasoline is tert butanol AKA tert-butyl alcohol. Note there are hundreds of different alcohols. Another for diesels is 1-butanol and 2-butanol. These are good ones. Ethanol is a bad one. They are undergoing final testing and promise to be at least twice as effective as acetone. It has taken 10 years thus far but soon the diesel versions will be available for trucking companies--first in gallon containers then in 5-gallon containers. It will be marketed through brightgreen.us..
If John Wayne were alive, he would probably tell you, "Hell yes, run acetone in your car. Who do those SOBs think they are?"
Comment: 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--say double. He has done it over and over for 50 years by many different methods. The essential question is, "Why won't the American car people do it?" The simple answer is that they refuse to improve mileage because they want to sell more cars by having yours die sooner by choking on unburned fuel. Every year the mileage is worse than the previous year. We are forced to suggest you buy a nice Japanese automobile.
I hereby swear all stated above is true and factual.
LaP
Source:
http://www.lubedev.com/smartgas/additive.htm
Phone: 1-612-345-5085