Any thoughts on this?

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/524517...as_mileage_2x/

 

No secrets here, in fact I've seen posters at gas stations stating most of these facts.

I am hesitant about believing 2 oz. of Acetone will boost my mileage, it's more like a gallon or two of acetone to every 10 gallons of gas, but hey it's cheap test so give it a shot and see what happens.

 

Interesting, is there a risk to the engine? Who's going to be the first?

 

No improvement and some hazards according to snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/acetone.asp

 

Just some quick thoughts after a few beers...

I would say that you would burn less "gasoline" only because you are substituting Acetone for the Gasoline... Like E85, you have fewer BTU's per gallon of Acetone than Gasoline, so your overall consumption of "fuel" (acetone/gasoline mix) per mile would actually increase...

In the video, I believe that the person is getting higher "gasoline" mileage ONLY because he is using gallons of acetone instead of straight gasoline...

Additionally, like E85, if you are using LARGE volumes (a gallon+) of Acetone (or any solvent, like Ethanol in the case of E85), your engine and it seals would need to designed/calibrated for that fuel mix to handle it without damage.

Another thing to consider is that the price of acetone, in the US, is about $4-5/gallon, so you would get less fuel mileage at a higher cost than gasoline and it would certainly damage your XFire engine over time...

Lastly, Acetone does increase your octane rating (it and other solvents such as methanol, Ethanol, Butanol, in small quantities, are used in octane boasters), but this does not increase your mileage to any extent...

Cheers.
KCKEY12
SSB Roadster.

 

the whole acetone thing was tested heavily on another forum I post on about a year ago, and nearly everyone that tried it showed huge gains in gas mileage. The concept behind it is that the acetone helps to atomize the fuel better... works similar in concept to how soap works.


I've also seen tests done on engine components to test any damage that acetone would do to hoses/seals, etc in the quantities suggest here, and it has been shown to do no damage.


I realize the snopes link suggests otherwise, but actually knowing people that have tested it themselves and taken very accurate measurements, I find it at least worth a try.

 

How about posting a link to the other site with the postings supporting Acetone.

 

Snopes is good for shooting things down, but their was no reference to a particular study that disproves the benefit of acetone. Only general references to "studies". Who did these studies? Oil companies or some testing company paid by a oil company? I would trust these studies about as much as the studies that showed Viox Celebrex and Advantia to be harmless. Also the video was clear that he used 2 oz. with 10 gal. of gasoline. I will definitely give it a try.

Tennor

 

I'm glad someone wants to be the guinea pig. Let us know if you have any problems.

 

http://www.solsociety.com/forum/inde...460&hl=acetone

 

I used to put acetone in a saturn of mine, at first I was getting 29 mpg before the acetone and after that, I was getting 37 mpg.

I must have forgot to keep using it, I have had so many cars since that, but I also used 2 oz for every 10 gallons of gas.

What you gotta do, is don't fill up when your completely on E, put the acetone in first, so that the gasoline pouring in can mix the acetone in the gas tank. At least that's what I did. I am going to start doing it again. Word up.

 

More thoughts...

I believe that adding 2 oz of acetone to 10 gals of gasoline will increase it's octane rating and therefore allow it to vaporize & burn more efficiently.

But, I do not see how it can increase mileage in today's engines. If it did, it would indicate that we are not getting a complete burn of our gasoline during combustion... and we would have gasoline vapors coming out our tail pipes - in addition to the CO, H2O, NO, ...

I know this may have happened 40 years ago (I've seen video of hopped-up cars with spark plugs in their tailpipes that would ignite the un-burnt gasoline vapors), but would this still happen in a modern FI/ECM car, using good, clean-burning gasoline? I know the cat does do some minor post-combustion "burning" of the exhaust gases, but with today's engines - I can't believe they are burning 20% of the un-burned fuel??

Lastly, if this were true, would the EPA, Honda, Toyota,... also have to be in bed with the oil companies? Wouldn't it instead be to their advantage to recommend this to their car buyers so that we'd have low emission Civics/Scions that get 75 MPG by just adding 2 oz's of acetone? This doesn't seem like a secret that the oil industry could keep under their hats - if it truly worked...??

 

I've always been a believer that if it's been around for a while and sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. It doesn't take long for Americans to exploit something. Think about the marketing potential for a gasoline company who used the additive "super gas", the car manufacturer who could say "acetone friendly cars, save gas, go green", chemical companies that could sell to consumers instead of bulk discounted sales. I saw it discussed about a year ago and gas companies still aren't using it for some reason or another, take your pick:
1. doesn't work
2. bad for engines/voids warranty
3. not allowed/federal regulations/harms environment
4. too expensive (can't be the reason since gas companies would buy in huge quantities and it's already economical enough for consumers to try)
5. they don't know about it (yeah right)

To each his own, but I'll stick with regular gas until I hear a major company who's afraid of lawsuits, say it works and is safe. Without a controlled study, it's all seat of the pants speculation.

Just my 2 cents.

 

lets look at this logically...

an increase in gas mileage, means a decrease in fuel consumption.

a decrease in fuel consumption means gas companies lose money.

That's a pretty damn good reason to me why they wouldn't want anyone to hear anything about it.



To my understanding, it works on the principal that the acetone allows for a better atomization of the fuel molecules when injected. Has nothing to do with octane rating, or burning more or less completely, simply has to do with burning more efficiently. What ignites better, a drop of gas or a mist of gas?

 

That's looking at it way too short sighted. Using that same logic, Toyota and Honda would have wanted to make cars of poor quality in the early 80's because making cars last longer = fewer car sales/repairs = less profit. When in fact, the long term effect of building cars that lasted longer was being known as a market leader in quality long after the US/Japan quality gap closed = more car sales = more profit = worldwide market leaders. JD Power announced Ford won more awards for initial quality this year than any other company: http://www.jdpower.com/press-release...spx?id=2007088
yet Ford is losing billions of dollars. How can that be? Surely people must believe that a Ford will last longer than a Honda!
How many people pay a few cents more for gas at a chain gas station (BP, Shell, Chevron, etc.) because of the perception that the gas is better quality? Where's the proof to justify the difference in price? It's more about marketing and the perception of quality rather than actual quality. The days of conspiracy theories were a dozen men from competing companies meet in a dark room and decide to hold back technology for the benefit of each other are long gone. Companies use whatever they can to get an edge and will sell out their own sister divisions for the opportunity to make a profit.

 

I just read the whole thread about acetone at solsociety.com and I believe I found the real reason that acetone seems to work: After some initial testing, several of the posters reported continued mileage improvements (all on high mileage engines) after discontinuing the use of acetone. It's an intake system cleaner, and probably not a bad idea to do periodically.
Here's a very astute post by a user called "cmgogo" that pretty much sums it up:I'm not sure how effective it will be on our cars since nobody here has one with high (100k+) miles on it yet.

 

I just happened upon a way to up the octane rating of a tank of gas quite by accident.
In 1970 my friends and I use to go to the drags practically ever weekend, so thru constant trial and error, and numerous runs down the 1/4 mile, we soon realized what worked, and what didn't.
Before I went to the strip, I would put in a 1/2 a tank of Amoco high-test unleaded, and 1/2 a tank of leaded Sunoco 260. This combo seem to give me the quickest times, even though I didn't have a clue as to why.
A few years later I saw an article about mixing unleaded, and leaded fuels together would actually result in a higher octane rating, than the typical "mathematical" average of the two fuels would be normally. The actual "mix" proportion wasn't 50/50, more like 70/30 or something like that, but they said it raised the over all average by more than a 1 point on the rating scale.
I realize with leaded fuel being a thing of the past, and our cars having cat/converters, that none of this has anything to do with our cars. But I just thought I'd share it anyways to show (that thanks to the chemical reaction of different mixtures) there can sometimes be unexpected improvements.

 

Can we use E85 fuel in our cars? There is a fuel station close by that has it.

 

No. Premium unleaded only.

 

Acetone will eat away at rubber materials. meaning your hoses. Probably pretty slowly if diluted in gas though.