Add Acetone for better diesel mileage?

[dburt]

During the early '70's I was in Milwaukee for a summer's work, and had an older friend who was a German mechanic. He had a carb he had built for his '66 Ford Ranchero 6-cylinder shop truck. It was crude, it heated the fuel before it went raw into the intake, so it was delivering vapors instead of raw fuel. He got about 40mpg with it on, about 20mpg with the stock carb. He took it off and was in the process of building himself a refined version of it, he offered it to me, but since I drove a VW bug, I passed. He heated the fuel via an 12v electric heater until the engine got up to operating temp, and then used engine coolant to heat the chamber. He said he had to work out the things like a choke, and mixture control circuits for better power at speed vs idle. etc. Crude, but it worked. In the early 80's I taught high school shop classes in NE Oregon. We had a teacher inservice day at another larger, nearby high school, so I went and hung out in the auto shop. The teacher there had a special carb he had built and installed on a Chev 350 in the shop that was on a teaching stand, it had fuel tank, radiator, battery, etc. He could start the engine and run it, it was a test mule for students to work on and then test thier work by starting the engine, tuning it, etc. A buddy of mine taught the machine shop classes at the same school, and he had helped the auto shop teacher by machining parts for his special carb, so it was pretty refined and well sorted out. The auto shop teacher had installed it on his own car and tested it quite a bit, he reported he got about 45mpg as compared to about 20mpg on the stock carb on the 350 in his car.
I saw the engine, heard it run, it also had a reservoir around the top that held water to heat the gas by a 12v heater coil in the water which vaporized the fuel instead of dumping raw fuel into the intake. He had refined the idle circuit and the power circuit pretty well. He thought he would patent the carb, poor ignorant fellow. So he sends off a letter with drawings etc to GMC thinking they would love to get involved with this great idea of his. Within a week he got certified letters back from lawyers representing Chevron telling him that they held the patents to such designs, and that he was not to build, market, or promote any such carb. In fact he was to destroy his working model. He could bring himself to do that, so he just put it back on the test stand engine. No urban myth here, saw the carb, saw the letters, etc. He was pretty dejected, but alot wiser. He ended up putting the carb on his own car and leaving it there. Now- back to Acetone in diesel, it will be interesting to see what happens to anyone else who tries this, I will be eager to see your results.

 

[D8dave]

Wolf Dose is right ! it's like the old cow magnet bull about getting better gas miles if you put yhe cow magnets your gas lines to help mpg it don't work !! So don't post it unless you can prove it!!!!!PS ilike wrecker mans Icons>

 

[dozer]

Acetone is quite high octane....from memory, somewhere in the 120 range. Any textbook on internal combustion engines or petroleum fuels will have a table of common hydrocarbons, alcohols, etc.....with pertinent characteristics of each...including octane and cetane rating.

So, Acetone can indeed raise the octane-rating of GASOLINE that it's added to; and thereby reduce ping/knock etc.

However, Acetone is both highly volatile (high vapor-pressure), and a very powerful solvent. With venting, it will quickly evaporate and be gone. Without venting, it will raise the internal pressure of the fuel-storage quite high at normal ambient temps
(say, 80F).

Also, it will 'eat' quite a number of common seal and gasket materials; as well as many plastics and paints.

Note that you can get about the same Octane from toluene; which is also a solvent, but less agressive, and with a lower vapor-pressure. Nevertheless, it is still a solvent, and still quite volatile. Pump-gas in the old days contained a fair bit of toluene naturally......and probably still has some in it today.

In a -diesel- engine however, that high octane-rating doesn't do anything for you.

Further, Acetone doesn't "break molecular bonds". What it DOES do is vaporize and burn rapidly. That would likely have the -effect- of advancing the diesel engine's timing a bit......which generally gives both more HP and higher thermal efficiency (higher MPG). Thus perhaps accounting for 'reported gains' one sometimes hears about.

Most stock diesel engines are timed quite conservatively....so would be more likely to show some small gain from any combustion-rate enhancer. Any engine with timing already adjusted/advanced to the optimum would instead show the same, or even a loss; along with excessive detonation/hammering.

Water-injection works. Calling it an 'urban legend' is probably from a lack of study and knowledge. Large oil-field diesels have been injected with an emulsified mix of diesel and water for over 75 years. Anyone can verify this and learn about it just by picking up and reading any good engineering textbook on internal combustion engines.

Further, either Saab-Scania or Volvo (can't recall which right now) did an extensive study of seperately-injected water in modern OTR truck engines fairly recently (early 90's I think it was?). They published several good papers on the results in the SAE Journal. Again, this can be verified by anyone making the effort to look it up.

In fact, now that I think about it....I saw a ref on the web recently to the Scania/Volvo work and papers......I don't think the full text SAE papers were on line.....but there -was- a fairly informative abstract. A little work with Google is likely to produce it.

Note: the -real- benefit from water-injection is not the "higher density" in the intake (in fact, the water-vapor displaces oxygen, limiting power capability), but rather, is the added torque from making -steam- !

Sounds funny, yeah, but makes perfect sense if you understand heat-engines. Droplets which reach the cylinder as liquid are vaporized -after- fuel burns, by the otherwise wasted heat-energy.

The resulting steam-pressure adds torque at the end of every power-stroke.

But, to actually add power and raise thermal-efficiency that way, the water must NOT be vaporized in the intake-manifold. That is why the huge oil-field engines injected an -emulsion- of fuel and water.

The Volvo/Scania tests instead used a 2nd injector on each cyl, and investigated varying the timing of the h20 injection and the effect on power/mpg gains.

As I recall, the best results were a 25-30% improvement in thermal-efficiency.....which is nothing to sneeze at.

If I were to rig up a water-injection for one of my diesel rigs, I'd design it to NOT be the high-pressure 'super misty' type that you see hyped all over the web. But rather, to spray droplets that make it into the cylinders unvaporized.

Since I'm pretty much a hermit these days, and only drive 2000 miles/year....I can't get quite as motivated to DO mpg-increasing projects.....although I'm still as fascinated as ever by the subject, from an engineering perspective.

Bottom-line: Acetone raises gas octance, but I'd never run it in my vehicle; due to danger and damage to parts. Water-injection on a diesel is a proven technique, and even the misty/vaporizers will at least tend to clean carbon out, even if they don't add HP.

(the carbon-cleaning effect is a -chemical reaction-.....which can be understood by searching/reading info on the "water-gas shift" and other coal and town-gas related engineering books from the early 1900's)

Essentially, at very high temp, carbon is a more effective reducing-agent than hydrogen, and will strip the oxygen away from the hydrogen in the H2O molecules. The resultants are now all gaseous.....the formerly solid carbon leaves the engine as CO (which is a fuel) and CO2.....and the hydrogen is of course a gas.
This reaction is also endothermic, i.e. it consumes heat....leading to lower EGT's.

ps; anyone who has worked on an engine that was run with a leaking head-gasket for a while can attest to the cleaning power of water in the cylinder. The head-area for the leaking cylinder is usually spotless metal.....while the other 5 cyls are caked with carbon like normal.

 

[davesbf]

great post dozer,at least you are backing up your claims with verifyable facts,the horse beaters and pop corn eaters drive me crazy with their posting # ratings for smileys and not actual info.sometime i'd like to see a survey of how many of the so-called elite high-ranking (which serves no useful purpose)SS members actually tried to be innovative .i did however in the sixties use a simple method which used what i call evaporative water,which worked for aprox.20% more MPG.in 3 different vehicles,however other adjustments were required to make it work properly,no use posting here as the experts will once again beat their horses and throw their popcorn like little children having a tantrum.I love the SS site and hope it keeps on track for a source of good info.

 

[tm america]

they use something on the big rigs its suppose to give you more power and better milage comes in a tube anyone know what its called and if it works or just anyone else that doesnt know about it but will tell us its bs i run a quart or so of atf per tank in my truck it keeps the injectors clean and helps boost the btu's i.e. more power and better milage i got that from my ex father in law who is a otr trucker who has logged over four million miles on his rig

 

[tm america]

ya everyone like to say it wont work cuz they didnt think of it first . i get a kick out of the ones that have never tried it but have so much to say on the subject.i see data who else has tried it lets hear from them i say if it can make an improvement its worth looking into dont get me wrong. nothing wrong with doing it by the book

 

[tm america]

great post dozer my friend runs h2o injection on his turbo car to lower egt so he can up the boost and fuel - nitrous without melting it down

 

[roscoe]

opcorn:

 

[FreightTrain]

well,Every test ever performed has shown Zero increase and in most cases a drastic DROP in mileage.Not only that but Acetone will distroy your fuel system in short order.Eat every O ring,Hose,plastic,etc in your fuel system.And that is the 100% truth not some,Oh I didn't come up with the idea first so it won't work BS line!If you want to distroy your truck go for it.Call me when you do and I will give you $600 for the non-running hunk of parts.

 

[Sumoman]

Ok, it may be BS, or it may be something else, but have you tried it to see for yourself?? Talk is cheap, real results from real trials is what I am wondering about. The numbers don't lie for my friend who averages about 25,000 miles per month using it. And he was very VERY sceptical at first, because he, like me, had heard it all before, cow magnets, water/hydrogen injection, etc etc. I like empirical evidence, not hearsay.

The HHO injection only works if you use electronics to lean the mixture, but it should make it run cleaner as it acts as a catalyst.

 

[Sumoman]

they use something on the big rigs its suppose to give you more power and better milage comes in a tube anyone know what its called and if it works or just anyone else that doesnt know about it but will tell us its bs i run a quart or so of atf per tank in my truck it keeps the injectors clean and helps boost the btu's i.e. more power and better milage i got that from my ex father in law who is a otr trucker who has logged over four million miles on his rig

I believe the HHO is what you are talking about with the big rigs. It does work but you have to lean your mixture so it requires some simple modifications. You can see a increase in MPG but also you have to purchase KOH and distilled water for the best results so you are stil spending $$. I have one on a gasoline engine and it works, I will be putting another on the deuce to decrease the smoke only. You can also run on Wood gas but I would think the modifications to insure proper lubercation might be a pain on the deuce (easy for a gasser).

 

[emr]

great post dozer,at least you are backing up your claims with verifyable facts,the horse beaters and pop corn eaters drive me crazy with their posting # ratings for smileys and not actual info.sometime i'd like to see a survey of how many of the so-called elite high-ranking (which serves no useful purpose)SS members actually tried to be innovative .i did however in the sixties use a simple method which used what i call evaporative water,which worked for aprox.20% more MPG.in 3 different vehicles,however other adjustments were required to make it work properly,no use posting here as the experts will once again beat their horses and throw their popcorn like little children having a tantrum.I love the SS site and hope it keeps on track for a source of good info.

I will say that since the posting rating is questioned here, That it only pertains to amount of postings, And not knowledge, although some may assume it may be is possible one gets smarter on this site...he he ...But as for ranting its just not worth it, as for the dead horse, this and many posts have been done so many times they are not only funny for those who have been around they are sometimes saying, U will find all this if one does a search, Now as for the ranking not serving any purpose, Yes it does, I like seeing who is new and who is not, or who is active and who is not is another way of looking at it, I think being here a long time and being active and "Donating to this site also" is a very very worth while thing, So I guess im saying don't knock it, its good and so are most of its members by a long shot. just saying those who have been here have that right....Randy

 

[Ferroequinologist]

I used to eat at a steakhouse in Norfolk all the time. On the walls were lots of the old metal signs, not repros, but the real deal.

Several were from the 1930's about the acetone, and little pills you could put in your gas, etc etc.

If they were so great then, I would think in 70+ years they would be the norm. IF they did what they actually claimed to do.

I've also seen an old bus that ran off wood gas, and a diesel that had the seperate 'water injection' system, although it was set up to inject fuel only one power stroke and water only the next. Not sure how it worked out, it was exibited at Midlands Tech a year or so ago.

So...

 

[davesbf]

keeping true to original post,99% of magic MPG increasing gimmicks were not worth the ink they were printed with,these came out of the 60's and were found in the back pages of mechanics illustrated and others and were designed to rip open your wallet and steal your money.only a couple ideas were worthy of reading.I recommend the alternative fuels be further researched and this site is probably the best to watch as i know of several people doing test runs at this point.diesel fuel will disappear in the not too distant future and i don't need more deuce lawn ornaments.i do not question the majority of high ranked members of SS only the couple of poor souls that feel they have to degrade others with comments such as;quote;(if you can't prove it don't post it)----this is irresponsible and lacking the true spirit of this site.I know of several newer members who are afraid to post because of these actions.I'm sure SS will continue to represent the spirit of the hobby for many years to come as it is a well set up site and contributes to a need.

 

[Pappa-G]

I had ran aceatone for a summer several years ago in a 1999 TDI VW. I would add 2.5oz per tank (15gal). I drove 100 miles a day 5 days a week. Adding aceatone made no measurable difference. Running B20 biodiesel would get me additional 2mpg. The greatest increase came from how the car was driven. 5miles per hour below the posted limit, wouldn't exceed 2.5krpm on the tach, coast more - alot more, using the brakes was wasting fuel. I would max at 52mpg and averaged 50. Aceatone made no difference.
But run your own test and make your own decision.

 

[bassetdeuce]

I would never put acetone in the fuel tank of anything! Many many years ago, I switched to a different type of arrow rest on my compound bow, so I needed to turn the plastic nocks of my arrows 90 degrees. These nocks were clear plastic glued onto the aluminum. I used pliers to break the nocks off, but this left a messy coating of dried epoxy and plastic on the end of the arrow shaft. True story: An american indian working in the archery section of LL Bean told me to use some acetone to clean that stuff off. A few quick twists with an acetone soaked rag would yield a shiny bare aluminum end on my arrows for me to glue new nocks in the correct orientation. This tells me that acetone is a VERY AGGRESSIVE SOLVENT which will eat up rubber, plastics, adhesives, or anything short of metal. Believe what you want, but that cannot be good for any fuel system, gas or diesel. Just my

 

[dozer]

well,Every test ever performed has shown Zero increase and in most cases a drastic DROP in mileage.....

In my post I clearly did not say that Acetone (or any other octane enhancer) improved MPG -by itself-.

I said that acetone IS a very high Octane hydrocarbon....which is nothing more than a plain fact of chemistry that anyone can look up for themselves in a table of characteristics of various fuel components.

As I noted earlier, there -isn't- any direct relationship between Octane and efficiency. If there were, our poor diesels would only get about 1 mpg...

I did also mention the solvent-effects and destruction of plastics and rubbers; and the very high vapor-pressure that Acetone causes in the fuel-system....and I noted that I'd never run acetone in my own vehicles for those reasons.

With all conditions of the engine held constant, a change of Octane alone makes no significant difference in thermal efficiency.

To get a benefit from higher Octane, one must -change- those engine conditions, to take -advantage- of the higher octane fuel.

For example, higher Octane allows higher compression to be used without detonation.....and higher CR -does- significantly improve both efficiency and power output. In fact, it's the single biggest factor in making high-efficiency engines.

Roughly, increasing CR from 6:1 (40's flathead) to 11:1 (60's Corvette) will raise the thermal-efficiency of an engine from around 20% to near 30%. That' a >50%< reduction in fuel-consumption for the same hp/hr output.

The curve is already starting to 'lean over' at 11:1, and is pretty much level by 16 or 17 to 1. In other words, there isn't much further gain in efficiency at CR's over 16:1 (at least, in a single stage compressor)

Propane-conversion is another fuel-change situation where one commonly sees a failure to change engine/operating conditions to take advantage of what the better fuel allows.

People do the conversion, then are disappointed that they don't magically make more power or get better efficiency....but they didn't -change- anything...to take -advantage- of Propane's much better characteristics.

Propane has such high 'octane' that it can be run at CR's in the 11 to 12 range without detonation...and -that's- what will make it really shine...in terms of mpg and power.

The situation with Acetone (or Toluene, or other similar high-octane volatiles) is exactly the same. Without making engine changes to take -advantage- of the increased octane, there -won't- be any significant change in efficiency/power.

But many honest people do report seeing a change in mpg, without changing the engine setup. So what's going on? They're all liars?

First I'd consider how -else- engine conditions might -change- to take advantage of the now higher-octane fuel....besides physically modifying the engine to higher CR...

Well....many modern engine-computers sense detonation, and >retard ignition-timing< accordingly....and ignition-timing DOES have a direct effect on efficiency (mpg and HP).

Thus, it would be -expected- that in -some- cars (those running at the edge of detonation), the addition of an octane-enhancer like Acetone or Toluene -would- allow the ECU to advance timing...and thus -would- improve MPG and HP slightly.

So when someone says to me: "I put Acetone, Toluene, Goat-Piss, etc...in my tank, and my mpg went up 1mpg".....I don't automatically call that person a liar.

If they've got a late-model injected car with a computer and knock-sensor, then I find it entirely believable that a different fuel would indeed cause the computer to make different engine-settings.

Nothing too surprising there. It's exactly analogous to the change in MPG that -millions- of people see every year...between winter and summer fuels. The ECU's in modern cars are -constantly- adjusting timing etc. as fuel-quality, altitude, carbon-buildup, plug-wear, etc. all change over time.

As far as "tests" are concerned.....such results mean nothing without knowing what the >test-conditions< were. More importantly, if those test-conditions weren't properly chosen to take into account the nature of what's being tested, then the 'results' will be nonsense.

For example, most ECU's do not change operating conditions 'instantly'; but rather, they change parameters SLOWLY, over a period of hundreds or even thousands of miles.

So the common 'tests' which record the 2nd MPG immediately after changing the fuel, very likely -wouldn't- show any change....because the ECU has barely started modifying its stored mapping-tables to -change- timing or anything else.

Obviously, such a test would be meaningless...useless....because the wrong testing-methodology was chosen in the first place.

A -useful- methodology would be one which takes -account- of how the ECU actually acts. For example: run the new fuel 1,000 miles first, and -then- measure MPG again.

We use diesels almost exclusively here at the mine...from equipment to road-vehicles to gensets and pumps....so I don't really have a horse in the gasoline octane-race.

But a few years back I did investigate additives seriously....to the point of getting RFQ's for toluene delivered in 55-gal drums or 275-gal totes. (I did not consider or investigate using Acetone because of the vapor-pressure danger and solvent-nature issues mentioned above).

The bottom-line for me was this:

1- toluene raised the octane, and the ECU's in our vehicles at that time did respond to it; and mpg went from 19.2 to 20.5 in 60mph freeway driving over a 1,000 mile test on each fuel.

2- But the per-gal cost of toluene, delivered....plus the labor-time of handling, mixing, etc., made it very little cheaper than just buying freaking high-test in the first place...

ps; regarding the test in the VW TDI diesel....I'm not sure what the intention of that test was.....octane-enhancement is meaningless in a diesel. That "no change" result is exactly what would be expected.

 

[rustystud]

I,ve been reading all these old threads and came across this on. There is some truth to adding acetone to increase mileage. At the transit agency I work at we use this fuel system cleaner. It comes in a 3 gallon can. We run an engine totally on the can, until the can is empty. We also only do this outside as the fumes are really BAD health wise. What it does is CLEAN the injection system, allowing you to get your former performance back. It does NOT create better fuel mileage. The main ingredient is acetone. So yes if your system if clogged up, run some acetone through it, you will notice some mileage gains, just like after a tune-up , you got better gas mileage !