Acetone in your gas!!!

[jmortensen]

The one thing that worries me about using Acetone as a fuel additive is the warning on the can. "IMPORTANT: Acetone may soften or damage plastics, synthetics, and many other finishes." Since we're dealing with fuel lines and fuel system components that may fall into those catagories shouldn't that be of concern?

Not in the quantities discussed here. It's so diluted its not going to do any damage. Won't have any benefit either, but it won't do any damage...

[1972zed]

lets dust off this post again (gas prices just went up, so its the flavor of the week).

I am VERY curious about this... Gas is now 1.08/liter where I live (Canada) and I am very curious as to the merits of adding acetone to gasoline. My brother (a '57 chevy owner) and is a 47 year old senior chemical engineer with an oil company told me about this on the weekend. I never heard of it before. The argument is that the acetone lowers the flashpoint of gasoline and makes your engine waste less fuel. (burns more efficiently).

people can call BS if they want to, but I am more curious to get responses from those who have ACTUALLY TRIED THIS. I have done some reading and what i have found:

1. if the wrong measurement is used, it might actually decrease your gas mileage.

2. you need to use the right brand of acetone - for purity reasons. It should be from a beauty shop supply shop. not the stuff you get from walmart.

3. it does eat paint, so don't pour it on the side of your car.

4. the acetone is diluted so much that it will not harm the plastic components of your fuel system.

In my brothers opinion, anything that will increase gas mileage in your fuel would be frowned upon by the refineries because they would sell 25% less fuel. Whereas adding ethanol to fuel reduces gas mileage so its a boon to the oil industry. comments?

I am also curious as to how you ensure your acetone is fully mixed with the fuel. (from those who have done it)

[SteveJ]

lets dust off this post again (gas prices just went up, so its the flavor of the week).

I am VERY curious about this... Gas is now 1.08/liter where I live (Canada) and I am very curious as to the merits of adding acetone to gasoline. My brother (a '57 chevy owner) and is a 47 year old senior chemical engineer with an oil company told me about this on the weekend. I never heard of it before. The argument is that the acetone lowers the flashpoint of gasoline and makes your engine waste less fuel. (burns more efficiently).

people can call BS if they want to, but I am more curious to get responses from those who have ACTUALLY TRIED THIS. I have done some reading and what i have found:

1. if the wrong measurement is used, it might actually decrease your gas mileage.

2. you need to use the right brand of acetone - for purity reasons. It should be from a beauty shop supply shop. not the stuff you get from walmart.

3. it does eat paint, so don't pour it on the side of your car.

4. the acetone is diluted so much that it will not harm the plastic components of your fuel system.

In my brothers opinion, anything that will increase gas mileage in your fuel would be frowned upon by the refineries because they would sell 25% less fuel. Whereas adding ethanol to fuel reduces gas mileage so its a boon to the oil industry. comments?

I am also curious as to how you ensure your acetone is fully mixed with the fuel. (from those who have done it)

I haven't tried it, but I have a very hard time thinking it would work. Of course, I haven't tried running a circular saw across my stomach, but I'm sure it wouldn't be a good thing.

Here are my 2¢. Go to your local auto parts store and look at all of the additives on the shelves. If acetone did increase gas mileage, some company would package it in a brightly colored can and sell it as an automotive additive, charging more than what acetone would cost. All they have to do is label the product's ingredients as petroleum distillates.

As for your brother's opinion, think of it this way. If I own a refinery and found that I could increase fuel mileage just by adding acetone, I would sell it at a higher price and create a marketing campaign advertising higher gas mileage just by using my gas. Also, ethanol is added as an effort to oxygenate gasoline to reduce emissions, though I cannot attest to ethanol's effectiveness in that role.

Your best bets for improving gas mileage are to make sure your cars are tuned properly (and consider changing out points for an electronic ignition) and watch your driving habits.

[240ZX]

All this is fairly interesting! This is a SWAG but, maybe its just a matter of the additive cleaning the fuel system....hence the better mileage. What would be interesting, would be to run a number of tanks of fuel, with the acetone, and let's assume there is an improvement in mileage. then, run a number of tanks of untreated gas and see what the results are! My quess is that the untreated gas will now provide the same mileage as did the treated gas....at least until the fuel system had time to build up deposits again form the crap fuel we currently get. What do you all think? My gut feeling is that the acetone, which is a solvent, is just cleaning out built up deposits that fuel has left behind. So basically its a fuel mileage comparison between a clean fuel system and a fuel system with deposits.....quess which one gets the better mileage!

[1972zed]

found this on a website about a 1957 Maserati 250F. F1 this from 50 years ago!

http://www.ddavid.com/formula1/mas250.htm

The top cars built for the new Formula would all be sans supercharger. Maserati chose a straight six normally aspirated engine configuration. This configuration was based on A6SSG engine and allowed for an uncomplicated layout of valve gear, manifolding and ancillaries. Fueled by a mixture of 50% methanol, 35% petrol, 10% acetone, 4% benzol and 1% caster oil the engine produced an initial 220 bhp at 7,400 rpm. The petrol was only rated at 80 octane but with the acetone the fuel mix would burn faster. The benzol would ensure that the methanol and petrol mixed properly while the caster oil was necessary to alleviate the effects of the alcohol washing away the oil film from the cylinder walls. The entrant could easily increase power by using a more radical fuel mixture or by increasing the compression ratio.

[jmortensen]

Go ahead and try it. Again, it's so diluted it isn't going to hurt anything. As to Tom's point about cleaning the fuel system, I really don't think you're going to get any benefit with the tiny amount suggested. Gasoline already has solvents and cleaning additives in it, so adding this small amount isn't going to tip the scales.

And one more time for the record, Xylene and Tolulene are also strong solvents. Using a 5:1 ratio, I saw no difference in mileage, so I'm just not buying that a 1024:1 ratio will make any difference whatsoever.

As to the conspiracy theorists, I just find it sad how many people are going down that road. Why people seem so unwilling to believe the blatant truth and feel a need to substitute some wild alternate theory to explain how they've been wronged by some evil entity is just beyond me. In this case we don't have to prove there was no gunman on the grassy knoll or discuss the likelihood of being burnt up by the Van Allen belt, we're talking about something you can get at just about any market in the country. Even if you don't have a hardware store nearby, you can get some nail polish remover from any grocery store and it's usually 100% acetone. Try it and see. Just don't come back with some BS about how the acetone manufacturers must be in on it with the oil producers and they've now changed the structure of acetone so that it doesn't increase mileage anymore...

[1972zed]

I will probably try it in my old truck and see what it does.

I found this on another web site

B-12 Chemtool list acetone as 30% by vol.

If you have any question as to Acetone being safe to put in your gas tank, go to the Berrymans Chemtool (a common fuel additive) web site and look at the material data safety sheets. Almost all of their products have acetone in them. Do some research before posting such meaningless drivel about acetone causing fuel system and engine damage!!

[CoastGuardZ]

Gasoline already has solvents and cleaning additives in it, so adding this small amount isn't going to tip the scales.

... I'm just not buying that a 1024:1 ratio will make any difference whatsoever.

... Just don't come back with some BS about how the acetone manufacturers must be in on it with the oil producers and they've now changed the structure of acetone so that it doesn't increase mileage anymore...

"Unsafe at any speed!!!" ... "Who killed the Electric Car!!!"

I'm with you... the ratio seems too diluted to do anything on top of the fact there are already cleaner in fuel to begin with. I am interested in anyones actual personal experience, although I still doubt you'll see me dumping in a bottle of Nail Polish Remover while filling up! Hmmmm, maybe it's a ploy to sell more acetone. Does Shell / Exxon own any stock in the Acetone industry? Maybe BP owns Revlon or Maybeline?

[twsutt]

...Hmmmm, maybe it's a ploy to sell more acetone. Does Shell / Exxon own any stock in the Acetone industry? Maybe BP owns Revlon or Maybeline?

I pretty certain that the Acetone industry is owned by the evil Haliburton company.

[280z1975]

This is a project for Myth Busters ... of course the last time I saw the Gas Mileage episode Jamie was like "For the love of God, don't' send us any more fuel mileage tests" ...

The way they did it, was they hooked up a gauge which read the amount of fuel being used through the fuel lines right before it got burned (it was calibrated to the truck being used) and this way they could accurately see the amount of fuel being used. So if it does work, less fuel will burn for a given speed and the myth busted ...

I don't know about Acetone, but I'm running diesel here and plan to make a mini- Bio Diesel factory in my tool room. It's .95 euros a liter (about 4.85USD a gallon!) here for diesel (1.29 euro a liter (over 5.5 dollars a gallon!)for regular petrol) ... Can't wait to run my car with the smell of french fries out the back exhaust!.

[mars23z]

I just bought another Honda Accord for $100 and it gets 32mpg and all I have to do is put plain old gas in it and it even has a current inspection sticker. That works for sure no if ands or BUTS.

[beandip]

the next thing that will be resurrected will be adding MOTH BALLS to the gas tank. That was tried in the late '50 . I guess it is just one more time of history repeating it self , looking for the '' golden Beebe'' Gary