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Acetone as a Fuel Additive (old thread)

I'm posting as new thread since it appears that the old one died or scrolled off the newsgroups.

Well I have finally had an opportunity to gain a large sampling of data, via a drive to Florida, with stops in the Carolinas and here's what I found:

I've just gone through my mileage log and calculated the MPG for various legs of the trip.

The second two legs have the most similar driving conditions, ie., speed and lack of stops, yet the leg without the acetone got worse fuel economy. Here's the data:

From NY area, acetone in fuel, avg speed = 55mph

563 miles 22.078mpg

Maryland to NC, acetone in fuel, avg speed = 63 mph

274 miles 24.4 mpg

to Huntersville NC and Columbia SC - avg speed = 65mph, no acetone added this leg of trip (just residual leftover):

441 miles 19.77 mpg

Trip to Disney World, Lake Mary, FL, Inverness, FL, avg speed = 62mph no acetone in fuel:

283 miles 18.21 mpg

Most of this trip leg, avg speed = 81.25mph followed by 15 minute backup do to major accident between tractor trailor trucks. Drug store acetone added, not 100% pure (fragrance additives in ingredients)

342 miles 19.46 mpg

SC to Raleigh, NC leg, drug store acetone with fragrance, bad weather conditions, lots of slowing down, accelerating back to speed, avg speed 74 mph:

278 miles 18.28 mpg

As you can see, a wide variety of conditions affect economy. However, the two most comparable legs of the trip were Maryland to NC and NC to SC west end of state. All highway driving at speeds chosen for economy. On the legs home from FL, I chose to drive much faster, as we were getting anxious to get to NC. We hit tropical storm Tammy on the SC/NC leg, so the last 200 miles were driven in blinding rain, almost stop and go traffic and a lot of lane changing and accelerating back up to 72mph, which I tried to maintain when possible. The breaking and hard acceleration seriously decreased economy in this case.

My conclusion? Acetone seems to work under comparable conditions, going from

19.77 mpg to 24.4 mpg under identical driving conditions. My vehicle's EPA rating is 19mpg highway, BTW, so part of the savings is driving technique. Not bad for a big hulking SUV.

-- Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION . FILM SCANNING . DVD MASTERING . AUDIO RESTORATION Hear my Kurzweil Creations at:

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Reply to
Mark & Mary Ann Weiss
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And the drugstore acetone with fragrance also probably had 30% water in it.

Reply to
Al Bundy

This is totally useless information. There is no way you can get an accurate MPG with just three readings and such variable driving conditions.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

The label said "100% Acetone" or "Full strength", but in fine print it listed two fragrance chemicals. I suspected that when I sniffed the cap to see if it was really pure acetone. It smelled sweeter than it should for pure acetone. There wasn't any water in the ingredients and I didn't detect any either.

Reply to
Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

The point of doing this on a long trip was the relatively controlled speeds and road conditions. And two similar legs of the trip where speed, weather, and duration were very much similar provided about as good a sampling as you can get without resorting to using a dyno for measuring under really controlled conditions.

Reply to
Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

Yet you drove under different weather and road conditions, like the tractor trailer crash and the rain. Plus, how do you know that you filled the gas tank to the same amount after each fillup?

Yet, "as good a smapling as you can get" is quite poor for making any type of conclusion.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

I noted that those legs got different mileage results. But the legs from Maryland to North Carolina and the North Carolina to South Carolina legs were under sunny conditions and constant speeds. The Georgia to South Carolina leg still got pretty good mileage, considering our average speed was over 80mph and in an SUV, that's a LOT of wind drag. Plus we had that delay due to the accident on that leg. I think the MPG achieved was still amazing despite the wasteful driving conditions therein. I topped off the tank after each fillup, that's how I know it was full.

Real world conditions are what we live with. We don't drive our cars on dynos 5 days a week; we drive them on roads with varying conditions. I think this trip provided a large sampling of data and certainly is more conclusive than a few short trips around town here.

-- Take care,

Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

VIDEO PRODUCTION ? FILM SCANNING ? DVD MASTERING ? AUDIO RESTORATION Hear my Kurzweil Creations at:

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sites at:
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Reply to
Mark & Mary Ann Weiss

Yet you didn't have a delay due to that accident at that temp. going the other way. The wind conditions were different. You were going uphill and downhill at different times. You were using different batches of fuel (probably acetone, as well).

The comparisons are meaningless to draw a conclusion.

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff

Aww come on Jeff... he got the results he was looking for and that's all that matters. Most of the people who have installed those tornado fuel savers, magnets on the gas lines, etc. all think there car runs better, gets better milage etc. Bob

Reply to
Bob

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