Fuel Additives - who has tried any that work?

[DavidVizard]

Just a while back I had what seemed my hundredth approach by a fuel additive sales/PR person wanting me to test their product.In each case I told them they can either pay me to test it or I will fit in a test when I can conveniently test it at near zero cost to me. Most of these additive reps will say 'OK test it when you have time'. On every occasion I have had that response the additive did not work. The latest deal was supposed to produce 10% improvement in economy. Well about 8 months went by before I got to test it. Believe me it was a diligently done test and the mileage went DOWN by right on 10%. Funny thing is that the three companies that paid for their additives to be tested all had products that work!!!
Needless to say that if you are an additive company and you do not have enough confidence in your product to pay for a test then neither do I!
Anyway, my point here is do any of you out there have any experience with any additives that actually work?
David Vizard

[Renrut]

Nope, but then I'm too cynical to try them in the first place

I would agree with the sentiment, if they aren't prepared to pay you to test it then it almost certainly doesn't work, for a start what reason do they have to think it will work if they haven't tested it.

Out of curiosity which ones were the ones that you've tested that worked?

[MrT]

This stuff has a recommendation from PPC on the bottle:
http://www.systemproducts.com/faq.html trying some out now in the family diesel.

This stuff worked:
http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_185236_langId_-1_categoryId_255221

I suppose octane boosters are like the advanced pump fuels in that they will only work in some engines.

I'd like to see a proper test of a cleaning additive. Take the head off photo the carbon then put it back on, run the cleaner then whip the head off again. Like you say if they are confident in their product then why don't they do that. If they did ecotek could change their advert from 'what your head should look like' to 'what your head will look like'
http://www.ecotekplc.com/PowerBoost.htm

[DavidVizard]

Octane boosters where one group of additives that had a better reputation in my experience than most other categories. That said some boosted the octane by such a meager amount it was had no real effect on what you could do in terms of extra CR.

About 1980'ish I got so ticked off with octane boosters that only worked marginally I came up with my own. This was patented and sold by Aldon Automotive in Brierly Hill. It was interdependently tested by several top magazines (who had no idea that I was behind it's formulation) and basically fried the opposition. Ford used it for their Cosworth BDA Escorts for the mexico rally. Use as a quadruple dose it boosted the local 76 octane fuel to a high enough to be safely used in the Cozzies.

Note - because came up with this formulation i never promoted it other than to say it was available.

I do not know if Aldon still produce this octane booster. I suspect that its somewhat toxic nature may have led to environmental pressures from the powers that be.

Here is a little piece of info that you may find is worth knowing as it could make you think twice about buying an off the shelf product in a typical high street store. Any octane booster that works is deadly poison. If it is not it more than likely does not work. In other words there is no such thing as a safe octane booster of any real consequence.

David Vizard

[DavidVizard]

Octane boosters where one group of additives that had a better reputation in my experience than most other categories. That said some boosted the octane by such a meager amount it was had no real effect on what you could do in terms of extra CR.

About 1980'ish I got so ticked off with octane boosters that only worked marginally I came up with my own. This was patented and sold by Aldon Automotive in Brierly Hill. It was interdependently tested by several top magazines (who had no idea that I was behind it's formulation) and basically fried the opposition. Ford used it for their Cosworth BDA Escorts for the mexico rally. Use as a quadruple dose it boosted the local 76 octane fuel to a high enough to be safely used in the Cozzies.

Note - because came up with this formulation i never promoted it other than to say it was available.

I do not know if Aldon still produce this octane booster. I suspect that its somewhat toxic nature may have led to environmental pressures from the powers that be.

Here is a little piece of info that you may find is worth knowing as it could make you think twice about buying an off the shelf product in a typical high street store. Any octane booster that works is deadly poison. If it is not it more than likely does not work. In other words there is no such thing as a safe octane booster of any real consequence.

David Vizard

[mjslonergan]

I don't know if this counts as an additive, as I am not putting it in, but Topaz pump unleaded in Ireland, which boasts that it gives you an extra 24km per tank, actually works... Not sure of exact figures, but it has been noticed, by the little group of car heads within which I exist, that you go further with this fuel, also my old Pinto Sierra, which had a timing issue when I got it, ran a whole heap better on Topaz than other fuel, until I got around to fixing it, and then consistently gave more MPG on Topaz than other fuels... more recently my Ka would give a consistent 5MPG more per €15 of Topaz over other fuels, also this is not because they are cheaper per litre, if anything they are more expensive... I don't know what they are putting in it, but it works

[Renrut]

Any octane booster that works is deadly poison. If it is not it more than likely does not work.

Thats worth knowing. Is that because there are a limited selection of chemicals that will boost octance and they're all nasty?

The limits on what is allowed for sale these days is shrinking quite rapidly, not so much because its banned but because companies can't take the risk of some chemical on the 'nasty' list causing some effect in a member of the public and being sued over it. As a result anything on the 'nasty' list is avoided out of principle but often ends up with an inferior product. Lead-free solder being a prime example, the simple solution would be don't eat it!

[MikeyTriton]

Hi Everyone,
The whole question of additives, whether for oil or fuel is a difficult one. For example, Oil additives, how can you verify they work? After all with modern day products like synthetic you could argue it is hard to improve on. It seems to me that the only way you can verify their worth is 1) on a dyno looking for horsepower/torque improvement and 2) by running the engine for say 100,000 miles and then stripping it down to assess wear on bearings and bores. You can also get your oil analysed by a industry chemist who can make some observations about engine wear based on metal residues.

I don't see any companies advertising the results of such independent tests. I wonder why?

What I can say is that for six years I have been running Oil Extreme additive in my Audi A4 3.0l. Why? Because David Vizard has done the dyno tests on this product and he has verified that it does work. Tests over 100,000 miles indicated a real reduction in wear rates and a reduction in friction thereby giving an increase in output.

Now when it comes to fuel additives I would say the jury is out for me. I come at these things from an engineering background and therefore try to be methodical.

When you take into account changeable driving conditions, tyre tread used, tyre pressures, weather, humidity, consistency of demand on the engine etc it is difficult, to say the least, to measure any effect which could stand scrutiny. Again, like oil additives when did you last see a manufacturer submitting to scientific tests to verify reults.

For my part I have tried twice to assess fuel additives.
The first occasion was in the usa when I drove a Ford Focus 1100 miles to the Canadian F1 GP and then 1100 miles back.
On the way I did not use a fuel additive, whilst on the return trip I did.

This was a good distance over which to get an idea and both myself and my co-driver tried to keep a consistent style to our driving.
With the product I used we found a 10% worse fuel consumption!

I am currently assessing an additive manufactured by the Oil Extreme people but the jury is out as this is a long term test.

Why am I using it? Because it is from a company I have faith in from experience with their oil additive.

Hope my thoughts help towards the debate here.

Mikey Triton

[Jason]

I've found injector cleaner actually works in some cases. Like the Renault 2.0 ide engine I had once that would hardly rev up and mostly just kept stalling. A dose of that and it actually worked. Also on engines with hydraulic lifter noise, I've used some hydraulic lifter supplement that has stopped the tappety noise. I think these additives can help an engine in trouble but can they improve a good running well maintained engine? I don't think so.

[Relentless Rob]

The only fuel additives I have ever and probably will try were two stroke oil to stop my 13B going bang and Lead replacement stuff for my old MG B (Oh and Nitrous Oxide but that doesn't count does it?).

The so called Octane boosting stuff can only positively effect the calorific value of the fuel by increasing it. By adding anything to fuel you are effectively diluting it and therefore reducing the calorific value. Unless of course you add a catalyst. It would have to be an exothermic catalyst to aid the fuel burning process and that could cause damage to the engine at worst or throw emissions beyond the point of your car becoming an M.O.T failing tree killer. All of this for little significant or barely noticeable gain in output.

As for additives to assist the engine's well being; oil and motor manufacturers have spent at least ten minutes and a five whole British Pounds developing engines and lubricants that do the job unaided. Provided the mechanical side of things are taken care of properly and the engine is used within the constraints it was designed for; I see no point to these products whatsoever.

Come to think of it apart from consumable issues (water pumps, thermostats, etc) I have never know an engine to fail under any circumstances than the operator using it outside of it's tolerances, poor maintenance or an inherent design flaw possibly caused by substandard parts.

So to answer the question no I have never used any performance or longevity enhancing additive and I never will unless they can prove it does what they suggest.

They're usually sold by the same people who think putting a filter on your brake servo vacuum pipe will double your mileage. Says it all really.

[Rippthrough]

If you want something that actually works, stick some good quality 2-stroke oil in the tank at around 150:1.
Screw the additives.

[DavidVizard]

If you want something that actually works, stick some good quality 2-stroke oil in the tank at around 150:1.
Screw the additives.

Any idea what that does to the fuel octane???
DV

[Rippthrough]

Usually drop it's slightly, but at 150:1 the effect would be fairly negligable, depends if it's just octane boost you're after from an additive.

[Relentless Rob]

One liter of pump petrol contains about 8.76 kwh of energy this varies depending on the manufacturer, additives and octane rating but this is your basic 85 Ron stuff.

8.76 kwh = 31.536 kilojoules.
(3.6 kJ = 1 kwh)
31.536 kJ = 7.537 megacalories.
(1 J =4.184 calories)

There are two types of calories. The small calorie, which is the amount of energy needed to raise one gram (or one cubic centimeter) of water by one degree Celsius in one second and there is the large calorie which is what is used to measure the amount of energy in food. It is 1000 small calories, and is sometimes called a kilocalorie.

So if my sums are all correct 500 ml of petrol contains 3768 large calories (near enough the recommended daily allowance for two average women). Divide that by the volume and again by the Octane rating and it works out that one Octane is approximately 0.09 Calories provided the Calorie to Octane ratio is constant (a single Jaffa Cakes has forty-five Calories and in theory would be 4.05 Octane ).

If the Octane rating can be related to the calorific value of the fuel source. The difference between Oil, Diesel, Petrol, Ethanol and so on are all points on a positively orientated curve. Two stroke oil would have a calorific value somewhere between oil and diesel. While it would reduce the value of the Petrol as it is effectively diluting it but because it has a calorific value of it's own and therefore an Octane rating I can not imagine it would by very much at all. Especially in such a low two stroke oil to Petrol mixture ratio.

I think that works but; it's been over ten years since I've done any Biochemistry. Even though an engine is basically a digestive system in a fuel and air in kinetic energy out kind of way I don't know if these principals can be applied in such a way.

[Relentless Rob]

Usually drop it's slightly, but at 150:1 the effect would be fairly negligable, depends if it's just octane boost you're after from an additive.

What he said.