sauceman

With the latest gas price trek, the craziest urban legends and stories can be conveyed aound the web. Some of them may have truth to it. If any engineer could confirm or dispute the assertions made in this following article, I'd appreciate before I go on and test this method.

http://pesn.com/2005/03/17/6900069_Acetone/

Thanks

Jim Holloman

"Acetone is known to deteriorate cheap plastics and other substances. While the components in a car's fuel system should be of high quality, and thus immune to any deleterious effects from exposure to acetone, be aware that "ideal" is not always the case in practice. Be advised that not all systems have been tested against acetone. Until such thorough testing has been accomplished and certified by a accredited authority, you assume your own liability for experimentally testing acetone in your particular system."

Keep in mind that the author drives a Neon. Do you want to risk the use of a very strong solvent in your fuel system? And, the damage may not be evident for several months.

The phase "...other sustances" means a lot of other substances. For example, acetone is used to remove finger nail polish.

The author says, " Be advised that not all systems have been tested against acetone." Perhaps he should have said, " Be advised that only one fuel system has had limited testing with acetone."

West6MT

I agree with Jim,...........I dont think its such a good idea to just go and dump that stuff in your gas tank. I will ask my dad about it though,.......he is a chemist and probably would have a bunch of imput on this matter. Ill let you know what he says.

925tsx

yea not only am i not feelin that but..lets see..wouldnt 15 gallons of acetone be more expensive than gas...
unless there is somewhere u can buy 50 gallon drums of the crap..for cheap.
lol
either way i dont think id put that in my car unless acura said (in writing) that they would honor my warranty.

DaveWhyman

Well, when you think that combustion chamber cleaner is Naphalene and people run that straight into their intakes to clean up older engines, this might not be too bad. Gasoline will soften some plastics as well, and considering how small of Acetone they are suggesting to put in, I can't see it having a huge destructive effect. I'd want to try it on somone's winter beater first just to be sure.

CGTSX2004

iTrader: (1)

I'd be careful of using acetone. In o-chem lab in college, acetone was our solvent of choice for dissolving organic compounds and making organic solutions.

However, one thing to note is that our acetone was stored in little plastic squeeze bottles for easy access.

sauceman

That was my reasonning too. Still, I'm not an expert in the matter, so someone could as well prove me wrong.

West6MT

Ok, I talked to my dad (chemist),.......NO, dont put it in your tank.

1. If you spill it on your paint,....bad.
2. The octane boost would be hardly anything, if anything at all. He said you would be further ahead to just buy better gas,...ex from sunoco.
3. there is plastic, rubber, etc in the gas tank, hoses, gaskets etc the fuel will come in contact with,.........so thats not good either.
4. the part on burning oil,....claim about reducing oil burning and whatever,.....acetone wouldnt really help,..and there is a bigger problem if you are burning all kinds of oil anyway. Long term, you would run into some problems basically. Its not a good idea. Use regular gas, there is a lot of development put into the engines running in specific ways,......doing something small might end up helping,..but could also have serious negative consequences too.

sauceman

1. Obviously...
2. It's not about boosting the octane. No need for more than 91. It's to help vaporise the gas out of the injectors.
3. How is it not good? Their claim is that acetone isn't harmful to those components.
4. Not about burning oil either. It's about improving gas mileage. I already burn oil, and it has no relation with the gas I use.

West6MT

Acetone is a Ketone, which CAN raise your octane,.................the point I was making was that adding Acetone will probably not have this effect (not mentioned in the article, but something that deserves attn in my mind). Acetone is used to clean organic compounds( ie gasoline) off of things like tables, test tubes, etc,.......so if you put it in with gas, and dont use it everyday, it could break down your gasoline,......so in that case, yes it COULD increase mileage because you would be running really lean). However, the breakdown of the gasoline would leave deposits in your tank, and depostis = dirty gas , hence,.Bad. This explanation was from my friend in chemical engineering.

The materials in your gas line (ex plastics, rubber, etc) are mostly organic compounds. The acetone would eat away at those parts in your car. Things like your fuel line,...and I suppose up to the injectors would come into contact with acetone. So, its probably a bad idea to have acetone in your fuel system if its going to be coming into contact with plastics/rubbers,.....organic compounds. Im not saying this would happen over night,.......long term you would start to see problems most likely,.......moreso if you leave your car sitting around for days at a time. Adding it in once or twice wouldnt really do much though.

If you are confident that this will work, then go ahead and put it in your tank. Ill ask my Dad to sit down and read the entire article tomorrow if I can, and get him to make specific comments on postives/negatives,........but when I told him verbally about the article, he wasnt interested and said its a bad idea,......basically for the reasons I meantioned previously.

Im not saying that it wont help gas mileage,.......maybe it does,....i dunno...just that it probably would be bad for your car long term if you are putting it in on a regular/ semi regular basis. My friend in chem eng said that it didnt make much sense about the agitation of the molecules so more fuel gets burned etc,....but he wasnt sure,......so. I think it is safe to say however, that acetone breaks down organic compounds,........so you are taking a risk if you put acetone in your tank,...and it comes into contact with things such as plastics and rubber.

925tsx

in my opinion i think that if it worked and all, there would be ppl doing this already, no?

West6MT

BTW, Im not saying YES, it works, or, NO it does not,.....................just presenting info from people that I have asked who would potentially know a lot about this topic and have some insight into weather this works/is good or bad for your car. No personal attacks please.

This has got me interested,.....so I am going to try to research/contact more ppl in regards to this thread.

West6MT

That is a good point. I think that some organization,.........needs to do objective tests, with good documentation of results, conditions, etc etc etc. Objective, statistical analysis in a well constructed study would shed some light on weather this really works,.....because anacdotal evidence suggests that it does,.......and if there are negatives to it etc. Being able to replicate study results are also important.

Spoon

Ha! Do a google search, apparently there are a lot of people trying this so it ought to be answered soon enough. It will either die a quiet death when it's realized it doesn't do shit or there will be news reports of people screwing some system component up by adding it to their fuel.

Personally I doubt it works, I don't see it affecting surface tension or vapor pressure in any advantageous way. I would suspect if anything it would increase hydrogen bonding, increasing surface tension. More importantly if it actually had a dramatic impact on gas mileage, and given that it's not some exotic compound, I doubt petrochemical companies would have overlooked it as an additive. As for dissolving rubbers and plastics, it really depends upon the composition, acetone will eat some not others.

sauceman

Thanks for the answers so far guys. West6MT, obviously I would really love to hear all of what your Dad would have to say on this, even if it means he would completely prove the article wrong.

I'm sorry if I came across as harsh in my reply. I 'm just looking for facts, something solid over which I'll be able to make an opinion. So I'll both defend and argue against all opinions if they don't seem like they're based on hard fact. But it's just to try and understand as much as I can. I'm just not gonna be satisfied with "there, they said it"

Greatly appreciate your help and interest.

West6MT

Thats ok,.....I figured you probably didnt mean it to sound harsh or whatever,...I hoped not anyway,.......haha,.......My comments were more in the general sense for anyone reading the thread,...I just dont want to come across as the type of person,........"Im right, your wrong, and if you dont agree with me you are stupid",........type of deal or anything like that. I'll just post what I find, and everyone can take it as they see it.

As an update, my friend Greg who went to school with me (in chemisty) was interested,....Ill post his initial comments later,....but he wanted to look into this topic and told me he would do some research and get back to me with what he finds. In other news,.........I picked up my TSX yesterday,...NBP/Ebony 6MT......SWEET,........I keep looking out my window at it,.......hahahaha,..........the drive home was very enjoyable. I stopped in at the mall with my parents, and was admiring the new car as we approached it later in the parking lot after some shopping,...when sure enough,......to my left,.....to steal my thunder,......was a freaking yellow Lamborghini murcielago,........WOW is that thing freaking WIDE,......nice car.

sauceman

I happenned to notice the CL guys discussing this too: https://acurazine.com/forums/showthr...1&page=1&pp=25

Interesting read. I'll try it and report back.

Zasker1

comming from an ex-painter using Acetone would be intresting but I would also wory about the fumes, you can get pretty high of this stuff fast thus it would be intresting to see if you would become ill sitting in traffic and huffing the exhaust, or in your garage for that matter. I know one dude that put MEK in his 71 skylark with a 455 and it seemed to run smoother but the ehaust made you sick as a dog.

Zasker1

I would also be intrested in knowing if you would need to use standard motor oil instead of synthetic, the artical does not touch on this.

sauceman

Would two ounces of Acetone burnt (ie: chemically converted by combustion) over 500 miles really be harmful, especially given that in the TSX we aren't really exposed to any fumes given the exhaust is in good conditions?

Zasker1

I dont think it would hurt you, but you would probably smell it. I would be curious if it rotted the fuel system and than clogged the injectors..

Who is going to be the guinny pig and run this setup for 1year.

sauceman

I'll probably do it.