Originally Posted by chriskh

If you think about it, why would a fuel company want you to get better millage? If you do, you'll buy less fuel. They aren't going to run out of it any time soon so ultimately, they don't care about your fuel millage.

Originally Posted by AcuraTLSFan

Lets take gasoline from a chemsitry standpoint and how gasoline is converted to energy to move the car.

1) Gasoline is basically made of "Hydrocarbon" = a chemical compound made only of Carbon and Hydrogen atoms, thye are chains of "Carbon" atoms linked together.
2) Gasoline is used as a source of energy by breaking the Carbon to Carbon atom bonds. As it requires energy to create/make a covalent bond...breaking a convalent bond will release energy. So the more bonds you break the more energy is released.
3) Gasoline is injected into the cylinders and is ignited where the gasoline will combust and release it's energy in the form of heat and pressure.
4) The gasoline has to be precisely ignited by the spark plug. Gasoline can be "pre-ignited or pre-detonated" due to high temps or high pressure (like being compressed in the cylinder at a high ratio)
5) This is why certain cars require different octane gas. The "Octane Rating" of gasoline at the pumps is an average of two numbers...basically the "octane rating" tells you how well it resist "pre detonation".
6) Why is higher Octane Rating more expensive then lower Octane Rating gas? Back to the chemistry... the first compound with only 1 Carbon atom and the rest Hydrogen atom is Methane, 2Carbon = Ethane, 3Carbon = Propane, 4Carbon = Buthane, 5Carbon = Pentane, 6 Carbon = Hexane, 7Carbone = Heptane, 8Carbon= OCTANE...etc A Higher Octane Rated gas contains a higher percentage of the "more expensive chemical", a longer hydrocarbon chain chemical. So you can consider an Octane Rating of 87 as 87% Octane and 13% Heptane, and Octane Rating of 92 as 92% Octane and 8% Heptane.
7) Why doesn't Octane 92 pre-detonate compared to a Octane 87 (Relatively speaking)? 92 grade octane contain hydrocarbons with a LONGER Carbon-Carbon chain...to break the bonds of the Octane chain requires more "energy" then it would take to break the bonds of a shorter Carbon-Carbon chain of Propane. Think about the "energy" in terms of heat and pressure. Consider a V8 with 87 gas...there is enough heat and pressure in the cylinder to pre detonate the 87 gas before the piston is fully compressed...with 92 gas and its longer hydrocarbons, it will require more heat and more pressure to pre detonate the gas...but the V8 doesn't produce enough heat or enough pressure to pre-detonate the gas.
8)So what are Octane Booster? Basically various carbon compounds amongst other things...like Tolune, Aromatic Rings (a ring of Single, Double, and Hybrid Carbon-Carbon bonds) which require MUCH MUCH MORE Heat and Pressure to pre-detonate. Alcohols CAN be used a Octane boosters, but they don't work that well. Alcohol compounds have a -OH group attached to it (a Oxygen-Hydrogen), without going into too much chemistry, the Oxygen has electrons it wants to share with another compound..mix with gas, it shares it with a hydrocarbon creating a bond....this Oxygen-Carbon bond isn't as strong as a Carbon-Carbon bond.
9)So does adding Acetone help with MPG? In theory, I would say yeah. Is it a significant difference...I don't think so, My MPG always fluxtuates (+)(-) 5%, so a total of 10% ... so it's hard to measure without a controlled enviroment. In theory, the Tornado seems to prove a good point...with some people says it works and other people says it doesn't...who knows.

There are probably many things you can add to gas to get MPG...but there is always a trade off of some sort...like leaded gas