My acetone road trip

[tonydca]

Thought I'd try an experiment adding a bit of acetone to my fuel per a number of threads on various diesel forums. Results were a bit unexpected.

Agreed-upon amount seems to be around 80 ml for a 75L tank. So that's what I used (thanks to the wife for the syringes "borrowed" from work).

I dosed up my tank with acetone before a round trip from Downtown to Cloverdale to drop off the dog for the week (prior to the actual road trip). Round-trip included a traffic-free blast up to 140 kmh on the East-West connector to blast out the injectors, and a 1.5 hour stop-and-go wait around the pit of hell that is the #1 Highway near the Port Mann bridge. Crap, thought I, this mileage will be the grunts.

10.3L for 102kms. Best. Mileage. Ever. I average around 13L/100kms in the city.

Wow! This'll be great on the highway up to the interior! So I top up the tank with diesel and another 10ml of acetone the same day, and set off at 04:30 the next morning to drive up to Grand Forks with a big stupid grin.

58.7L for 521 kms. 11.3L/100kms. Hmmm. Maybe it's all the blasts up through the mountains. Filled up in Grand Forks with pure diesel (no acetone) to see how straight deisel works out.

Over the next week spent 32.4L driving 288 kms mostly highway around Christina Lake, Castelgar, and Grand Forks. 11.25L/100kms. No different than the trip up. (with acetone). Hmmm.

On the trip back, filled up again in Grand Forks with diesel plus 80 ml acetone this time, and the return trip over the same route as I took up needed 58.0L for 522 kms. 11.1L/100kms

So why the remarkable improvement on the first short trip even with harsher driving conditions? I am pretty confident of the quantity of fuel used; I'm pretty anal about filling up to the same point in the tank each time, and accurate with my acetone dosing.

Since acetone boils off at 57 degC, I'm wondering if the acetone evaporated away and was vented off early in the latter two runs (it was really hot both ways to the Interior, and pretty mild on my shorter trip).

The van certainly seems to have had no ill effects, and I'm sure that the injectors are now squeaky clean; it pulls happily past 3500 rpms. I do a lot of short trips around town, and if they start to feel clogged up again, I think I shall try an acetone run again to see if it helps.

Since acetone is a pretty strong solvent, I don't think I want to try too high of a concentration, or try it too often, but I might try adding it to a tankful this winter to see if I can duplicate my miraculous results from before. I'm not holding my breath, but who knows.

Be interested to hear the results if anyone else tries it.

Tony.

[jessef]

I use seafoam in the tank once in a while to give the system a good 'flush'.

Basically the same thing as acetone.

Works well but too much can eat away at your seals. If you have had the IP rebuilt, most likely (hopefully) they used viton seals, in which case those seals can take a good beating as far as chemicals, fuels going through the sys.

I use on occasion 2-stroke motorcycle oil and have similar observations like yours with acetone.

I like the 2-stroke oil as it has some lubrication qualities that are actually good for the ip/seals.

The funny thing is that it will vary from one vehicle to another of the same type and from one person to another. Some believe it, some don't so you can expect skeptics and wonderer's to post their thoughts.

[tonydca]

My junior-chemist thought was that the acetone/solvent would have better cleaning abilities, while 2-stroke oil or the like would have better lubricating properties.

Might be good to follow a tank with solvent by having a tank with 2-stroke oil. Clean then lubricate.

At any rate, I followed my acetone in each case with a double-dose of the "Diesel-Power" lubricant/cetane enhancer I usually use.