The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Weird Fuel Economy Idea??

A patent, no doubt, that went right into cold storage after it was purchased.

Know why we'll never have a cure for the common cold? Over the counter cold 'remedies' is a billion dollar a year business. Where's the incentive to 'cure' it?

Electric power vehicle technology is way, way behind. How is it that 20 years ago two guys could take a bunch of car batteries and an electric motor and get great range and speed, but in the year 2007 they still can't do it?

You only get advancement in technology so long as somebody can make megabucks off the idea.. and if that idea cuts somebody elses profits off at the knees, you can bet they'll do everything they can to squash it.

What's good for humanity and whats good for peoples wallets is rarely one in the same.

As an engineer I've had a few ideas that I have patents applications filed on (or at least have my company's patent lawyers working on) but I know they won't make it into production in the immediate future- the technology is just too impractical to make the invention actually work. However, the ideas are close enough to reality that someone may figure out how to make it work in the future, and having a patent on it protects my idea.

I suspect that's whats going on in some of these cases.

Acetone improve fuel economy? NO WAY The energy density of small molecule fuels (ethanol or acetone or butanol) is not that high. However, the added oxygen will help the engine burn cleaner.

200 mile per gallon carb? NOPE Internal combustion gasoline engines are inefficient when they have to operate at multiple rpm's. Fact of life. Your doing well getting a large, stationary, single rpm diesel engine to operate at 70% efficiency. Anyway, whatever "patents" the big petroleum companies bought up, they wouldn't honor in places like China and India anyway.

Thought Id throw this in, just having my tailgate down improves my toyota trucks mileage by 20%. It adds about 5mpg. It wont make much of a difference if you get low mpg anyway...

rusted, search around and you'll find the tailgate myth has been discussed widely ..... and debunked by some science

Bill

4ontheFloor and jhaa_lives I'm there with ya guys. How come every one I know, knows some second party who knows someone who patented a high mileage carburetor that had its patent bought up by big oil. Wow that guy is really popular. or there’s one hell of a lot of patents that the have been bought up.
Ok I didn’t get beet up near as bad as I thought I would. Must Be a lot more than I thought who think like me.

red58, people can say that all they want. I park at the same pump, write my mileage down and count. Ive down it several times in a row both ways. Always the same. I get 24 up and 29 down. Maybe a few decimal points off, but its true. It may be the vehicle aerodynamics??? who knows. I know it works in my toyota. Im sure I could nurse a few more if I took my foot out of it!

Also, I get better mileage using lower octane gas. Tried several times with the high octane and got around 21 mpg. Not sure how that works either but it does...

"HevyHauler" Grant is right on the money: on the TV show "Mythbusters", they tried a variety of off-the-shelf/wive's tales additives and showed no real impact. They even tried a jug of drain opener. Of course, no benefit.

The really interesting test was when they emptied out most of the gas out of their transparent tank, then dumped in so much sugar it formed a slurry. That engine just kept on running. (They weren't advocating running sugar in your formula, just that the legend of sugar in the tank causing the engine to come screeching to a halt is way over-hyped.)

The conclusion was simply to use pump gasoline. It has detergent additives that are, in general, good for your engine.

Incidentally, acetone, like gasoline, is an "aromatic hydrocarbon." They are brothers in the same mix. Getting 20% better mileage (from, say 20mpg to 24mpg) is pretty astounding. There is only so much energy in a tablespoon of fuel, whatever it is. I seriously doubt you can reduce drivetrain friction so much with nothing more than a fuel mixture change to squeeze out 20% improvement where the rubber hits the road.

Bill

I don't know about all the computer modeling science and stuff, but the tailgate being up doesn't seem like it should add any 'drag' to a truck.. and here's why.

When you drive, the air hitting the front of your truck goes up and over the cab.. the cab deflects the majority of air out of the bed.

To further illustrate my theory.. when I have a load of loose garbage in the back of my truck and it's windy out, I 'point' the nose of the truck into the wind when I park it.. and stuff doesn't blow out.

If anything, you should have kind of a vacuum as the air rushes OVER the bed.

Just like the idea of driving close behind a big tractor trailer on the highway.. also called driving in their 'slip stream'.. the tractor trailer deflects any air from hitting your vehicle, reducing its drag, and the air rushing along the sides puts you in sort of a vacuum.

I understand what you mean. Driving our full size truck, things dont blow around against the cab, only towards the back of the bed. But my toyota will pull anything out of the bed thats not lashed down when going fast. Maybe it has more to do with size and the aerodynamics of the vehicle. I do know it works with this truck. I dont have a degree in aerodynamics so I can only speculate on what wind laws come into effect. Im sure you can factor in cab/bed size and shape, speed and a mess of other stuff and come up with different results. I just know it works with this type of truck.

Yea, i'm sure there are numerous variables to consider.. the size of the cab, the length and height of the bed, vehicle speed, cross winds, overall vehicle height, etc.

I know that the fuel mileage hasn't changed any noticeable amount on the '89 K2500 after I trashed the tailgate and been driving around without it.

But that's a full size truck.. it might make more of a difference on 'toy' trucks with lower profile cabs.

But having ridden in the bed of many a truck, both big and small, I can say I never noticed a definitive 'front to back' wind or felt like I was going to be blown out the back.. and regardless of tailgate position, loose papers always seem to blow out the side of the truck when they blow out.. never straight out the back.

When stuff does decide to blow out the back I try not to look back. :p

I used to do all kinds of work in my dads 81 chev. It didnt matter if you went 9 or 90 or you were towing a load, that truck would only get about 10 mpg and without any real change.

Well, if everyone else changes to electric and hydrogen, we can keep our bolts the way they are. Gasoline will drop from less demand, and we'll be the ones getting by on the cheap.

The tailgate up or down question is as old as mileage improvement theories are.
Also one of the simplest to figure out yourself without any science or math.

My 52 chevy 1/2 tonner gains about 2 miles or 10% with the tailgate level with the ground and a full tank on the freeway around 70mph.
It's the cheapest, simplest and most reliable way to increase your mileage for freeway drives.

I do this drive every month and whenever I have to drive with the tailgate up, it's always about 10% less mileage.

If you research the tailgate question on the internet, it shows that most modern trucks are designed to get best mileage with the tailgate up.

Acetone does not increase milage on a stovebolt.
I tried several mix ratios and the effect on mileage was zero.
The motor did sound and feel somewhat different and you could smell the acetone at the exhaust - nothing more.

I am anything but a conspiracy theorist - I am just always very delighted if anything gets done right at all.
If acetone or ANYTHING else would give you cheap and easy increase in milage, EVERYONE would know about it...

watched Myth Buster show on T.V. they did a test of several things to increse fuel milage and the acetone made no difference in fuel milage.

Face it guys. Generally there is no improvement in anything until it HAS to be. If dear old mother earth stop giving up its stomach contents how long you think it would take to come up with a "better" car/truck and "better" way to get our money? No longer than it would take to change the dies and stamps. I say we should go back to steam engines. Hey, the Stanley was up to 85 miles on 20 gal of water at 45 mph. I think technology is not to the best of its capability. On the other hand, I agree with HevyHauler. Their are a lot of folks that scream over a dime increaae in gas ($2 on a 20 gal tank) then pull through Starbucks, or Hub City here, and pay $2.50 to $3.00 for a cup of coffee) We just think we are in a crisis. Foriegn folks are buying up our power companies,and our land. They already own some of the farm land. Soooo, what are folks going to do when a can of beans go to $2.00 a can?? Contractors are building houses so close together that no one could have a garden...but then how many know how these days. Us Stovebolts are probably the only ones that know how to be survivors. Lets stick it to them like they stick it to us. Every time a barrel of gas goes up, or other foreign commodites, then they should pay a dollar more for a bushel of wheat, corn or what ever it be. But hey, like I said, they are buying up the country and WE are letting them. Sorry #*s politicians, lawyers, and doctors. I said the Sorry ones, not all...but how many are not sorry! I'll stop and get my breath but I could go on for hours.

achipmunk, scoot over! Theres got to be enough room for me to on that soapbox!

I'd invent an engine that runs on urine but at my age I'd have to P in the tank every 4 blocks. Weeds

On the tailgate up/down thing, I agree that it depends on the truck. It worked on my '91 Ranger but hasn't worked on my stovebolt or some of the other trucks I've driven. If the tailgate is in the right spot it makes a high pressure bubble in the bed that makes air slip over top and out the back. If its not it just acts as a spoiler and creates a lot of turbulance which wastes gas.

The truck that the Mythbusters used to test was a new extended cab F- truck which was probably designed with aerodynamics in mind.

I put really big tires on the back,
and really small tires on the front.
Now I get better mileage,
because I'm always going downhill.

Cheers,
mark.
'51 KY 3100

What it comes down to is;

How much gas savings will it take to break even after spending $35,000 on a hybrid, when I only have $1300 in an old Stovebolt?

For the record, I have a real issue with sniveling, so take that in mond when reading my post here.
__________________________

Maybe I'm just a smart a$$ and need to take my own advice here (see final line), but I've done alot of traveling around the world and everywhere I have been outside of North America they pay, on average, what we pay a gallon for one LITRE (for the metric challenged, thats roughly 3.8 times what we pay).
Most places are running smaller light weight cars with either Diesel engines or some odd little contraptions that get more mile for the buck than most things we can get here in the good ole US of A.
One might also note that every other well developed country in the world has mass transit systems that make ours look like kids playing with toy trains, all because the American public is too lazy/stubborn/retarded (circle your choice) to leave thier 8,000lb, 10MPG, 8 passenger urban assault vehicle at home so they can drive five miles to work every day, alone(usualy behind thier neighbors that work the same shift at the same place). Most common excuse is "it's easier for me", or "more convienient", as they drive around the parking lot for an eternity looking for the closest spot, usualy losing the further ones in that process. Finding all the spots full they have to go even farther away then hike in half a mile, all the while sneering at the pansies that get the van-pool spot next to the gate.
Yep, all kinds of easy & convienient, where do I sign up??

So, for my $.02, the average spoiled brat American needs to STFU & bite down on the price of fuel once in a while coz we got it damned good around here. When we are paying $8-10/gal like most of the rest of world, THEN we can b!t@h.

The idea of adding acetone to gasoline for improved mileage was all over the internet a couple of years ago. Read a lot of testimony as to how well it worked. I tried it and with my unscientific testing could not realize any improvement. I think it is the same category as "witching for water".
meansam

Now hold on ther meansam.I've seen it with my own eyes, I've even heard of people whiching for water. It has to be true...

Uhhh... TxLaTx... acetone is not an aromatic hydrocarbon, and there's not much aromatic hydrocarbon is gasoline either.

If you burn benzene (which is a GREAT fuel to burn speaking for your engine) you get a good burn, and a little cancer to go with it. Benzene is an aromatic hydrocarbon.

I'm assuming you meant volatile hydrocarbon. Acetone, ethanol, butanol, gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc... are all volatile hydrocarbons.

"The oil companies are evil, The government is evil, Diamonds are evil" so do something about it, quit driving your government regulated car down to the jewelry exchange for valentines gifts.my .02

Yea, I don't buy diamonds, and my wife isn't into jewelry so that's not a problem.

As far as the oil companies are concerned, in the next 5 years I hope to have my daily drivers switched over to diesel engines, and modified to run on used vegetable oil.

This year i'll have the air turbine up and running, with the idea of lessening my dependence on the coal fueled power plant.. and i'm hoping to get my electric car for trips into town put together in the next couple years.. and charging it with wind generated electricity.

I'm also interested in building a geodesic dome greenhouse thing with the idea of growing vegetables year round.. or at the very least, have a place to start the plants for the garden a few months early.

My goal is within 10 years to have my little 30+ acre farm largely self sufficient.. at least in regards to food, water, and electricity.

Cool - that sounds great.
We got thousands of wind generators out here in the windy CA mountain desert.

I am also thinking of getting one in my yard to lower my dependence on the electrical net.
I just have to figure out after how many years it starts paying off...

I think it's more efficient, than the still innefficent solar cells for the roof.

That's interesting. Most my vehicles don't seem to care what grade of fuel I put in them, so I buy what's cheapest.

But on a recent trip I tried hard to maximize my mileage, and the car I took does get about 10% better mileage on mid-grade gas than on regular, and doesn't seem to improve at all with the top grade. I tested this over about 10 days and nearly 3000 miles of mostly highway driving and it held true.

So I figure a 2-3% increase in cost to go 10% further is a good idea. But only in the one car. Running about local it doesn't make quite as much difference. I average 20.something instead of 19.something, or about 5% better.

My '89 K3500 gets terrible mileage no matter what fuel I put in it. But it goes down from 9 to 6 if I'm pulling a trailer with a COE sitting on it!

I don't believe there is any magical additive or fuel system that will make a huge difference in fuel economy. The amount of energy in the fuel creates a limit on what could happen.

Diesels get better mileage because there is more energy in the fuel. Running Diesel has a price and most improvements will also have a price. I agree with 4-on-the-floor in that practical engineering concerns have slowed improvements in economy.

If they automakers can't make money selling the cars (like Ford apparently can't these days), they can't spend more money on design and engineering if it won't increase sales.

My mid 80's injected 350 gets about twice the mileage of the 60's carburated 350 I used to drive. Same basic motor, a 350, same type of transmission, and even the same rear gears.

The current version of my current car gets even better from what I read. But the improvements are incremental, and likely will continue that way.

No acetone in my tank please.

Go Go Go Fumblin46, my kind of man. And while we're at it lets talk about atomic power. Heck, the first atomic submarine only had to re-fuel once every 2 years. Thats the truth! So, now that I have the atomic energy topic started HAVE AT IT...I'm listening.

Nuclear power is the way to go, in my opinion.. for cleaner air, cheaper and more efficient power generation.

But the 'not in my backyard' folks, backed by the very strong railroad and coal industry keep new nuke plants from going up.

It all falls back on the 'technology and new ideas are great, so long as they don't negatively impact my bottom line' mentality of big corporations.

Somewhat back on the subject of fuel economy, the Diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil. In fact, the guy who invented the Diesel engine, Mr. Rudolf Diesel said:

Interestingly enough.. after his mysterious death, the Diesel engine was marketed as only running on "petroleum based fuels".

Today, used vegetable oil is pretty easy to get ahold of.. restaurants across the U.S. actually pay millions of dollars a year for people to take it away.

This isn't some new found technology or ground breaking recent discovery of how to run a Diesel engine on vegetable oil.. the engine was patented in 1892, and had a working, 1 cylinder engine producing 13 horsepower by 1894.. thats 113 YEARS AGO!

But for some reason, it's only been in the last few years that anybody bothered to mention it.

Wow, interesting where a single post or observation will take us. I agree alot with the spoiled brat gas price vs water and have never been much on conspiracy theories. I believe the truth about all this is somewhere in the middle and none of the issues are as smple as they seem. eg we can stick it to the oil companies and make them go under, then next thing we know we are laid off work because somewhere along the line that oil company owned our employer.
Either way, gas milage in modern vehicles has alot to do with what the computer is programed for. Darn Bill Gates for this conspiracy!!

To the original question:

Acetone is a good solvent for gunk, the kind of gunk that might be in the bottom of an old gas tank. Acetone could loosen it and cause problems.

This sort of thing happened in the first year of MTBE for many people. I know someone who had a lot of engine work done when the problem was probably a clogged fuel filter.

Fumblin46, I understand. My friend and body repair man is an old hoot that hates gov't control and taxes that they put on everything. He has been running vegetable oil for about 3 years now and a couple of his friends as well. I was just over there last week talking about my panel job coming up and he is also heating his shop with the vegetable oil. He is afraid that before he dies the gov't will stick their necks in this and we'll be paying taxes to run it. *** Speaking of NUCLEAR POWER get this. In the mid seventies, about 6 or 8 miles from my house Duke Power was building a big Nuclear Plant. Bought thousands of acres of land next to Broad River, built on it for several years then QUIT. Sold it to Earl Owensby's Film making studio and walked out. Go figure!!! While they were building all the Duke customers were paying, at the time, extra dollars on every months bill to help finance it.(Didn't want to invest no more of their money than they needed to) About the only thing that ever really happend in the reactors was Earl used it to make the movie Abyss....if any of you went to see it. Then it was going to be a "trash depot" where trash would be burnt and made into power and sold to Duke. I'll stop but the plot only thickens gang.

If the Scuderi engine takes off, I need to quit my day job and get into the business of making pistons.

Interesting concept.

They looked at a lot of these items in Popular Mechanics with the same results as MythBusters. Magnets won't align molecules for more efficient consumption, a vortex on the intake manifold will not create anything other than the turbulent flow you already have once the air travels through the manifold, etc. And, acetone, can damage rubber fuel hoses and seals. It's worhtless at best and harmful at worse.