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Nerys · 05-22-2008, 03:20 AM

I do not care why or how it works I just want to know DOES it really work.

I plan to find out. There are several possibilities here.

First it does nothing I change
Second it does something
Third it does nothing but my car is broken and it tricks it into not being as broken.

First I need to eliminate #1 I am doing that right now. I ran acetone for many tanks (you can see the results in my Fuel Log) this last tank was FULLY no acetone IE less than 1 gallon gas was left with any mixed in acetone. My mileage dropped from 22-25mpg to 19mpg. To me thats pretty conclusive.

So I am going to go 2 more tanks with no acetone and see what happens. Then I am going to put acetone back in and see what happens. They take it off again see what happens. That should pretty clearly confirm or eliminate #1

Second there may be something wrong with my car #3 I have a MIL light on (service engine soon)

Someone suggested that if my o2 sensor failed or something was wrong and my car was in "crawl home" mode it would run really badly. Causing the low fuel economy and it may be that the acetone is fooling the compute into thinking there is no problem and so its not HELPING me by altering the fuel but help me by temp fixing a problem with the car.

How to confirm? find out what the mil light is fix the problem see how this effects economy. That would largely eliminate #3

IF all of this is positive and #2 is still a possibility the next step is to remove the driver from the equation.

I am not sure how well this will work since I will have to do it at idle. I am working on getting access to a dyno to add "strain" to the system since it may have a more measurable impact at speed than at idle. Idle for now is all I can do.

First I will disconnect the alternator and run the car on batteries. This will eliminate the alternator turning on or off at the wrong moment from skewing the results.

Next I will bypass the charcoal canister since I understand it has some fuel in it and there is no way to predict when the computer will decide to use this fuel and skewing the results.

I will disconnect my fuel pump and my fuel line mount a graduated cylinder on a stand fill this with fuel. I will run the car till it is worm normal operating temperature and let it run with enough fuel that I know all the fuel in the system is now this runs test fuel. Once I get the fuel level to the "start" mark I will start a stop watch. When it reaches the DONE mark I will stop the stopwatch. Economy will be seconds or minutes per gallon instead of miles per gallon.

This eliminates weather (I will monitor temperature for a large shift and retest if a large shift occurs) This eliminates road conditions and Wind this Eliminates Driver conditions such as me creating a placebo effect because I know its in there. I could even do a blind study by having someone else fill and mark the tubes and disclose afterwards which was acetone or not but since I will not be driving it this is not relevant.

Either way I am seeing difference so large they can not be ignored by "experimental errors" issues. Its not like I am seeing a 2% increase which can be explained away. I am seeing a 30% increase. Thats pretty hard to explain away. Even if 10% of that is environment and driver thats still a 20% difference.

I want to know for sure where its coming from. The why can come later.

I plan to use this thread to catalog everything I do. I will take notes video and pictures of every step as I do them. I figure the A B A B A Testing will take around 2 months. In that time I will begin work on the graduated cylinder test tank for the experiment.

What do you guys think?

Any information? Any Suggestions? Resources? anyone else done any testing?

I think most of the people who say hogwash are right. With regular fuel. I THINK (can not remember for sure) I remember doing this a decade ago and it having no impact. BUT that was before they starting ruining our fuel with ethanol.

My gut tells me that Acetone is not so much helping the gasoline as it is helping OFFSET the damage that the ethanol does. But there both alcohols right? I just do not know enough about this crap Grrrr :-)

05-22-2008, 03:20 AM	#1 (permalink)
Nerys Grrr :-) Join Date: May 2008 Location: Levittown PA Posts: 800 Cherokee - '88 Jeep Cherokee 90 day: 19.44 mpg (US) Ryo-Ohki - '94 Geo Metro Xfi 90 day: 50.15 mpg (US) Vger 2 - '00 Plymouth Grand Voyager SE Ninja - '89 Geo Tracker 90 day: 30.27 mpg (US) Thanks: 12 Thanked 31 Times in 25 Posts	Acetone. Lets get to the bottom of this I do not care why or how it works I just want to know DOES it really work. I plan to find out. There are several possibilities here. First it does nothing I change Second it does something Third it does nothing but my car is broken and it tricks it into not being as broken. First I need to eliminate #1 I am doing that right now. I ran acetone for many tanks (you can see the results in my Fuel Log) this last tank was FULLY no acetone IE less than 1 gallon gas was left with any mixed in acetone. My mileage dropped from 22-25mpg to 19mpg. To me thats pretty conclusive. So I am going to go 2 more tanks with no acetone and see what happens. Then I am going to put acetone back in and see what happens. They take it off again see what happens. That should pretty clearly confirm or eliminate #1 Second there may be something wrong with my car #3 I have a MIL light on (service engine soon) Someone suggested that if my o2 sensor failed or something was wrong and my car was in "crawl home" mode it would run really badly. Causing the low fuel economy and it may be that the acetone is fooling the compute into thinking there is no problem and so its not HELPING me by altering the fuel but help me by temp fixing a problem with the car. How to confirm? find out what the mil light is fix the problem see how this effects economy. That would largely eliminate #3 IF all of this is positive and #2 is still a possibility the next step is to remove the driver from the equation. I am not sure how well this will work since I will have to do it at idle. I am working on getting access to a dyno to add "strain" to the system since it may have a more measurable impact at speed than at idle. Idle for now is all I can do. First I will disconnect the alternator and run the car on batteries. This will eliminate the alternator turning on or off at the wrong moment from skewing the results. Next I will bypass the charcoal canister since I understand it has some fuel in it and there is no way to predict when the computer will decide to use this fuel and skewing the results. I will disconnect my fuel pump and my fuel line mount a graduated cylinder on a stand fill this with fuel. I will run the car till it is worm normal operating temperature and let it run with enough fuel that I know all the fuel in the system is now this runs test fuel. Once I get the fuel level to the "start" mark I will start a stop watch. When it reaches the DONE mark I will stop the stopwatch. Economy will be seconds or minutes per gallon instead of miles per gallon. This eliminates weather (I will monitor temperature for a large shift and retest if a large shift occurs) This eliminates road conditions and Wind this Eliminates Driver conditions such as me creating a placebo effect because I know its in there. I could even do a blind study by having someone else fill and mark the tubes and disclose afterwards which was acetone or not but since I will not be driving it this is not relevant. Either way I am seeing difference so large they can not be ignored by "experimental errors" issues. Its not like I am seeing a 2% increase which can be explained away. I am seeing a 30% increase. Thats pretty hard to explain away. Even if 10% of that is environment and driver thats still a 20% difference. I want to know for sure where its coming from. The why can come later. I plan to use this thread to catalog everything I do. I will take notes video and pictures of every step as I do them. I figure the A B A B A Testing will take around 2 months. In that time I will begin work on the graduated cylinder test tank for the experiment. What do you guys think? Any information? Any Suggestions? Resources? anyone else done any testing? I think most of the people who say hogwash are right. With regular fuel. I THINK (can not remember for sure) I remember doing this a decade ago and it having no impact. BUT that was before they starting ruining our fuel with ethanol. My gut tells me that Acetone is not so much helping the gasoline as it is helping OFFSET the damage that the ethanol does. But there both alcohols right? I just do not know enough about this crap Grrrr :-)