Acetone. Lets get to the bottom of this

[DifferentPointofView]

Just E10.

[JohnnyGrey]

Do you know of any products which monitor fuel consumption like this Johnny?

I don't know of any off the shelf products. The SuperMID is one, the MPGuino project is another, and I'm developing yet another.

What if you divide the MAF value by lambda (assuming you have an accurate lambda value)?

It would work better than the scangauge, but your readings are only as good a your MAF (which may be non-linear at low airflow), and many cars (like mine) don't use MAF. This would be the best way to get readings on carbed cars, but it's still inferior to injector readings.

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by DifferentPointofView

Just E10.

I got better mileage with E15 blend.

I tried every which way with acetone on 5 different cars no luck. 2 blind test one on my wifes car and the other was the neighbor. Nothing. Once your mileage tops out and your peaked with the FE stop using it and see what happens to your mileage. I'm afraid you will never get to the bottom of it. YMMV (your mileage may very)

[Nerys]

Well todays tank was again 19.5mpg Keep in mind the 3 tanks before I stopped using the acetone were all 23.69mpg or higher. the last one was 25.1mpg. MY last two tanks no acetone were both 19.5mpg. (odd I never had them be the same tank to tank before. I may go longer no acetone to get a better baseline)

[COMP]

Originally Posted by Nerys

Well todays tank was again 19.5mpg Keep in mind the 3 tanks before I stopped using the acetone were all 23.69mpg or higher. the last one was 25.1mpg. MY last two tanks no acetone were both 19.5mpg. (odd I never had them be the same tank to tank before. I may go longer no acetone to get a better baseline)

waiting to hear,,,,what was your mix before ???

[Nerys]

Nothing to hear yet. Takes time to eat up miles. Can not afford to just drive for no reason :-) hehe

I was doing it "seat of the pants" ie just dump some down the funnel into the tank. When I switch back to acetone I will measure it this time. but it should be between 1-2 ounces per 10 gallons.

[COMP]

Originally Posted by Nerys

Nothing to hear yet. Takes time to eat up miles. Can not afford to just drive for no reason :-) hehe

I was doing it "seat of the pants" ie just dump some down the funnel into the tank. When I switch back to acetone I will measure it this time. but it should be between 1-2 ounces per 10 gallons.

thanks,, thats about what i'm going to try on my truck, more on the first tank to help clean things out

[RandomFact314]

I used acetone and it made my MPG go down about 2 mpg, I was pretty mad, I used it with the no ethanol gas, do you think that was the reason?

[Nerys]

I made the mistake of trying to test acetone when the switch to E10 was happening.

My MPG is now all over the place (in over 1 million miles of driving my mpg is pretty rock solid depending on what kind of driving I am doing) now I can never get an even remotely similar reading from week to week.

I think this is due to the ethanol. I got the kit on ebay to measure the ethanol percentage of the gas I buy. Accurate or not it will let me make relative comparisons of one gas station to the next.

Wawa seems pretty consistent %7 ethanol in PA 6% ethanol in NJ while the local no name gas station has over 9% ethanol. So I will avoid them from now on.

My mpg jumps from 14mpg to 20mpg (I used to get a solid 22+mpg every week for 10 years!!)

I tried the acetone and my mpg numbers DID go up (but never back to where they were PRE ethanol)

but I could never REPLICATE the results from week to week. Still massive fluctuations. I would STOP using the ethanol and my mpg would stay the same or GO UP and then it would go back down (I always ignore the tank after stopping since there is still some acetone mix left from the previous fill etc..)

So I gave up on ethanol until I can stabilize my fuel economy from week to week.

I was even looking into REMOVING the ethanol (it really really sucks I am losing 15-24% of my fuel economy) but that has some serious problems (water and lower octane once separated)

It seems like there is a thresh hold I am exceeding. low ethanol and I just get the small expected drop in fuel economy from the lower energy content of the ethanol. but at some point it seems something changes like its getting more ethanol than it can properly burn and the fuel economy plummets.

I have killed 3 fuel pumps and 2 O2 sensors since the E10 switch.

those fraking things are expensive and its really making me mad.

now that I can test the gas I hope to get "consistent" gas and if I can stabilize my mpg maybe I can test the acetone again.

and this effect ALL my vehicles from the 88 cherokee with 4900,00 miles to the 92 Clubwagon (hardest hit by the ethanol) with 180,000 miles to my 96 Voyager with 210,000 miles.

so its not just the older car or one car. My dad also saw a massive drop in mpg with his 98 windstar. 24mpg to 21mpg. (averaged)

[orange4boy]

If you lost fuel pumps I wouldn't be surprised if it was the acetone. It is a very strong solvent. It's used to thin epoxy and it's the only solvent that does it except lacquer thinner. (lacquer thinner will destroy all your rubber in minutes.)

Acetone is a good solvent for most plastics and synthetic fibres including those used in Nalgene bottles made of polystyrene, polycarbonate and some types of polypropylene.[3]. It is ideal for thinning fiberglass resin, cleaning fiberglass tools and dissolving two-part epoxies and superglue before hardening. It is used as a volatile component of some paints and varnishes. As a heavy-duty degreaser, it is useful in the preparation of metal prior to painting; it also thins polyester resins, vinyl and adhesives.

Better hope there is nothing soluble in your fuel system if you use it.

If you are now running 10% ethanol you can increase your mileage again by advancing your timing. Start with a few degrees at at time until you get knocking under load, then back off a couple of degrees.