Video: The Crazy Thing About Acetone.

[Peakster]

You've heard it, I've heard it. People claiming that adding Acetone to their fuel's mixture is giving them better gas mileage. I've personally tried it a few times and without precise instrumentation, the difference was virtually unnoticeable.

Finally, one day I decided to get off my behind and give it a try using the ScanGauge in my '97 Geo Metro. No one had ever tried to do this experiment before because it was inconceivable that one could do appropriate A-B-A testing on it. To get around this, I did A-A-B-B testing followed with a C just to throw in a curve ball.

Check out the results on this video (please ignore the obvious spelling error at the beginning ):

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/v/van5VmJ1yno[/YOUTUBE]

Feel free to discuss.

[SVOboy]

You messed up the tags for the youtube thing a bit, just use the button to see what it should look like.

However, very nice job! Keep it coming,

[Peakster]

Hmm... I'm not sure how it's screwing up. I made the tags identical in my "mirror removal" video with the now-working "acetone" one and it's still not working. May this have to do with the fact I'm using Safari web browser from a Macintosh?

BTW, I also can't add gas-log entries here either.

[SVOboy]

I fixed both of them, dunno what's up. I'm using firefox on a mac and it works for me. I'll have to poke around when it's not 2:30am...go ahead and post though and I'll just fix them for the time being.

[Peakster]

I switched to Firefox and the youtube button still doesn't seem to be making the video work properly. Can you tell me what is it about the youtube tabs I'm entering in improperly? I must be doing something wrong. I hate being a pain.

[oldschool]

I watched the video, good thing you live in Canada, in the US this yr sometime it becomes mandatory that all gas contain 10% ethanol, and ethanol kills the acetone advantage.

[trebuchet03]

Originally Posted by oldschool

I watched the video, good thing you live in Canada, in the US this yr sometime it becomes mandatory that all gas contain 10% ethanol, and ethanol kills the acetone advantage.

I'm fairly certain he didn't do this testing recently (date on video says Apr. 2007)

[daklein]

Sounds like if you take too many more runs you'll have a wheel falling off. What is that noise? Check your lug nuts.

What's the distance you're running each time? I know you're on cruise control, so maybe you're going about the same speed, but what about all the other traffic. having trucks passing, and crosswinds can matter. how long was the vehicle running before the tests, was the transmission fully warmed? Or maybe the electric fan is coming on in the later runs, or maybe egr is active some times but not others?

[Peakster]

The length of the freeway run is 7 miles. You're right that crosswinds matter and that's something that is a variable in this test.

[cfg83]

Peakster -

Cool test. I like the "shadow markers". Would a stopwatch have been useful to measure the start/stop times? The stopwatch may indirectly point to vagaries in wind and traffic and stuff. Does your ScanGauge II measure fuel trim? I wonder what ScanGauge input variables were being effected by the Acetone. Would a good test have been adding more acetone in proportion to the full tank and doing one more MPG test? Do I ask too many questions?

CarloSW2