Just ordered a 2017 F350 DRW. It will be my first diesel. I'm looking for a fuel additive that does only three things, improves the cetane level, adds lubrication to the injectors and pump, and prevents gelling. Several of you seem to like stanadyne, but looking at their data sheet, it claims to clean injectors and de-emulsify water. I'm not sure I want the cleaner/de-emulsifier. Thoughts?

 

Congrats on the order! Welcome to the diesel clubhouse. We have cookies.

Some might disagree, but I'm exactly with you on staying far away from cleaning agents and products that attempt to emulsify/demulsify water. Common rail injection systems are very efficient and work great, but they have very little tolerance to any kind of water contamination or alcohol (or similar) based products.

Emulsifiers/demulsifiers can actually allow water to bypass the W/S. Cleaning agents can reduce lubricity in some situations. This is why you won't see Ford, Ram, GM, etc give any recommendations for additives that contain those types of products. So with that in mind I stick with what Ford recommends, which is PM-22 (or PM-23 for winter use), or similar. The Ford stuff is good and reasonably priced at most dealers. Unfortunately I don't have other brand recommendations since there's so much out there and I haven't taken the time to compare most of them to the Ford additives. I'm lazy like that.

Enjoy the truck!

 

Pm22 and pm23 at your local ford dealer

 

I do not think a demulsifier will let water pass the fuel filter. An emulifiser will attempt to make the water part of the fuel and try to get the water past the fuel filter. There is a difference in what they attempt to do and how they do it.

I run PM-22 at time. Also run Stanadyne Blue wish does same as PM-22 but adds a demulsifier to it.

 

100% safe way is to use Ford PM-22 or Ford PM-23 (winter/anti-gel).

 

I have a couple of theories regarding demulsifiers. Maybe it can make for a thread discussion here since it's part of the topic.

On our trucks, fuel is drawn from the bottom of the tank. Diesel fuel, by nature, floats on top of water. Since demulsifiers chemically separate the water from diesel fuel, the first issue to address is that in some cases you can end up with a large excess of water at the bottom of the tank (such as using a demulsifier and then allowing the truck to sit for a period of time). When you first turn on the key and the fuel pump kicks on, for a brief period the pickup tube can be drawing in a large excess of water, far more than normal. In extreme cases it can overwhelm what the fuel/water separator unit can handle, allowing excess water to bypass and contaminate the fuel system.

The second theory stems from the fact that demulsifiers are chemically separating the water from the fuel. This means that the additives are bonding to water, changing the properties of water itself. Because the water is now bonded to a chemical agent, this can in some cases make it difficult for the fuel/water separator unit to properly contain the water. Once again water is allowed to bypass the separator and contaminate the fuel system.

Again those are my theories. Feel free to discuss.

 

My thoughts are, if you end up with that much water in the bottom of the tank, it was not from a demulsifying product. It was most likely from a purchase of bad fuel from one or more stations. With the amount of water in the tank you are suggesting, I highly doubt any fuel filter would be able to prevent all the water from being passed.

As I understand it, the demulsifying is to coalesce the microscopic water suspended in the fuel to a size that will be large enough to not pass through a 10 micron filter.

I suspect there has been plenty testing over the years on what emulsifier and demulsifiers do with the water in the fuel and the ability of a water filter to stop it from passing. Majority of these products have been on the market for many years and have many millions of miles in use by truckers and diesel pickups.

Just my 2 cents on it.

 

A while back, someone here gave me pretty good advice. Use the Ford stuff which is a quality product and reasonably priced, save the receipts, buy fuel from a reputable dealer and save the receipts. That is your best weapon should a fuel system warranty issue arise.

 

A large amount of water is going to be problematic for almost anything you could do in an "on the fly" operation. The only potential exception being large diesel/water fuel separators that boats use. I've seen those removed lots of water from fuel. The ones I saw were much larger than the dieselsite combo filters too and even then we did multiple passes to get it all out.

This was years ago when I was messing around with making biodiesel and LOTS of water would get into the waste oil. And even after we did that, we put the oil in a vacuum and heated it to boil off any remaining water.

All that you can be worried about stopping are small amounts of water/condensation that could get into the fuel.

 

My issue with the Ford additives is that they don't do both.
One product adds Cetane and Lubrication, The second product add Anti-gel and Lubrication. If my fuel is low on Cetane in the summer, I still need to improve the cetane in the winter when I also need Anti-Gel.

So for me, I use the Opti-Lube product. Mainly because it did so well in the 2007 product test. I suspect a lot of products have improved since 2007. So I'm not sure that Opti-Lube would come in, in first place if the procuct test were done again today, but I've been using it off and on since 2007 and am comfortable with it.

But to each their own.

 

PH I hear you on that... I've run a few different additives over the years. And I did notice that about the Ford stuff. I just say it's the safest to run, because you bought it at the Ford dealer and it has Ford's name on it. So if the fuel is suspect and they say you are running a fuel additive, you can say, yep - YOURS.

You will find plenty of people that have had good long engine and fuel system life that haven't run a drop of additives too.

 

I have ran Stanadyne Blue in my diesels for a few years now. no problems with gel ups in the winter and my mechanical engines seem to like it


but the most important thing of all is only use good quality fuel!!
and this goes for any diesel engine new old mechanical electronic

 

I like the Opti-Lube products as well. And I really like that they make it easy for me by including a dispensing pump and two small containers facilitating getting the additive from the gallon jug to my tank. And I get it delivered to my doorstep for only $5 from these guys Diesel Fuel Lube - Sale on Gallons of Optilube

 

Has anyone used the XDP Fuel additive. They say it Cleans the Injectors and
Emulsifies water without Alcohol additives. Ya-Nah ?

 

From my understanding and comments by Keith, a Ford Diesel Mechanic on here, you do not want to use an additive that emulsifies the water. You want to separate it from the diesel fuel.