i don't see how acetone could allow water to get past the filter unless it somehow where to punch holes in the filter... and i don't see how that could happen... does the ford/navistar manual list any chemicals that might do this, or is this just another "cya" type of statement that all these technical people put in these manuals to provide "loopholes" incase they end up in court facing a lawsuit: "well your honor, if Mr. Smith had simply read his owners manual he would have seen the statement warning him not to do what he did...." our sue happy society has forced anyone who manufactures anything to print up the most rediculous warning and "cautionary statements" in order to try and shield themselves from all the lawsuits... sorry but that's the way it is... unless you can get some very specific information about the exact application of chemicals you are talking about... you are gonna get a lot of "ooohhhh you don't want to do that.... that could cause all kinds of problems...." from everyone....

 

psd lover... i think that adding a couple of ounces to 42 gallons is not enough to give you the claimed 20% or so increase in mpg... 2 onces per 10 gallons is what is called for in diesel fuel... and you are exactly right according to the article that was posted to this thread... it stated that there were dozens of fuels that are sold nationwide that vary in quality... the author strongly suggested using the same gas station and grade of fuel to test your mpg... and it was also suggested that you test using an average of mpg readings of several tanks of fuel to get a truer reading. Both of these suggestions are consistant with good technics of scientific testing... and that lends a lot of credibility to the article... again... only my opinion...

 

The article in question and many others are here: http://www.lubedev.com/

 

Acetone like alcohol is miscable with both diesel and water, and will act just as adding a bottle of "HEET" (alcohol) mixes the fuel and water in a gas engine, allowing the water to pass. I think our water separators work on a "surface tension" principle, and defeating that could also allow water to pass. I have always believed that it is bad to add any fuel system dryers to a diesel, but perhaps I am in error in that belief.
I'm not trying to be negative here, I'm just cautious considering the price for a set of injectors and their sensitivity to things that are not designed for.

 

ahh... i see what you mean.... but i don't think that fuel seperators work that way... not sure though.... does anyone know exactly how the filters seperate out the water from the fuel....?

 

i too am very interested as i need as many mpg as i can get these days before the wife tries to make me sell her(i got the comment yesterday my car is always on full and you gotta put fuel in yours every other day). ohhh man.. i will also note water and injectors dont mix. my dad made me keep driving his truck with the water and fuel light on big mistake truck died. wouldn't start again for a day and when it did it needed 3 new injectors. only 60k on his truck. i will add he has cab and chassis with filler necks in center of bed and he gets excessive amounts of water in his fuel. needless to say he moved em out to the side of the bed. long post sorry keep on strokin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

A couple of tankfuls wont hurt any thing. I hope. I've seen test where as little as a couple % acetone has made a seal swell considerably.

Acetone really makes a better fuel system cleaner, rather that a bonafide mpg increaser.

For Acetone to really increase your MPG, the HHV value would have to be insanely higher than your fuel's value (because of the ratio of mixing).

www.woodgas.com

The energy (higher heating values) for the fuels are (kJ/g):
Acetone = 30.9
Hydrogen = 141.3
Motor Gasoline = 46.50

I couldn't find readily available values for diesel, but gasoline still proves the point.

So Acetone actually has less energy per unit mass than gasoline. I am assuming that the densities are both about the same, ~.75 gm/mL

So unless I'm missing the big picture, acetone should actually REDUCE economy by 15-35%...

So far everyone has been assuming that acetone mixes with your fuel....but what if it didn't and started to pool up a the bottom of your tank over successive attempts?

What do you think will happen to your fuel pump?

I'm willing to bet that the reasons for *some* seeing increases would be because the fuel system just was cleaned by the acetone.

 

superrangerman,
you maybe right, the acetone may just be cleaning the fuel system and allowing it to do what it was designed to do... but i think the theory behind this is not that the acetone burns, but that it allows the diesel to burn better... the downside to any internal combustion engine is the fact that a percentage of the fuel in the chamber is not burned completely... the only way to get true fuel efficiency is to inject gas into the cyclinder instead of liquid, (for example, your zambonis that they use at the hockey rinks). Again, the theory is that the acetone in the diesel allows it to "vaporize", (become gaseous), easier and therefore burn more completely. I do not know if this is true or not, but i would like to find out... also remember... we are talking about 2/1000ths of 1%... maybe this is all just a bunch of horse turd... but who knows... one other thing... they have greatly increased the power and fuel efficiancy of the new diesel motors by GREATLY increasing the pressure in the fuel injectors... greater pressure = better vaporization of the diesel fuel once it is injected into the cylinders... same theory to increase mpg... just coming at it from a different angle..

 

one more thing... if the acetone is pooling in the bottom of the tank... how is it cleaning the fuel system and improving the mpg...?

 

The percentage is too small to do any cleaning IMO. Maybe help keep it clean.

 

One sure way to know if the acetone is pooling up on the bottom of the tank is to put some diesel fuel into a container and then add some acetone. Shake well then let stand. If there is no instant results then just let it stand for however long it takes to run a tank of fuel, in my case about three weeks, (but have been known to run through about 3 tanks in one day).

 

good idea... i'll try that...

 

"In particular, the most noticable change occurred when I deliberately tried to "smoke" an obnoxious individual behind me the other day and was completely unable to do so. "

this post leads me to believe that the acetone IS combining with the diesel fuel and doing what that article claimed it would do.... if the fuel is vaporizing better, therefore burning better, more completely, there would be less smoke when you go WOT because the smoke is caused by fuel not being completely burned... one question... where you able to get lots of smoke out of your mule before when you would tromp on it...?

 

I'll make the prediction that you will have no problem getting the acetone to go into solution and stay there. I'll make another prediction that if you add some water and acetone, both will emulsify with the diesel.

 

so what do you think would be the result of that happening... and if adverse... how much water would it take to cause that... i still think the water filter is gonna catch it... water will not combine with diesel fuel... and i don't think it will combine with acetone either... so if it can't for a solution with either the fuel or the acetone, how can it get around the water filter..?