Automobile manufactures are under a *lot * of pressure - from government and competition - to improve the gas mileage of their cars. In the automotive business, even a 1% improvement in gas mileage for a car is considered monumental (all else being equal). So the obvious question to ask is this: if these products work as advertised, why aren’t the automobile manufactures using them?
Rick, your dad and mine must have been cut from the same cloth. I miss my dad, too.
Has anyone used the additives which combine with the gasoline as you’re pumping it? One of these is called Additech.
Yeah.
The only fuel additive that gets a consensus vote of approval on the 'dope is Chevron Techron, and that only as a cleaner.
I’m a fan of Lube Control Distributor’s Fuel Power 3000 product, personally. Still, those guys only claim a tiny fuel economy improvement: 3% in diesel engines. Not even cost effective 'til gas hits $2.50 per gallon, given the dosage levels needed.
I’ve heard off the record from their research guy that it’s good for 6% in gas engines, but that’s not what they really market it for.
I do not believe that car manufacturers give two hoots for fuel milage. Back in the 50s, a 0-60 time of about 10-12 seconds was quite common, nowadays people insist on half that time. Had the improvements in engine efficiency gone into improving mileage instead of acceleration (and power) we would now be seeing substantial improvements. Even now the auto lobby is resisting any increase in gas mileage although all the companies would be on an even playing field. Even though they are in serious danger of joining the Irish elk in oblivion.
There are two things that can be done: keep your tires properlly inflated and keep your speed down to 55 or so.
To understand where the fuels energy goes, read up a bit at the link. This guy has developed an improved internal combustion process that involves steam at part of the stroke and…well, read up. He’s voted a top inventor by Popular Science ( aka “PopSci”):
Here’s a blurb and a link:
"*A typical engine wastes three quarters of its energy as heat. Crower’s prototype, the single-cylinder diesel eight-horsepower Steam-o-Lene engine, uses that heat to make steam and recapture some of the lost energy. It runs like a conventional four-stroke combustion engine through each of the typical up-and-down movements of the piston (intake, compression, power or combustion, exhaust). But just as the engine finishes its fourth stroke, water squirts into the cylinder, hitting surfaces as hot as 1,500°F. The water immediately evaporates into steam, generating a 1,600-fold expansion in volume and driving the piston down to create an additional power stroke. The upward sixth stroke exhausts the steam to a condenser, where it is recycled into injection water.
Crower calculates that the Steam-o-Lene boosts the work it gets from a gallon of gas by 40 percent over conventional engines.*
see story at:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology/c1609351d9092110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
Holy shit. I just read that article, and you’re 100% right. That’s one of the worst pieces of journalism I’ve ever seen.
Ahhhh… Did you look at the comments section of the article, by any chance? Because the “inventor” posted there, saying:
Which is, of course, complete and utter hogwash. God, did the journalist even think to ask about this “theory of operation”?
That’s a good one. What a kidder.
The overwhelming majority of journalists are much more concerned with generating a piece that has a “hook” and looks good than with rigorously investigating a subject they’re not familiar with. Hey, we’ve got an “expert” to guide us on this issue, who cares whether his credentials or his pronouncements stand up to scrutiny?
You well should. That was priceless!! 
I’ve got to find me one of those miracle “typical engines”… All the ones I’m able to find waste four quarters of their energy as heat. The question isn’t how much is lost as heat; it’s what you do with the energy in the process of losing it.
Their greatest effectiveness is in removing unspent greenbacks from your wallet!
P.S. My Dad would say, “Hear, hear” to Rick’s Dad.
If more fuel enters the engine, what you’d have is more power, not greater mileage.
A while back there was gas saving folklore built around Cow Magnets*. Supposedly, you could tape two cow magnets opposite each other, with the fuel line between them to “get all the molecules aligned.” Nonsense, of course, but it spawned a flurry of cow magnet jokes.
Why do cows in a field all face the same way? Cow magnets.
*Cows aren’t picky eaters. They’ll occasionally scarf down screws, nails, and pieces of baling wire. You can keep that stuff from wrecking the cow’s innards by feeding her a round magnet. It stays in the first stomach, grabbing all iron-based debris. You can buy cow magnets at feed stores and…slaughterhouses. Yes, the same magnet may be used for several consecutive cows.
Well, ultimately all energy from combustion goes to heat, but in the case of the system of just the engine and car you’re getting a certain amount of useful mechanical work from the engine in the sense of increased rotational impulse delivered through the transmission to the tires, thus causing the car to go. That energy is eventually lost to the environment to reactions with the air, frictional losses between the tires and road, braking losses, et cetera. However, even all of that aside, the thermodynamic efficiency of the Otto Cycle (or similar four stroke cycles which drive most gasoline-fueled engines) is limited by the difference in temperature between the temperature of injected fuel and air and the combustion temperature of gasoline. For an autmotive engine burning gasoline the theoretical thermodynamic efficiency is somewhere between the low 20’s and ~30% depending on engine parameters. No magnet or fan or magic fairy dust is going to improve that thermodynamic efficiency unless it creates an additional thermodynamic cycle which recovers some of the heat lost from combustion as useful work, like the BMW Turbosteamer hybrid. This isn’t just a limitation of engine materials or mechanical friction or whatnot that could be improved by engineering processes; this is a hard theoretical limitation which is a result of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the only way to get around it is to either increase the high temperature or decrease the low temperature.
You can optimize your output by optimizing the time in which a reaction takes place in order to extract the maximum amount of useful work from it (by selecting an appropriate stroke and bore for a given range of RPM), but because an automotive engine has to work at a wide range of speeds you’ll always have a wide range of sub-optimal functioning. Short of installing Maxwell’s Demon in your exhaust manifold (“Availble now for only three easy payments of $19.95 each!”) you just can’t do better than the theoretical thermodynamic efficiency, and anybody who claims that to be so needs to be thumped about the head with Moran and Shapiro.
Stranger
I agree, and I realized it a little after I posted. Would you let me weasel out of it by pointing out that the fuel mixture might burn more completely due to the static pressure being higher? :o
I’m intrigued by the possibility of using the waste heat from the IC engine, to power a smaller staem engine-would this make sense? Suppose your steam engine could recover 30% of the waste heat-that would mean an overall increas of about 20%-would that be worth it? There is one other possibility-ultra-low viscosity oils-do they make any significant difference?
I’m glad this thread is open right now. I just got off the phone with my SIL, who mentioned CA-40 to me (she said she heard about it via Ed Shultz from NPR, where it was getting heavy endorsements). I’d never heard of it before, and am approaching it with some skepticism; however, I’m going to look into it (in addition to following the links presented thus far in this thread).
Does anyone have any knowledge of this product? (An SDMB search turned up nothing.)
Using waste heat is possible (see the BMW Turbosteamer link I posted above), but there is a thermodynamic limit to how much more efficient that will make the overall system. Ultimately, you gain energy from the pressure difference effected between a high temperature state and a low temperature state; the high temperature is essentially set by the combustion temperature of the fuel, and the low temperature is ultimately no less than ambient, and in practice much higher. Adding a heat recovery cycle (what a thermodynamicist would call a regeneration cycle) is definitely a way of recovering energy that would otherwise the lost as heat, and this has been done for decades at large power generating facilities to both recover energy and reduce the thermal waste effects on the environment. On an automobile, however, the effectiveness is limited by the increase in weight and complexity; at some point you’re going to have to accept heat lost out the tailpipe because you just don’t have the time or apparatus to use the small temperature difference to recover heat-energy.
Low-viscosity lubricants would add nothing to engine efficiency. The mechanical (rather than thermodynamic) efficiency of modern car engines is very, very high–in the 98-99% range, with a manual or mechanically linked transmission being >99% and a viscous fluid coupled transmission adding a few percentage points of ineffiency in high torque/low speed conditions. The viscosity rating for the engine oil specified by the manufacturer for your car has been specifically selected for the oil pressure and design clearances of the engine, in order to maintain a seperating layer such that running parts do not directly contact one another under normal operating conditions. You should not arbitrarily change the viscosity rating of the engine or transmission oil in your car.
I don’t know the product specificall, but the “How It Works” page under their website is basically a bunch of handwaving and pseudo-technical jargon without a single bit of quantifiable or falsifiable information. They claim it’s a “combustion enhancer” that “has an ability to suspend in and tie itself to the hydrocarbons in fuels” but “does not change Octane or Cetane, but uses it more efficiently, giving a longer stronger push on the piston.” No, sorry, the only thing that will give a “longer stronger push on the piston” will be changing the crankshaft and stroke length. In addition to that bit of nonsense, they claim that “The third component of ignition is accomplished due to the thermo-electric and Piezo-electric properties of the calcium in CA40. When combustion occurs in the engine the heat and pressure causes the electrons in the calcium to accelerate. This acceleration provides the ignition (spark) in the proximity of the hydrocarbons resulting in further oxidation (burning) of the hydrocarbons.” Ah, those accelerating electrons; from their description I presume that dumping some CA40 into an old CRT television or monitor would make it brighter and more responsive, too.
Yeah, that whole page pretty much pegs the bullshit meter to 11. The only statement I might regard is probably true is “Independent testing indicated that CA-40 did not take gasoline out of specifications,” because its an additive that, at best, basically does nothing. I’m willing to reconsider that opinion if someone will trot out any kind of technical explanation that doesn’t invoke the piezoelectric properties of a liquid accelerating electrons and/or some kind of independent testing that genuinely shows a performance increase over normal gasoline, but I’d bet my 25th Anniversary Commemorative Issue Feynman’s Lectures that no one can do so.
Stranger
I’ll telly you how: increase the air pressure in your tires by 10%. This will give a harder ride, but should be OK. Next, drive with a light foot on the accelerator pedal. Third, if stuck in traffic, shut your engine off. Idling for more than 1 minute used more gas than retarting. All of this costs nothing!
I found the following elsewhere:
"Ordered a quart some weeks ago and have been using it in 2 vehicles. 92 Olds Silhouette (the plastic anteater), 3.8, 237K. 98 Mercury Sable, 3.0, 155k.
The van, my daily driver, has consistently averaged 20mpg most of its life. The Sable, the wife’s daily driver, typically got 23mpg.
The van now consistently gets 22+mpg. Had one tankful with no improvement, one with a high of just under 25mpg. The van had never done that well before (25), even on a trip. The last 2 tankfuls were 23+ each.
The Sable seems to be much more variable, either showing no improvement at all on a couple of tanks, to results of 5 - 20% improvement. Her results are usually in the 5 - 7% range overall. But the wife’s driving conditions are much more variable as well. Much more city driving, with attending interstate gridlocks."
Nice anecdote, but of course nothing you can bank on.
My brief search also revealed that the people seeing the most benefit are those with older cars, presumably those with some cleanliness issues to begin with.
It may or may not be a good product, but their advertising is almost certainly overstating fuel economy gains.
They’re claiming that some commercial diesel engines have seen 21-25% fuel economy increases over 10,000 mile runs. That simply defies belief. Anything much over 5% seems too good to be true. Perhaps the two big rigs they tested had clogged fuel injectors before the test… in which case Chevron Techron would have resulted in similar results.