I work for Shell (in IT) and am attending a meeting about this new additive tomorrow. I'll see if I can get my hands on some details to post here.

I used to be very sceptical about differences in gas, but I can tell you that it's not just marketing BS. The additives Shell uses do work. The research center is here in Houston, and has V8 vehicles with dual fuel systems which allow comparing two fuels on the same engines, same conditions. These engines are broken down and that's where you get the pictures of dirty vs clean valves. If you buy grocery store gas, you get the minimum amount of additives required, but Shell gas has up to 5 times the amount of additives (V-Power, V...5). If you use a Shell Visa, you get 5% rebate which brings the cost down to the same or less as the grocery store gas.

It's true that all gas is the same coming out of the refinery, but the additives, which are added at the truck terminals makes a big difference.

Someone mentioned Techron... from what I understand, Shell labs developed Techron, but Shell already had a good additive and sold it to Chevron.

 

............................/Classic.

 

Don, I'm very interested in what you find. Here in the great and socialist republik of Kalifornya, the local APCD's and the marketing gurus got together to bring us oxygenated fuels a couple decades ago, based on a single lab experiment that had not a whole lot to do with the real world. Total energy dropped by almost 15%, so the total per-mile emissions actually went up. Prices per gallon up, miles per gallon down. Gas tax revenue was up, so there was at least a silver lining to the cloud. I made a bunch of money supporting a company that built MTBE vapor incinerators used at local contamination sites to try to clean up groundwater following a tank leak, so another silver lining I guess. Now MTBE is gone here, at least from the nozzles, and the state is in the midst of legal claims from companies that invested heavily in making MTBE from natural gas and corn. Then the brilliant minds at ADM figured out that they could get some pretty nice subsidies for corn ethanol to be used in motor fuels, natural gas prices went up. But it was all OK because the market for MTBE shrank. At least that's my story. Anyway, the interest is in how well the new N2 techmology actually works, and also in what side-effects we might expect. Like lower energy per gallon, for instance.

I can see using some waste heat from the exhaust or from a catalyst shell to generate some steam from AC condensate, and puff it into the intake manifold on trailing throttle to do all that intake cleaning. Plumb it similar to the way we used to use EGR valves, but drive the control diaphragm from manifold vacuum. Under low loads you'd actually get a little charge cooling, with combustion enhancement from the steam. By-by lower-load NOx!

 

Ever heard of Di-hydrogenated Oxygen? I can sell my "special" formula for $8.99/qt. Just slowly add to your intake with the engine running at 2500~3000 RPMs. Repeat every 10,000 miles.

 

Same way it gets into Shell's gasoline and our fuel tanks. Thorough mixing with BS.

 

 

I've been running WalMart gas in my Durango, Dodge 1500, boat, and sometimes in my Porsche. The Durango has 220k miles and has never been apart. The truck has 208k, the boat sits all winter, and runs easy in summer. I use StaBilz only in Oct. The Porsche was clean as a whistle in the combustion area after running cheap gas for years.

All the additive packages in the world don't make up for badly refined gas. The ASTM standards are quite strict, and adding something over and above what the ASTM standard requires will have to be proven to me with gas chromatographic reaction, followed by a double blind car test. And no, the cost of Shell with a Shell card is not as cheap as Murphy fuel from WalMart with a WalMart card. I used to put WalMart fuel in my old airplane before they started with the Ethanol. My plane ran better with Murphy gas than it did with Mobil or Chevron. I never tried Shell because it was all Ethanol.

Ad Dr Bob has mentioned, N2 at surface temps and pressures is a odorless gas. If you bind it to a CHOx fuel chain, you're going to have stability problems, and the density of the fuel(at STP) is going to be lower. What that means is that you will have a lower energy density per CC, and your mileage will go down. Your injectors meter fuel by volume, based on a defined pressure. When you lower the density of that volume, you get less per squirt.

I have nothing against Shell. But marketing is marketing, and refining is refining. They can wrap a turd in a brown and white plastic package, but that doesn't make it a Tootsie-roll.

 

I'm with you. Folks gripe about the prices at the pump but have no problem paying $1 for 12oz of di-hydrogenated oxygen at the inside counter. Priorities!

 

Yeah. But, you know the problem with that right? You get dihydrogen MONOXIDE gas out of the tailpipe.

 

Didn't Penn & Teller get a lot of people to sign a petition banning that stuff? I mean, it can be found everywhere now. It's in our water supply even.

 

Wow, tough crowd, but I'd expect nothing less :-)

Here's an article that gives a bit more info, maybe not technical enough for some of you, but it does give you a feel for the money and effort that goes into developing and testing a new additive like this. It also explains "Top Tier" fuel certification and the fact that many major auto makers don't agree with the above comment that the govt minimum standards for additives is adequate. This is the first new product launch since V-power 10 years ago, so it's not like Shell does this frequently.

http://www.shell.us/home/content/usa...en_030209.html

There's no doubt it is a huge marketing blitz aimed at increasing sales, but there's a real product behind the marketing. It looks like the meeting today is more about the marketing campaign than the additive itself.

When gas was $3/gallon, I was paying 2.85 for Shell gas after discount. At the time, none of the "unbranded" gas was cheaper than that. The Shell Visa is a no-brainer.

"all ethanol"? Check the pump. It's up to 10% ethanol. Oxygenates are required by law to reduce emissions, and most companies use ethanol.

The topic of which gas is best is kindof like oil change frequencies, everyone has their own opinion and it's not likely to change. I'm not an engineer, and not speaking for Shell, but I did want to share an insider point of view on this topic.

 

Don, don't let the haters scare you off. Please. Just ignore them. The rest of us would love actual information as much as possible separated from the marketing spin.

From what I've seen, the tech folks spend years and tons of money for a few percent improvement. The marketing and sales folks then make it sound like God - who works for The Company - came down the mountain and presented this paradigm-shifting product for sale and that everyone will live longer, have better sex, and be thin, if only...

I'm not saying they do this at Shell. I'm saying they do this everywhere.

And that's why a lot of folks are at best skeptical.

 

Yeah. Can you believe how far humans have allowed this stuff tospread?

Seriously, it's used as an industrial solvent and some of the folks here advocate allowing it, in gaseous form, to exit from the tailpipe of a car!

The stuff can cause severe burns!

I mean, in some places concentrations are so bad that dihydrogen monoxide will actually precipitate out of the atmosphere and fall to the ground in liquid form every day! <shudder>

 

And it rusts your car!

 

Dihydrogen Monoxide.

Been known to cause major poisoning when consumed in excess.



If and when I get the car shiny, I've been known to dallop in a little to displace dirt/dust from the paint and glass.



Less dense gas is lighter right.
Lighter is better?


Ethanol. Good for the belly. Not for my car.