Acetone 150 octane??
12-04-2010 | 09:28 AM
#31
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From: Marietta, NY
Just for argument's sake...let's just say we replaced hoses and stuff, would it be possible to refit the fuel system to handle 100% acetone without disintegrating? And if that refit included sufficiently large fuel injectors and the correct fuel mapping, would acetone really burn at 150 octane? Could we run eleventybillion pounds of boost without lead, on fuel you can buy at any paint or hardware store?
You might as well set up your engine to run nitromethane, at least there is a lot of info out there about its use.
12-04-2010 | 02:27 PM
#32
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Todd;
sorry to say, you haven't found the fountain of boost here; you're wasting your time.
I too, years ago, have done research on USER FRIENDLY boosting of octane so that I can take the knock limitations of the fuel out of the equation.
What you have presented here is based on alot of exageration, conjecture, and mis-information that's floating around.
I can tell you with certainty that here's no such thing as 1 oz of something can increase the octane of any significance for a gallon of gas.
Technically, the rate of evaporation of a liquid is not really important. How much temp decrease (density increase) one achieves when the liquid evaporates is the issue. (you might have thought they were one in the same)
When air cools it doesn't condense (water vapor in the air, condenses).
That being said, dramatic words of "incredibly high" and " extreme cooling" are hardly the case. At 5 to 10 % ethanol, the gain of the additional temp drop is about 3 or 4 degrees better than straight gasoline, if it all evaporates before the intake valve closes. (E85 is a different story)
There is no leaning of the air/fuel mixture using a little ethanol or acetone. Modern engine management systems compensate easily.
Stop wasting your time (like I did) and install your WI system already.
sorry to say, you haven't found the fountain of boost here; you're wasting your time.
I too, years ago, have done research on USER FRIENDLY boosting of octane so that I can take the knock limitations of the fuel out of the equation.
What you have presented here is based on alot of exageration, conjecture, and mis-information that's floating around.
I can tell you with certainty that here's no such thing as 1 oz of something can increase the octane of any significance for a gallon of gas.
Technically, the rate of evaporation of a liquid is not really important. How much temp decrease (density increase) one achieves when the liquid evaporates is the issue. (you might have thought they were one in the same)
When air cools it doesn't condense (water vapor in the air, condenses).
That being said, dramatic words of "incredibly high" and " extreme cooling" are hardly the case. At 5 to 10 % ethanol, the gain of the additional temp drop is about 3 or 4 degrees better than straight gasoline, if it all evaporates before the intake valve closes. (E85 is a different story)
There is no leaning of the air/fuel mixture using a little ethanol or acetone. Modern engine management systems compensate easily.
Stop wasting your time (like I did) and install your WI system already.
12-04-2010 | 08:24 PM
#33
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From: Marietta, NY
This guy did:
Point 1
NOTE: See Addendum, below, for corrections to this article.--Behindbarsbimbo 09:21, 22 February 2010 (PST)
Both acetone and ethanol molecules contain one atom of Oxygen and 6 atoms of Hydrogen. They are both considered as "Oxygenated" fuels, because of the Oxygen atom in both.
Ethanol is mandated by the Federal Government to be used as an additive to gasoline, to lower emissions. The decision as to this being done, and at what percentages of ethanol to add is left to individual states.
It is a fact that ethanol does in fact lower emissions. The explanation for this effect being the Oxygen atom in the molecule.
Point 2
Both Acetone and Ethanol have incredibly high EVAPORATION rates. Gasoline has a low evaporation rate in comparison.
All liquids evaporate, at different rates. Even water evaporates.
When a liquid evaporates, it COOLS the air it is in contact with. This is why when on a hot summer day, if you get close to a stream or river, you will feel the air temperature drop, near it.
When air is cooled, it CONDENSES.
Point 3
Via the EXTREME cooling of the air going into the intake of an engine, by both Acetone and Ethanol, MUCH more air in pounds is taken into the cylinders. Condensation of air means more is compressed into each stroke of intake.
This results in a LEANER mixture of fuel:air in the combustion.
This leaner, highly Oxygenated mixture is what actually causes a drop in emission Hydrocarbons and CO.
Documentation: 3 emissions tests on Honda Accord - note approximate 4000% increase in O2 content when Acetone was added. As well, that first two tests failed but last one,
with acetone, passed.[1]
Point 4
Simply adding either Acetone or Ethanol results, via the leaning effect, in worse and worse MPG, the more you use.
The idea that simply using ethanol is good for the environment, and creates less emissions is INCORRECT. The common and strongest ethanol fuel on the market is known as "E85". It is 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol. Yes, it reduces emissions, via the leaning effect, BUT GIVES *20% LESS MPG than gasoline, thus giving an overall reduction in emissions PER MILE which is near null.
Point 5
Acetone has a much greater condensation of air effect than Ethanol, thus MPG drops MUCH faster as percentage added is increased.
The negative effect on MPG of both Acetone and Ethanol, can be REVERSED, to cause an INCREASE in MPG over gasoline, with acetone being needed in much smaller amounts than ethanol and at much less cost.
Point 6
"The Secret"
Test results from January to June, 2008:
Test car: 1985 Ford T-Bird 5.0L V8 EPA rating 15 MPG city and 22 MPG highway.
Emissions test using pure 87 octane gas resulted in Hydrocarbons of 190ppm at idle. Fail is 220. O2 was 1.5%. This was suggestive of a small exhaust leak, which the O2 sensor read and richened fuel:air mixture a little too much.
Emissions test using 1 oz. Acetone to 1 gal. gasoline resulted in Hydrocarbons dropping to 111ppm at idle. O2 at 1.5%.
Highway test with this mixture resulted in 23.5 MPG. According to data on the internet, at this very high amount of acetone, MPG should have dropped far below factory. That it actually got slightly better than factory gave away the secret. The slight exhaust leak had richened the mixture of fuel:air and caused a SLIGHT utilization of the acetone.
I saw that the O2 sensor played a part in my results. What I did next was create an INTENTIONAL slight exhaust leak, in front of the sensor to increase O2 in exhaust, to cause computer to richen even more. [leak causes sucking in of fresh air].
Emissions test resulted in increase of Hydrocarbons from the previous 111ppm to 144ppm at idle. O2 went from 1.5% up to 5.2%
Noticeable increase in HP of at least 25%.
Multiple hwy. tests revealed 45mpg.
This is slightly more than a 100% increase over factory.
Tested at .7 oz. per gal. went down to 41 MPG.
Tested at 2 oz. per gal. went down to 30 MPG.
By process of elimination, the best acetone mix for my current fuel:air richness is around 1 oz. per gal.
The secret, known to racing technology, banned and forgotten a half a century ago, is that such fuels as acetone REQUIRE richening of the fuel:air mixture to make use of them. It is said that in those early days of racing, some used as much as 10% acetone additive. I am using less than 1%. Specifically 1:128.
With my emissions at slightly cleaner than gasoline, but my MPG at double what it was, a REAL REDUCTION IN EMISSIONS has been achieved. Fully 50% reduction.
Point 1
NOTE: See Addendum, below, for corrections to this article.--Behindbarsbimbo 09:21, 22 February 2010 (PST)
Both acetone and ethanol molecules contain one atom of Oxygen and 6 atoms of Hydrogen. They are both considered as "Oxygenated" fuels, because of the Oxygen atom in both.
Ethanol is mandated by the Federal Government to be used as an additive to gasoline, to lower emissions. The decision as to this being done, and at what percentages of ethanol to add is left to individual states.
It is a fact that ethanol does in fact lower emissions. The explanation for this effect being the Oxygen atom in the molecule.
Point 2
Both Acetone and Ethanol have incredibly high EVAPORATION rates. Gasoline has a low evaporation rate in comparison.
All liquids evaporate, at different rates. Even water evaporates.
When a liquid evaporates, it COOLS the air it is in contact with. This is why when on a hot summer day, if you get close to a stream or river, you will feel the air temperature drop, near it.
When air is cooled, it CONDENSES.
Point 3
Via the EXTREME cooling of the air going into the intake of an engine, by both Acetone and Ethanol, MUCH more air in pounds is taken into the cylinders. Condensation of air means more is compressed into each stroke of intake.
This results in a LEANER mixture of fuel:air in the combustion.
This leaner, highly Oxygenated mixture is what actually causes a drop in emission Hydrocarbons and CO.
Documentation: 3 emissions tests on Honda Accord - note approximate 4000% increase in O2 content when Acetone was added. As well, that first two tests failed but last one,
with acetone, passed.[1]
Point 4
Simply adding either Acetone or Ethanol results, via the leaning effect, in worse and worse MPG, the more you use.
The idea that simply using ethanol is good for the environment, and creates less emissions is INCORRECT. The common and strongest ethanol fuel on the market is known as "E85". It is 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol. Yes, it reduces emissions, via the leaning effect, BUT GIVES *20% LESS MPG than gasoline, thus giving an overall reduction in emissions PER MILE which is near null.
Point 5
Acetone has a much greater condensation of air effect than Ethanol, thus MPG drops MUCH faster as percentage added is increased.
The negative effect on MPG of both Acetone and Ethanol, can be REVERSED, to cause an INCREASE in MPG over gasoline, with acetone being needed in much smaller amounts than ethanol and at much less cost.
Point 6
"The Secret"
Test results from January to June, 2008:
Test car: 1985 Ford T-Bird 5.0L V8 EPA rating 15 MPG city and 22 MPG highway.
Emissions test using pure 87 octane gas resulted in Hydrocarbons of 190ppm at idle. Fail is 220. O2 was 1.5%. This was suggestive of a small exhaust leak, which the O2 sensor read and richened fuel:air mixture a little too much.
Emissions test using 1 oz. Acetone to 1 gal. gasoline resulted in Hydrocarbons dropping to 111ppm at idle. O2 at 1.5%.
Highway test with this mixture resulted in 23.5 MPG. According to data on the internet, at this very high amount of acetone, MPG should have dropped far below factory. That it actually got slightly better than factory gave away the secret. The slight exhaust leak had richened the mixture of fuel:air and caused a SLIGHT utilization of the acetone.
I saw that the O2 sensor played a part in my results. What I did next was create an INTENTIONAL slight exhaust leak, in front of the sensor to increase O2 in exhaust, to cause computer to richen even more. [leak causes sucking in of fresh air].
Emissions test resulted in increase of Hydrocarbons from the previous 111ppm to 144ppm at idle. O2 went from 1.5% up to 5.2%
Noticeable increase in HP of at least 25%.
Multiple hwy. tests revealed 45mpg.
This is slightly more than a 100% increase over factory.
Tested at .7 oz. per gal. went down to 41 MPG.
Tested at 2 oz. per gal. went down to 30 MPG.
By process of elimination, the best acetone mix for my current fuel:air richness is around 1 oz. per gal.
The secret, known to racing technology, banned and forgotten a half a century ago, is that such fuels as acetone REQUIRE richening of the fuel:air mixture to make use of them. It is said that in those early days of racing, some used as much as 10% acetone additive. I am using less than 1%. Specifically 1:128.
With my emissions at slightly cleaner than gasoline, but my MPG at double what it was, a REAL REDUCTION IN EMISSIONS has been achieved. Fully 50% reduction.
I haven’t read such a bunch of nonscientific crapola in a while. In a way it actually passes for humor!
Point 1 – he quotes an article from ‘behindbarsbimbo’….I wonder if that was the MIT or Harvard version?
Point 2 – (paraphrase) – when things get cold they condense. Probably not the best term to use. And yes, as it cools air does become denser. Liquids, on the other hand, do not change in volume much compared to gasses. (I think I know where he is going with this….but I don’t think he knows where he is going!)
Point 3 – EXTERME cooling….In reality if you are cooling the intake charge you are reducing the pressure. The same amount (mass) of air is going into the cylinder unless you change something else in the system (like boost pressure). If you cool the air before it enters the system then you can get more mass per charge.
Then he goes off on emissions – you can’t lump all emissions in together – HC and CO goes up as the mixture gets richer NOx goes up as the mixture gets leaner.
Point 4 – leaning out mixture when ethanol/acetone is added. I guess the rocket scientist does not know that the stoichiometric mixture for ethanol is a lot different than gasoline. (14.7 for gas, 6.5 for methanol). If you do not change the air fuel ratio when adding methanol to the fuel you will run leaner – its not due to ‘condensing’ anything. Then he figures that the reduction in MPG is due to a lean condition caused by all that extra Oxygen….I guess he does not have any idea that there is less energy in Ethanol….
Point 5 – “much greater condensation of air effect”….need I say more?
Point 6 (the “Secret”) –
Let see –
Hydrocarbons dropped (that’s because you were getting leaner by introducing another substance that has a different AFR for stoichiometric mixture. In fact if you could add water and get it to remain in solution you would run leaner also.
Then he creates an exhaust leak….I wonder if he considers that the exhaust is at a greater pressure and leaks out the hole as opposed to the air leaking in….and then he gets a “greater than 25% increase in horsepower”….Ok, sure, when was the last time he had his butt dyno calibrated?
I guess that all the high dollar racing folks ‘just forgot’ all this stuff from 50 years ago. There is no secret, different fuels require different mixtures. Top Fuel runs over 90% Methanol and has to tune to a 6.5:1 AFR. Lots of sprint cars run alcohol based fuels (between 7:1 and 9:1 AFR depending on mix).
Some folks should leave science to scientists….
12-04-2010 | 08:54 PM
#34
Bannana Shine
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You would have to change the turbo, engine management, compression ratio, injectors, fuel lines, fuel pump and most likely fuel tank….but other than that you can do it.
You might as well set up your engine to run nitromethane, at least there is a lot of info out there about its use.
You might as well set up your engine to run nitromethane, at least there is a lot of info out there about its use.
One thing though, why would you need to change the compression ratio?
12-05-2010 | 02:31 PM
#35
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As you might have guessed I prefer to optimize the whole system instead of looking for changes to one part of the system that then require the rest of the system to run in a suboptimal manner. Most of the engines / engine management work I do is designed around making the most out of street gas. If you want to throw in fuel additives to run more boost then you need to change things to support that.
In reality this stuff has been researched to the maximum back in the F1 turbo era – they used some pretty strange fuels to get the most out of the engines. In fact they had cockpit adjustable fuel temperatures! Colder for more power and warmer for better mileage (they did not allow for refueling back then – the driver had to modulate the power output so that he had enough fuel to finish). The main component of their fuels was Toluene – I can bet that if Acetone was better they would have used that. Toluene is as easy to get as Acetone.
A little Toluene is a good knock deterrent. I still prefer to design an engine system that runs correctly on the base fuel.
12-05-2010 | 03:48 PM
#36
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I WAS toying with the idea of an all-xylene fueled engine, as I was reading that it can be had for $7-ish per gallon, in large quantities (toluene I believe was looking to be more expensive).
12-06-2010 | 09:27 AM
#37
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Maybe I am just a little too realistic when it comes to fuel – in the long run it really is a major pain to use a nonstandard fuel – even in a track only car. On a good day at the track I can use 20 gallons of gasoline – you would almost double that for an ethanol based engine. If an all Xylene or Toluene engine ran the same AFR as Ethanol I would have to bring almost a 55 gallon drum per day for track use!
Xylene and Toluene are right around the same price as race gas so I don’t see the real world benefit to using them, I am getting 600hp out of a race gas 944 engine so I don’ t think I am being limited by fuel quality!
I can understand the desire to pour in a little additive to increase the knock resistance of street gas and to some extent it makes sense, but once you get to the point of changing the design of the engine to support a different fuel you are making life difficult for yourself.
The only thing that I see that makes sense is making a system that is optimized for E85 if it is available. E85 is a real bargain for a performance fuel (unfortunately it is not easily available in my area!)
Xylene and Toluene are right around the same price as race gas so I don’t see the real world benefit to using them, I am getting 600hp out of a race gas 944 engine so I don’ t think I am being limited by fuel quality!
I can understand the desire to pour in a little additive to increase the knock resistance of street gas and to some extent it makes sense, but once you get to the point of changing the design of the engine to support a different fuel you are making life difficult for yourself.
The only thing that I see that makes sense is making a system that is optimized for E85 if it is available. E85 is a real bargain for a performance fuel (unfortunately it is not easily available in my area!)
12-06-2010 | 10:19 AM
#38
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Just for argument's sake...let's just say we replaced hoses and stuff, would it be possible to refit the fuel system to handle 100% acetone without disintegrating? And if that refit included sufficiently large fuel injectors and the correct fuel mapping, would acetone really burn at 150 octane? Could we run eleventybillion pounds of boost without lead, on fuel you can buy at any paint or hardware store?
I have even read of individuals doing tests with said chemicals in a bucket with fuel lines, seals, etc. (100% mix) and the parts were fine even after a long time of direct exposure.
12-06-2010 | 10:22 AM
#39
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12-07-2010 | 02:50 PM
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12-07-2010 | 03:25 PM
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12-07-2010 | 04:47 PM
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Well, my ultimate goal was my other thread of finding a poor man's octane. Obviously e85 and water/meth inj solve that but I was just trying to find something out of the box that might have been over looked or thought as snake oil and no one tried it.
I did some more runs and the readings were varied. Some runs only a couple of knock counts and then some I would get 5-7 like when not running acetone. So no real data other than before acetone I always got higher counts and with acetone mixed I get about 3/4 of the runs being much less knock. So I guess some results is better than no results. Lol
I did some more runs and the readings were varied. Some runs only a couple of knock counts and then some I would get 5-7 like when not running acetone. So no real data other than before acetone I always got higher counts and with acetone mixed I get about 3/4 of the runs being much less knock. So I guess some results is better than no results. Lol
12-07-2010 | 07:01 PM
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12-07-2010 | 11:40 PM
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Aha, more power to the turbocharger's turbine, nice. 
Lowering the knock sensitivity is just as good as increasing the octane number. So if you expand your definition of “snake oil” to be non-liquid, then maybe retarding the timing could be just that and if you honestly add up the cost of the additives, the liquid "solution" may not be so cheap after all.
In which way(s)?
In which way(s)?
12-08-2010 | 12:57 AM
#45
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Of course, this also leads to more heat bleeding into the compressed intake air, with all the attendant problems.
It usually reduces power. I'm not sure what the relationship is between how much power you gain from increased boost under what conditions, compared to how much power you lose to retarded timing...I'm sure at some point, it either becomes a diminishing returns situation, or you may actually begin losing net power.
Originally Posted by Laust Pedersen
In which way(s)?