Gasoline, or a reasonable facsmile there of.

[NoCar340]

A good friend of mine mentally bitch-slapped a know-it-all Prius owner in a gas station while fueling his "dirty" diesel. He schooled her in the reality of the "carbon footprint" in an even, measured tone while she was foaming at the mouth and yelling while he fueled up his diesel truck.

"Did you know that humans, animals and plants are carbon-based life forms? In fact, one of the reasons we may not have found life on other planets is because we limit our view to the idea that life can only exist with carbon."

*more screaming about soot belching from his stacks*

"Do you know why we expect to find life where we find water? Because carbon-based life forms need water. Carbon absorbs and retains water in all its forms. Have you noticed that the state most strict about its 'carbon footprint', California, is also the only state in the union constantly struggling with drought?"

*screaming about carbon dioxide ensues*

"My catalytic converter is right there! [he pointed at a tree]. Plants breathe CO2 and release the oxygen we need to survive. What happens to the carbon? The plant uses it to survive. Have you forgotten 7th grade science class?"

"YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING TO REALIZE THE DAMAGE YOU'RE DOING!"

"No, I'm just not going to let some government agency tell me that everything I learned in 16 years of school is now incorrect so they can control energy prices. Have a nice day." He got back in the truck and we left.

Of course, by the time the conversation was over, I was curled in the fetal position on the front seat of his truck with tears streaming out of my eyes from laughter. She was still standing there doing a slow burn, staring at us until we were out of sight.

 

[Jack Meoff]

I would have loved to have been there for that.
I'd probably have to change though from pissing myself laughing.

 

[NoCar340]

You really had to be there to watch that uptight, pantsuit-wearing holier-than-thou woman get completely schooled by a total redneck with a 3-day beard, flannel shirt, and greasy jeans. Epic is an understatement.

 

[Jack Meoff]

You really had to be there to watch that uptight, pantsuit-wearing holier-than-thou woman get completely schooled by a total redneck with a 3-day beard, flannel shirt, and greasy jeans. Epic is an understatement.

And she's no doubt the biggest plastic buying sprawlmart consumer going.

 

[NoCar340]

Even the founder of The Weather Channel agrees.

 

[Jack Meoff]

I've been calling it a crock for years.
Always good for a chuckle when you have this debate with tree huggers.
Even better when they go.....ba...ba...ba...and have no logical retort to what you've told them....

 

[Jack Meoff]

Lucas Update #1.

I got to do some driving around yesterday after dumping a bottle of the Lucas in my tank...
This morning I fired up the Fifth and I have to say I did notice a difference.
Idle was smoother, top end actually seemed a bit more quiet and smoother.
Overall it just seems a bit happier....and this is just after a small amount of driving.
So far I'm becoming a convert.

 

[NoCar340]

You may (or may not) notice an increase in economy. It stands to reason that if your fuel system is working as-designed it would improve mileage, but I do not, nor have I ever, claimed it would. I would expect if there were an improvement, it would be rather small.

I'm not surprised that you're seeing some improvement already. Most of the customers who got back to me over the years reported an improvement quite literally in minutes of driving, mowing, boating, etc. Keep me posted, and crank up some more Tom Jones. :eusa_dance:

 

[Jack Meoff]

You may (or may not) notice an increase in economy. It stands to reason that if your fuel system is working as-designed it would improve mileage, but I do not, nor have I ever, claimed it would. I would expect if there were an improvement, it would be rather small.

I'm not surprised that you're seeing some improvement already. Most of the customers who got back to me over the years reported an improvement quite literally in minutes of driving, mowing, boating, etc. Keep me posted, and crank up some more Tom Jones. :eusa_dance:

The thing is.....
My lovely bone stock ELB 318 runs like a dream already.
I'm what my buddy refers to as somewhat anal when it comes to doing required maintenance on it....maybe even over the top.
People say I'm nuts but I do oil changed around 3,000 kilometers (not miles)
My answer is....for the $20 it costs me for a jug of oil it's money in the bank as far as I'm concerned.

My gas mileage....although I've never sat down and done the math seems pretty damn good...it costs me about $50 a week of premium and I do a fair bit of stop and go driving daily between driving myself and the missus to work everyday....during trailer season I add another 300 miles (500 kms) a week on top of what I usually do and then I'm roughly $80 a week.
Not bad for a flying brick with a 27 year old 5.2 ...
So even if I didn't see any mileage improvements I wouldn't care.
My concern is to make sure my baby (and babies) are happy.

The fact that it's purring so beautifully is especially nice considering I just bought everything to do a tune up on it.
Can't even imagine how smooth she'll be after that.

Just for reference....NoCar, you were saying once every say 3rd tank.
Correct?....

I'll have to make a new disc for the car with some Tom
Right now all I have in there is Quando Quando Quando by Englebert...

 

[kkritsilas]

Took a look at the pure-gas.org site for Alberta. While they are only calling out certain stations in the Esso, Safeway, and Shell chains, it is a pretty safe bet that all of the stations in those chains are getting their gas at the same place, so they are all carrying ethanol free gas in one or more grades. I get my gas at Co-Op, at which all grades are ethanol free. Strange thing is, Co-Op's gas prices are the same as everybody else's, no premium, and they offer $0.03/litre back as Co-Op grocery rebates, and send back $0.05-0.06/liter back for every litre purchased during the year at the end of the year (it was $0.06 last year), One of the chains here, Husky, freely advertises that it adds ethanol to its fuel. Co-Op does not have its own refinery, so one (or more) of the Edmonton refineries is making ethanol free gasoline. I don't know what else may be in the gas in terms of increased oxygen content and other stuff, but there isn't any ethanol.

Kostas

 

[NoCar340]

Yep, once every 3 tanks seems to be a good number to keep it purring like that. I don't know what it costs in metric dollars, but here it's about $4.50 for the single-shot size and about $11 for the quart bottle. I really consider it more critical on carbureted engines, because they were never designed for crap fuel and the fuel sits still a lot, forming varnish and gum. On a good day, it might see 7PSI at some point, whereas your multi-port engines run around six times higher.

On your "fanatical" oil changes: Oil's cheap. Had a guy come in yesterday morning who's doing synthetic changes every 10K miles. I said, "You are changing the filter and topping the oil every 5,000, right?" He looked at me like I asked him the square root of julienne potato. I asked him if he was intentionally trying to kill his engine, but he could not get it through his head what he was doing was bad. Filters' efficiencies in particulate size actually rise the dirtier they get (the stuck dirt collects more stuck dirt), but so does the restriction. The flow rating crashes like a crackhead after a 3-day binge.

 

[Jack Meoff]

Took a look at the pure-gas.org site for Alberta. While they are only calling out certain stations in the Esso, Safeway, and Shell chains, it is a pretty safe bet that all of the stations in those chains are getting their gas at the same place, so they are all carrying ethanol free gas in one or more grades. I get my gas at Co-Op, at which all grades are ethanol free. Strange thing is, Co-Op's gas prices are the same as everybody else's, no premium, and they offer $0.03/litre back as Co-Op grocery rebates, and send back $0.05-0.06/liter back for every litre purchased during the year at the end of the year (it was $0.06 last year), One of the chains here, Husky, freely advertises that it adds ethanol to its fuel. Co-Op does not have its own refinery, so one (or more) of the Edmonton refineries is making ethanol free gasoline. I don't know what else may be in the gas in terms of increased oxygen content and other stuff, but there isn't any ethanol.

Kostas

Well I'm not sure exactly who's urinating in the delivery trucks on the way to T.O. but every pump here says may contain up to 10% ethanol
And it's a safe bet that they all have at least 5% with the only exception being the Shell 91.

If you look at the puregas line up for Toronto it's the only one they list.

 

[NoCar340]

Took a look at the pure-gas.org site for Alberta. While they are only calling out certain stations in the Esso, Safeway, and Shell chains, it is a pretty safe bet that all of the stations in those chains are getting their gas at the same place, so they are all carrying ethanol free gas in one or more grades.

I wouldn't take that site as gospel. There are several stations in listed as ethanol-free in this area that I know for a fact are not--they've been tested. Even worse, the station listed as "Citgo" on that site one of three in town, all owned by the same guy and serviced from the same depot, so how could only one station be ethanol-free? To complicate the matter, none of those stations are even Citgos anymore nor do they source their fuel from Citgo. The cheap-ass owner (with something like 200 stations) will switch up almost daily to buy fuel from the lowest bidder.

That site is based on user-provided information. The "user" may well be a gas-company executive. The only way to know for sure is to have your fuel tested by an independent lab; many places that service over-the-road trucks have places like that on speed dial (we do). If you take that route, don't be too surprised to find what you believe was ethanol-free gasoline is as much as 10% ethanol.

 

[Jack Meoff]

Yep, once every 3 tanks seems to be a good number to keep it purring like that. I don't know what it costs in metric dollars, but here it's about $4.50 for the single-shot size and about $11 for the quart bottle. I really consider it more critical on carbureted engines, because they were never designed for crap fuel and the fuel sits still a lot, forming varnish and gum. On a good day, it might see 7PSI at some point, whereas your multi-port engines run around six times higher.

On your "fanatical" oil changes: Oil's cheap. Had a guy come in yesterday morning who's doing synthetic changes every 10K miles. I said, "You are changing the filter and topping the oil every 5,000, right?" He looked at me like I asked him the square root of julienne potato. I asked him if he was intentionally trying to kill his engine, but he could not get it through his head what he was doing was bad. Filters' efficiencies in particulate size actually rise the dirtier they get (the stuck dirt collects more stuck dirt), but so does the restriction. The flow rating crashes like a crackhead after a 3-day binge.

The single serving bottle is about $6 in metric money
$14 for the large....so I bought both so now I can just fill up the mini on the third tankful....even the missus noticed the difference today while driving around.

Yep....I'll stick by my over the top oil changes and they all get a fresh Mopar filler everytime. Like I said....cheap insurance in my books.
A buddy of mine always says "you're nuts changing it that often"
Funny....his cars all run like crap.
Mine all purr like kittens....

 

[Jack Meoff]

Lucas Update #2....
Well....I have to say I'm impressed.
The Fifth IS my daily driver so I'm very in tune with the morning start up routine.... She's always a willing participant and faithfully fires on the second rotation of the starter.

I did mention I'm planning on doing a tune up. It's two year tune up time.
So I'm used to her having a little wiggle till she's warmed up.
When it's up to temp it's pretty smooth even with it being two years between plugs, etc....or so I thought.

Okay....it's not earth shattering but I definitely noticed....how should I say....more of a willingness....it fired immediately and seemed much smoother right out of the gate. And initial idle was indeed smoother....I'm using that word a lot but it's descriptively correct.

The other thing was....I have a lifter that ticks once in a while on startup.
This morning.....nada. Definitely intrigued and looking forward to running the whole tank through just to see if there's anymore slight improvements.

Hell....almost feels like she doesn't even need a damn tune up.
But being the way I am....she'll get one anyway.
Gotta wonder how it'll run after that........

My thanks for talking me into trying this NoCar.
Never been a believer in what is normally snake oil.
But this stuff seems to make for a happy Teener.......

 

[NoCar340]

I'll add you to the long list of believers I've created. :icon_biggrin:

 

[Jack Meoff]

Fascinating......
Originally I figured I'm running the best gas I can get, regular..actually more than regular oil changes.....what else do I really need to do.
Then this thread got me thinking about supplements for the sheer reason that our gas is now crap. I'm guessing that the gas of yesterday had more of the stuff that this stuff is pseudo replacing??
Would that be a fair dart board assumption?

 

[NoCar340]

Yes, it would. And as I mentioned in the other thread, if you're not lucky enough to have ethanol-free gas readily available (it's hard to find in the US) the Sta-Bil Marine or Sta-Bil Ethanol treatments are a huge boon, too.

 

[Jack Meoff]

I remember indeed and have passed the info on already to various deer in the headlight stares and styrofoam brains.
I tried though.....
I thankfully can still get ethanol free so I don't need the sta-bil.
But I can try to share the wealth with the people who willingly put the 87 octane garbage we get here in their tank.