Directory:Acetone:Thayer

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Test Subject

• 1996 BMW 328i (Automatic)
• 135000 Miles

Background Information

I attend college at California University of Pennsylvania. Even though it is a state school, it means that I am tight for money at all times. Between books and beer, my whole stack of cash disappears quick! Also, I work as a full time accountant with a company in Reston, Virginia. Every Monday morning, I drive from Pennsylvania to Virginia and on Friday evening I make the return trip from Virginia to Pennsylvania. The mileage is approxamately 230 miles each way. With local travel, both in Pennyslvania and Virginia, I average between 600 - 700 miles per week. Since I drive a BMW (which I absolutely love), I only use 93 (or better) octane fuels. (For those who don't know, acetone is 150 octane.) I want to experiment with acetone to see if I can actually see mileage benefits. Right now, I get 22-24 mpg, but have heard in isolated incidents that a finely tuned BMW with acetone will yeild 30+ mpg. Since there is no actual evidence of this, I am going to be as fair as possible with the results. I'm going to keep my driving style as consistent as possible.

I am quite skeptical of other results that I have seen here. There's one thing that I have noticed that others may have overlooked. People, when measuring acetone, do not consider the quantity of gas in the tank before they start, and also, it seems as if they do not factor in the solution of acetone gasoline versus the new concentration. Scenario, 10 gallons of gas in a 15 gallon tank. We figure on adding 3 oz of acetone per 10 gallons. If the gas in the tank before adding fresh fuel is 3 oz / 10 gallons, the mixture will actually be 3 oz / 10 gallons. If the old 5 gallons is pure gasoline, the new mixture will be effectively 2 oz / 10 gallons. Thus, without factoring in the previous solution, there is no basis to actually find the sweet spot! To overcome this, I am going to create an excel spreadsheet that factors in the previous solution to the current solution, thus creating a acetone percentage of the current solution. This will allow to vary the amount of acetone to find the sweet spot of acetone to gasoline.

Individual Reports

Covers 943.8 Miles

Comments

I would love to hear what you think about my research and documentation of the use of acetone as gasoline additive. Please feel free to post your comments below. I love to hear both negative and positive comments, so please, do not hold back. Also, please let me know if I am leaving something out (e.g. test data or variables).

Be Sure To ...

I'm very glad to see someone taking so much care to produce a more scientific approach to this matter. Way to go. I'll be watching with interest. Try and use the same gas station when you fill up. Keep record of the temperature. You can get a cheap car thermometer (gives outside temp reading) from an auto parts store. I attached my to the hinge of the driver's door. Also keep track of abberations in driving habbits, such as heavy traffic, stopping for accidents, etc. Get a good set of "before" data before you start adding acetone. Top off when you depart, and top off when you arrive, so that the in-between city driving, errand-running does not factor in as much. The fewer variables you have, the more scientific your results will be. Good luck!

Reply ...

First of all, thank you for taking the time to comment. Unfortunately, I cannot use the same gas station every time that I fill up. That is just simply impossible with the distances I drive. I however have been noting where I do purchase gas from so that once enough data is compiled I will be able to assess the different stations. As for temperature, I completely overlooked it! My car has a built in thermometer, so I will start using that during the next fill. As for topping off, most of my trips are long so I am already into this habit. If you are interested in the source data that I am putting together, just shoot me an email. Thank again!

Contact

• E-Mail: jthayer@fgm.com