Hey guys, Ive always used oil and fuel additives (stp, gumout, lucas, ect..) I was curious if anyone knew of testing or had evidence of any being better, especially on a gm or chevy engine. One I will never budge on is Lucas Transmission Fluid. That stuff is a god-send. But as far as everything else goes, because when you go into a Pep Boys or Local Auto parts store you have a million choices, Curious what you guys go with.

Thanks

 

whenever i go into pep boys i go right for valvoline max life..only use that oil if your car has over 75,000 miles tho

 

none/none here...

The only thing I've ever put in my oil is GM EOS in my monte because my rocker manufacturer reccomended some sort of zinc additive during initial startup. So I soaked the rockers in it, and put some in the oil, but I've since stopped using it.

I guess I've just never really been big on dumping all kinds of extra add on stuff into my cars.

 

I got a tank of bad gas recently, and theorized that it could be water. So, I added an alcohol based fuel additive (seafoam), and kept topping the tank up with the gas I normally use. Seemed to cure the problem right up.

Whether or not the problem was water in the gas, or whether or not the seafoam actually helped is debatable, but it did seem to cure the problem quickly (it was stuttering and stalling on idle a little bit).

I never went back to that gas station (it was a major oil company's station) again, and never had the problem again.

-Riggs.


edited to fix typo.....

 

I run some stp cleaner through once in a while and it helps. Never really noticed octane booster helping.

 

Speaking of additives, has anyone ever used any coolant additives such as Redline Water Wetter, or Royal Purple Purple Ice?

I was curious about the effectiveness of either of those, and of the cheaper versions (I forget who makes them though). The Purple Ice is pricey (like 16 bucks a bottle), so I wasn't sure if it would actually be worth it when the cheaper ones are about half that price. I can not remember what the price of the Water Wetter is, but I imagine it is close to the price of Purple Ice.

-Riggs.

 

since it was mentioned i thought i would throw in my 2 cents. OCTANE BOOSTERS ARE A SHAM!!! they don't work at all and they don't raise your octane. the only way to increase the octane in fuel is in the refining process. i don't know how companies can sell them but they still do. so a word of advice to all, don't waste your money, just buy higher octane fuel at the pump.

however, i have seen additives like stp cleaner do a good job in a gummed up system or if you put it in lawn mowers etc that have been sitting a long time with old gas in them.

 

Most of the octane boosters use MMT (a manganese containing hydrocarbon....I forget what the actual name is), and if you read the back of any of those containers, they will tell you how much they can raise the octane rating.

I remember reading one, and it said that one bottle would raise the octane level five points for 15 gallons of gasoline.
I thought that was pretty good, until I read the fine print and it said that 5 points of octane rating is read as 0.5 in the octane number. That means it would make 15 gallons of 87 octane into 87.5 octane. Not so impressive.

I read up on them a little bit, and the other thing about the octane boosters is that they effectiveness of them is less when the octane rating of the gasoline goes up. That means that if it raises 87 octane by 0.5 points, it may only raise 93 octane by 0.4 points (that isn't the real ratio, I don't know how the octane effectiveness actually varies).

I am a little curious about using various other fuels to raise the octane rating in my tank (i.e. using a certain ratio of E85 mixed with 93 or adding toluene or xylenes to 93 octane or mixing in a little bit of street legal race gas).
Not something I'll likely ever do, but I'd still like to know.

-Riggs.

 

well said riggs. i know lots of ppl who buy this crap and they just dont believe me when i tell them this stuff is crap.

when i was in college, some guys in the automotive engineering program did research on E20 by mixing a certain amount of E85 and 87 octane to get E20. it was used in astock 2001 malibu. they ended up putting about 30,000 miles on it and then inspected everything afterwards and found virtually nothing wrong with the fuel lines, injectors, etc. these findingsled to legislationthat will now mandate E20 in all gas in MN. i think this will start in a year or two (can't remember exactly when but it's not too far away).

 

I would imagine that most cars from the last ten years are fairly compatible with a fairly high level of ethanol internally. Hell, most pump gas that I see around here contains at least 10% ethanol.
The real downside isn't so much the seals drying out or being dissolved by the alcohol so much as the fuel system can't keep up with the fueling demands since ethanol has a much lower energy density than gasoline.

I'm pretty sure that in the wintertime here in PA, they use a bit of a higher percentage of ethanol than 10% (to increase volatility I believe). That would partially explain why gas mileage drops in the very cold months.....
I'd have to do more research on that to be sure though....

On a different note, I did find one gas station that carries E85 here in philly . It was at $1.75/gallon when I passed it today. In comparison, 87 was $1.95, and 93 was $2.25. Made me wonder if I should consider an E85 conversion, or at least calculate whether or not the 50 cent/gallon difference would make it worthwhile.
-Riggs.