Add a little Diesel

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Most areas in the US diesel costs more than Gas, Typically on a trip thru Mississippi a couple of days ago, Gas was $3.65 for regular and Diesel was $3.95. There is no good reason for diesel to be more expensive (except supply and demand--maybe sulfur. it is a lower fraction on the distillation scale. Diesel does have more energy per gallon (147,000 BTU) than gasoline (125,000 BTU).

I am looking for a "new" large SUV--but there is really nothing in diesel available, unfortunately, which is suitable.
 
thataway":2x9smsrw said:
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I am looking for a "new" large SUV--but there is really nothing in diesel available, unfortunately, which is suitable.
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While not an SUV my buddy's new Chevy Silverado 2500 Duramax sure rides and drives like an SUV. It's a very nice vehicle all around.
 
Yep, my 1954 chevy bellair ran fine on a farmers diesel when I was out of gas in the middle of no where. I didn't realize I'd put diesel in because...well, lets just say it was dark and the lights were out in the farm house, and one fuel supply tank in a dark barnyard looks just like any other. I'm guessing there was enough gas in the tank to dilute the diesl a bit, but other than putting out a lot of smoke, it got me 50 miles home.
 
I have no personal opinion on this issue. (Yet). Here's a quote from Roger's article referenced above:

"Some old-timers and shade-tree mechanics will add small amounts of diesel fuel to the gasoline in their cars in the belief that it will lubricate the valves, in the same way that people will add such items as "Marvel Mystery Oil" and automatic transmission fluid to their gas tank. I can find no reputable studies that show any merit to adding diesel fuel to gasoline. While small amounts of these items aren't likely to kill the engine or cause permanent damage, their use is not recommended. Some of these same old-timers advocate adding small amounts of gasoline to diesel engines to "burn out" carbon deposits and "clean the injectors and valves." This is not recommended by any diesel engine manufacturer I know of, and due to gasoline's resistance to burning from compression ignition, it's possible it might make matters worse by lowering combustion temperatures. In any event, I found no support in any of my combustion and automobile resources for the idea that gasoline and its additives would "clean" diesel injectors or valves better than the additives already in the diesel fuel.

In short, don't put the wrong fuel in your vehicle. If a significant amount of the wrong fuel does wind up in your tank, have the vehicle towed to a repair shop lest you ruin the fuel pump or get stranded by the roadside. If you want to use inexpensive diesel fuel, the solution is simple. Buy a diesel car."

This was written in 2004 as someone else said. Then, I think, diesel was less expensive (not low sulfur). I'm not calling anyone a "shade tree mechanic" either, the author of the above statement was so don't get ticked at me.

As Dr. Bob says, give us a study that supports it scientifically. Ron, your comment that " After, over 25 years of positive results, I recently had two occasions where I could monitor and measure a noticeable positive change." doesn't cut it for this engineer. I'm sure you believe your "positive results" and your two occasions where you could "measure a noticeable positive change" but those two occasions does not a study make. Just like studying 4 folks for a short period of time (or even a long period of time) doesn't prove that something is good (or bad) for you to eat, smoke or drink. I think the jury is out on this issue and they're not likely to come back for awhile.

Maybe someone will study it in depth now that gasoline prices are going up again but even if it helps engines run a little quieter or longer or slightly more efficiently, they'll have to prove that it's less expensive than running straight gasoline (even with that #@$%&# ethanol), not mixing it with more expensive diesel. And I guess now that I've written this, I do have an opinion... :|

Anyway, it's an interesting topic, thanks for bringing it up!! :thup

Charlie
 
thataway":3hznr0jy said:
I am looking for a "new" large SUV--but there is really nothing in diesel available, unfortunately, which is suitable.
Click to expand...

All the German automakers sell diesel SUV's in the US now, but they don't come cheap. The Mercedes ML and GL both are offered with diesel engines and are rated to tow 7,200 and 7,500 pounds, respectively. The BMW X5 with a diesel can tow 6500 pounds, the Audi Q7 TDI can tow 6600 pounds, and the VW Touareg TDI can tow 7,700 pounds. The VW is the cheapest at almost $47,000, so you'd probably never save enough fuel to make one of these worth buying over a similarly sized non-luxury SUV.
 
It has been interesting to see the many assumption/s (yes, no studies or engineering data) about adding diesel to the gas tank.

This is something we have done for over 25 years with absolutely none of the failure/s or damage/s that were assumed or predicted on this thread.

We do have all our vehicles regularly and professionally maintained with oil and filter changes scheduled at every 3000 miles (which I would guess will start another debate).

The local service center manager has always commented about the miles we are able to squeeze from our vehicles (which proves nothing).

I’m sure there are many factors involved, driving style, road conditions, weight etc.

All I was showing, was that I had two loosely controlled situations that surprisingly showed a milage increase (there had been a previous thread about gas milage).

I did not set out to “sell anyone anything” or “want to purchase land in Florida”.

No, my degree’s are not in Engineering, but as a entrepreneur, since 1973, with several patents, have always questioned how thing are assumed to be and the status quo.

In closing , you all should know that I have received several private messages from other C-Brats, saying that they too add diesel fuel to their gas tanks (for upper end lube), but were afraid to comment because they did not want to be jumped on.

No one has to do anything, but I’ll bet some will also experiment with this and hopefully report back.

Regards,

Ron Fisher
 
we've been adding diesel to our car's fuel tank ever since it was new. The car, with diesel added to the tank, gets about 43 mpg, if we don't add diesel it doesn't run fer squat. Being a VW TDI may squew the results though :)

Ron's just passing on something that's been working for him, thanks
 
I was talking to my 80 year old uncle last night, he has been a farmer his whole life. I mentioned this thread to him and he just chuckled and said he found it funny that he has been doing this in all his gas rigs for over 50 years. Cars, trucks, combines, swathers, pumps, everything that runs on gas. He said he doesn't add diesel every fill up but when he thinks about it and for sure before anything sits for the winter.
He was told about this by a mechanic when he asked him about gas additives in the 60's.
He has never had engine problems due to fuel even in his newer cars, and never had a catalytic converter fail.
I've got the perfect candidate to try this on. My 1986 Suzuki Samaria.
It's old, tired and sits a lot in the winter and I've beat the hell out of it for many years. It might as well try a little diesel in it's diet.
 
Connie Fisher":y7nsbiqn said:
It has been interesting to see the many assumption/s (yes, no studies or engineering data) about adding diesel to the gas tank.

This is something we have done for over 25 years with absolutely none of the failure/s or damage/s that were assumed or predicted on this thread.

We do have all our vehicles regularly and professionally maintained with oil and filter changes scheduled at every 3000 miles (which I would guess will start another debate).

The local service center manager has always commented about the miles we are able to squeeze from our vehicles (which proves nothing).

I’m sure there are many factors involved, driving style, road conditions, weight etc.

All I was showing, was that I had two loosely controlled situations that surprisingly showed a milage increase (there had been a previous thread about gas milage).

I did not set out to “sell anyone anything” or “want to purchase land in Florida”.

No, my degree’s are not in Engineering, but as a entrepreneur, since 1973, with several patents, have always questioned how thing are assumed to be and the status quo.

In closing , you all should know that I have received several private messages from other C-Brats, saying that they too add diesel fuel to their gas tanks (for upper end lube), but were afraid to comment because they did not want to be jumped on.

No one has to do anything, but I’ll bet some will also experiment with this and hopefully report back.

Regards,

Ron Fisher
Click to expand...

Not trying to "jump on" anyone. I can find TONS of anecdotal experiences with adding diesel to gasoline for use in gasoline engines on the net. I can find a great number of experiences that people have had that appear to demonstrate no harmful effects to doing so when the diesel is a small percentage of the total fuel mix. I can also find many examples where adding too much diesel to a gas fueled engine caused problems (usually accidentally filling a tank with a large percentage of diesel).

I can't find a single well controlled experiment that shows any benefit to using a small percentage of diesel in a gas engine. I can come up with theoretical ideas why doing so MIGHT be good - perhaps better lubrication, perhaps increase fuel mileage due to the increased energy density in diesel. I can also come up theoretical ideas why doing so MIGHT be bad - perhaps increased carbon in the engine due to poor burning of diesel, potential for knock problems due to lower flash point of diesel, perhaps dilution of oil by diesel.

So if some are going to experiment, that's fine. I won't do it to my gas burning vehicles since there's no clear evidence of value, there's some undefined risk to doing so, and the vehicle is still under warranty. But I can state the type of experiments that might convince me that this is a good idea:

1) Someone runs many tanks of regular gas under reasonably controlled conditions to get a good measurement of gas mileage. One also measures the proportion of unburnt fuel in the exhaust gas at an emissions location.
2) The same experiments are repeated with diesel added at a defined and fixed ratio. It would be best if this is done using the same brand and grade of gasoline and done close in time to the original experiment. Calculate the gas mileage and again measure the exhaust.
3) Prior to (1) and (2) above, the oil is changed and after each experiment the oil is analyzed to determine if there is contamination by the fuel and the extent to which this is the case.
4) All of the above is repeated 3 times in total in more than one type vehicle.
5) All of the above is done over 20-30k miles and perhaps 100k miles to determine the long-term effects.
6) Wear is assessed on the vehicles' engines to determine if there is any detrimental/beneficial effect of using a fixed percentage of diesel.

To do this right (IMHO) would require a lot of testing (and probably a lot of $'s to get matched vehicles and fuels etc). If one doesn't do an experiment like I've described above but rather runs a couple of tanks and determines that there are no ill effects and the gas mileage is 2% better, there are multiple possible explanations for the result:
inaccurate measurement of gas mileage due to variation in the fill up amounts
Changes in the fuel used between fill-ups due to things out of our control (new batch of fuel at the pumps, summer addition of ethanol
No detrimental effect observed over the short run but one can't detect an average 10% increase OR decrease in vehicle lifespan with just a few tanks.
etc., etc., etc.

I'm not trying to be critical of your beliefs or practices. I'm merely stating what kind of evidence I would require to adopt the same procedure. It's entirely possible that adding a small amount of diesel to gasoline produces a net benefit. I would also claim that it's entirely possible that it produces a net detriment. Without good data, I'll never know.
 
Hello Roger,

Thank you for your comments.

I did not ask you or anyone else to “adopt the same procedure”.

As said before, “All I was showing, was that I had two loosely controlled situations that surprisingly showed a milage increase”.

That/those observation/s were entirely accidental because my adding diesel was not to gain gas milage but to add lubrication.

Amazing how polarizing some subjects can be.

Regards,

Ron Fisher
 
Is there any evidence that adding diesel adds lubrication? Or does it just add to the carbon buildup on the valves and rings?

Modern ULSD has had the 'lubricant' (sulfur) removed. Prior to 2007 diesel had 500 PPM sulfur and now has 15PPM sulfur. Any results obtained by adding diesel to gasoline prior to 2007 may not apply now.

Older diesel engines like the 1978 Ford Lehman in my trawler may suffer increased wear as a result of removing the sulfur. There is lots of talk of this on the trawler lists. I personally add a lubricant/stabilizer to the new diesel fuel. Will this protect my engine? No one knows yet, but if it works, its not nearly as expensive as overhauling the diesel injector pump.

Modern car engines can run 100,000 to 300,000 miles on gasoline/ethanol. They are obviously engineered to do so.

Increasing mileage from 20 to 22 MPG, over 10,000 miles, would save 45.5 gallons, which at $4/gal is $182. This divides out to $0.0182/mile. (20 MPG for 10,000 miles with gas at $4/gal is $0.20/mile) Is this worth doing? I guess it depends on how far you drive.

I don't care what folks do with their own engines, its their money.
 
Connie Fisher":22dfkvl7 said:
Hello Roger,

Thank you for your comments.

I did not ask you or anyone else to “adopt the same procedure”.

As said before, “All I was showing, was that I had two loosely controlled situations that surprisingly showed a milage increase”.

That/those observation/s were entirely accidental because my adding diesel was not to gain gas milage but to add lubrication.

Amazing how polarizing some subjects can be.

Regards,

Ron Fisher
Click to expand...
and from the original post
Connie Fisher":22dfkvl7 said:
I’m sure this will be beat to death on this thread, but if you have a vehicle that you want to try adding diesel to and when noticing the improvement, please report back. 

Hope someone is listening.

Regards,

Ron Fisher  
Click to expand...

Ron, it's only "polarizing" if you assume it to be so. Having a difference of opinion and clearly stating why one has a difference of opinion is not, IMHO, polarizing. In the original post on this topic, you stated your beliefs and ended with "if you have a vehicle that you want to try adding diesel to and when noticing the improvement, please report back. "

To me this seemed to be encouraging others to try the same thing with the implicit assumption that there will likely be improvement. My reason for writing what I have is to provide people with reasons to perhaps not try the same thing or at least to do a high enough quality experiment so that we can learn something meaningful from it. I've seen a lot of decisions in my life that are made on little solid evidence and I always encourage people to seek sufficient data prior to coming to an opinion. I'm also familiar with a number of examples of sociology in which people tend to report what they expect. E.g. if people are told that X is a cure for Y, the one's that take X and see improvement in Y tend to assume that X is causal for the improvement in Y. They then shout about it. However, often additional studies demonstrate that other factors that were uncontrolled in the original experiment were responsible for the improvement in Y (or that the improvement in Y is independent of X - e.g. some people just get cured).

Hence that's why I commented on this thread to begin with. Diesel may or may not help, and there's no solid data either way (that I can find). If some here do some experiments with one or two tanks of gas and they see "positive results" (like increased mileage), they're likely to report that the diesel did the trick and they'll use it forever after. It's possible that if they did the same experiment without the diesel they'd see some random fluctuations in mileage also. Those who don't see the positive results (assuming there are some) may be less likely to report since they aren't getting the claimed, expected result. So my point of stating what it would take to make me a believer is simply to point out that simple experiments may not give believable results (at least not for me) and there may exist other potentially good (or bad) effects that can only be seen over the long term with the appropriate controls for comparison.

It's the scientist in me and the science educator in me that requires me to make such comments on such topics. As I said above, I don't have enough data to have a strongly held opinion one way or the other. Unfortunately, we all find ourselves in that situation in many aspects of our lives. That's usually when I turn to an expert opinion. In this case, I can't find an expert that I trust that makes me want to give this a try. That doesn't mean that I don't want to hear the data/opinions from others, it's just me stating my opinion.
 
I read all of the comments on D in gas mixing. Having been raised on the farm, I am very familiar with D and it's properties. However, I am not a scientist!

Bottom line up front is that I tried it. This is certainly not a scientific study..... just call it a field trial.

I own a 1997 Ford F-250 with 117,000 miles. It is two wheel drive with a 460 fuel injected motor, automatic transmission. I pull a 32 ft camper and a 22 ft CD (not at the same time..... but it sure would.....!). I have never broke 13 mpg under any circumstances (loaded or empty, flat ground, etc...). And, unlike my younger "wild" days, I have grown into a very conservative driver.

So, I filled up an empty tank with 87 octane (with 10% ethanol) and diesel. I used a mixture of 14.5 gal gas with 2.5 gal diesel. I then drove the truck (no payload) for 130 miles at 58 mph on flat two lane state roads. Wind was minimal. I run 50 psi in the tires. I use synthetic Mobil One oil. I have never broken 13 mpg under any circumstances. I refilled at the same station, same procedure, with no top-off. I was shocked to get 15.8 mpg. There was no recognizable gain or lose in power.

I then tried the same field experiment pulling my 22 ft CD 90 miles in a stiff 30 mph headwind on the interstate, traveling 63 mph. I got 10.7 mpg. Normally, I would have expected 8-9 mpg.

I was out in the shop last week, looking at my vintage 1975 R-60/6 BMW cycle and thought ...... hmmmmmm....... what the heck...! I put 1.5 qts of diesel in approximately 4 gal of gas. The odometer is broken and in the shop at the present time, however the thing I noticed immediately was the reduction in the engine noise at road speed.

So....... where does all the leave us. You may be on to something Ron! I'm definitely going to try some more experiments.

I'll keep you posted...!

Michael
 
No..... absolutely not! If anything, it runs better. Good power! Good throttle response! And quieter! Once I get the odometer repaired, I will check the mileage and let you know how that was! Michael
 
Depending on the State in which you live, a couple of shots of Vodka could probably be added along with the diesel to reduce cost. Maybe even moonshine?

:wink:
 
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