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ETCG when you put the lacquer thinner in your fuel it is not a coincidence that you check engine light came on. The air/fuel threshold of the thinner is much higher than gas so the O2 sensor is getting a lean mixture count.
Also the lacquer thinner will tend to dry the cylinder walls (wash away the protective oil coat), but I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
JM2CW,
Lawrence
Moved you to the proper forum. 😉
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It’s an interesting question and one I was curious about. I may not have used enough lacquer thinner but I didn’t notice any real results either. What do you think?
Sounds mighty unlikely.
A cat runs red-hot, so there are not going to be any carbon or organic goo deposits on it, and that’s the only things lacquer cleaner could attack, if it were still lacquer cleaner by the time it got to the cat, which it won’t be, it will be burnt up into CO2.
So, right there, at least a couple reasons why not.
I think I would be to worried that I would do some damage if adding thinners to the fuel tank , but as Eric said it was a car he was not to concerned about .
I’d be too worried that I would run the risk of doing some damage , unless it was a car that I had no emotional attachment to , interesting video though mate :cheer:
Cats will always seem to work better just by heating them with engine. By driving the car with high revs and revving it standing still. It burns them a bit cleaner and gets the catalyst to work better witch then heats them even more.
I have some expertise in combustion. You’re not putting lacquer thinner through the cat, but rather its combustion products.
The combustion products of gasoline, lacquer thinner(and a lowly log)are CO2 and H2O with very minor amounts of unburned material and a little fixed nitrogen in the form of its oxides, NOx.
Your experiment agrees well with theory, making the conclusion probably correct.
The only real issue I have with Lacquer thinner in fuel is how it affects the rubber hoses and fuel pump.
I have heard of people using soaking rubber in Lacquer thinner and having them dissolve. If Ethanol is so hard on fuel line parts and it is, I am curious how rubber holds up to Lacquer thinner.
Some thinners contain Acetone and/or Toluene
Solvents from all five of the solvent families are used in lacquer thinners. (See Understanding Solvents, Part II). Toluene, xylene and “high-flash” (meaning fast evaporating) naphtha are from the petroleum-distillate family. The other four families are ketones, esters, glycol ethers and alcohols.
Toluene can be used as an octane booster in gasoline fuels used in internal combustion engines. Toluene at 86% by volume fueled all the turbo Formula 1 teams in the 1980s, first pioneered by the Honda team. The remaining 14% was a “filler” of n-heptane, to reduce the octane to meet Formula 1 fuel restrictions. Toluene at 100% can be used as a fuel for both two-stroke and four-stroke engines; however, due to the density of the fuel and other factors, the fuel does not vaporize easily unless preheated to 70 degrees Celsius (Honda accomplished this in their Formula 1 cars by routing the fuel lines through the muffler system to heat the fuel). Toluene also poses similar problems as alcohol fuels, as it eats through standard rubber fuel lines and has no lubricating properties as standard gasoline does, which can break down fuel pumps and cause upper cylinder bore wear.
I would say adding Lacquer thinner to gas is a VERY bad idea, well….unless you like changing fuel pumps.
I thought the logic behind this method is that the solvent(s) burned hotter than gasoline, and the elevated exhaust temperatures “coerced” the contaminants from the active sites on the catalyst bed, and thus restored the efficiency of the catalytic converter. However, I don’t know if any of the solvents in lacquer thinner, toluene, MEK, etc. burn significantly hotter than gasoline.
Going with the MythBusters theme, although dangerous to both yourself and car, is it possible to “thermally purge” the fouling particles from the converter by artificially heating the exhaust, like with a torch, while the engine is running?
Maybe in theory. In actuality what you’d probably end up doing is damaging the comb where it attaches to the cat housing. Keep in mind cats operate their best at temperatures below 1000 degrees Fahrenheit which is well below the temp of a torch tip so it could even be argued that “heat cleaning” doesn’t even make sense.
In my experience if a cat is junk, its junk. There is no quick fix. Sure you can drive hard on the highway for awhile to get the comb to a more efficient temp and maybe pass an emissions test but ultimately its still a bad cat. Modern vehicles with stricter and stricter requirements have essentially made the things pass / fail. In other words either its working fine or its not and needs to be replaced, preferably with OE.
Raistian, Toluene is a normal additive to gasoline. Its one of the most common addatives to increase the octane level.
Very true, but (and big but here) that (pump fuel) is a formula not just dumping stuff in the tank. And a standard fuel pump is designed for certain limits not some homemade formula some yahoo dumps in the tank. And too much Toluene will strip the lubricating properties out of the fuel and leave you with what used to be a fuel pump.
Oil has zinc in it, would you randomly dump zinc in the crankcase? Of course not, too much will do damage and negate using it at all.
Like I said, I hate changing fuel pumps. And no one can convince me just randomly dumping toxic chemicals into a gas tank is a good idea. Besides, I am a technician, my job is to fix cars not break them trying to avoid buying parts.
I wish I could find it, but I remember reading on a forum where a guy decided to try making a heavy toluene mix to bring his octane up way over 100. Ran it in his Mazda for 3 months than the engine shut-off and had to be towed to a repair shop, the fuel pump, injectors and fuel pressure regulator were destroyed.
BTW, not trying to be a horse’s ass about this, I just am NO fan of additives or homemade mixtures when it comes to cars that engineers spend years trying to perfect. Dumping Lacquer thinner in a tank to fix a CAT is no different than “Mechanic in a can” or “instant head gasket repair” crap on the shelves of your friendly parts store.
I remember reading somewhere , that a lot of octane boosters can do more damage than good , so I hate to think what Toluene would do to a cars fuel system , not to mention the exhaust and engine components , I am not a mechanic , but for me I’d feel safer pouring in neat alcohol . 😛
Did the words Snake Oil ever come up before on the forum. I cringed when I saw Eric dump lacquer thinner in the ole Subaru. :S . I did not believe for a minute that it had any merit. I guess if any good came out of the experiment he can make a video on diagnosing and replacing the fuel tank pressure sensor and any other rubber component it attacked.
I had access to some Toluene years ago and I was so impressed by the 100 H.P. increase that I thought I had :dry: after poring a quart in the tank that I blew the engine and scattered it all over the road. 😆 I was soo impressed I even pulled a chunk of connecting rod outta the sidewall of a brand new tire.
Another lesson learned.
[quote=”wysetech” post=77625]Did the words Snake Oil ever come up before on the forum. I cringed when I saw Eric dump lacquer thinner in the ole Subaru. :S . I did not believe for a minute that it had any merit. I guess if any good came out of the experiment he can make a video on diagnosing and replacing the fuel tank pressure sensor and any other rubber component it attacked.
I had access to some Toluene years ago and I was so impressed by the 100 H.P. increase that I thought I had :dry: after poring a quart in the tank that I blew the engine and scattered it all over the road. 😆 I was soo impressed I even pulled a chunk of connecting rod outta the sidewall of a brand new tire.
Another lesson learned.[/quote]
Well, at least Eric make it clear this was a “Don’t do this at home, with your ride” kind of experiment. In Scotty’s video it was a “Hey, this is perfectly fine to do to your car” kind of thing.
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