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hot rod · 07-13-2011, 05:52 PM

On the subject of mileage and fuel additives-

A number of years ago, a buddy of mine got involved in one of those schemes like amway (where everybody is a "distributor" selling to someone else who sells to someone else... but I digress) selling these fuel additive "pills" for your fuel tank which were supposed to boost mileage and were supposed to work in gas or diesel. At the time I was running around the midwest putting on a bunch of miles with a dually with 8.1 gas motor and a 10,000# trailer so he recruited me to test these "pills" for him. I had 140 gal fuel capacity at the time, so I would run one "tankfull" with straight gas and check mileage, then switch to the pills and check mileage again. Did 3 tests runs on gas, and 3 test runs with the pills, alternating. Consistently got 10% better mileage on the pills (10 mpg increased to 11 mpg), which as Blizz notes, 1 mpg is a big difference when you are only in the 10 mpg range to start. Sounds good, but the kicker was that if you paid "retail" for the pills, the net cost per mile came out exactly the same either way. BUT that was back when gas was around a buck a gallon (do you remember way back then boys and girls?). So with fuel at 4 bucks a gallon now, the math may work out now. If the pills cost the same now, with fuel at 4x the price, it would work out to a net 7.5% gain in per mile cost, which is really what matters, not the actual mileage.

Here's the kicker though- the company got sued by the state of Texas for some sort of scam or fraud, basically the state accused them of selling "snake oil" and ran them out of business. But I'm here to tell you the stuff really worked. I've been racking my brain trying to remember the name of stuff, and it may come back to me yet, but for the moment I'm drawing a blank. The pills were greenish brown, about the size of a horse pill and smelled like mothballs. You used about one per 20 gallons on fillup. Anybody out there remember something like that, or know of something similar today?

Blizz- On the subject of fuel economy, I know you spent (presumably) a decent amount of money on a bunch of minor (taken separately) aerodynamic improvements on RumRunner. I remember sideskirting, a nearly full belly pan, and some sort of wind deflectors on the trailing edge. Were you able to do any sort of before and after on those mods, or were they just part of the build and you only have "after"? In particular those little wind deflectors intrigue me as those can be easily added to virtually any rig. Any thoughts on those you'd like to share in this thread?

07-13-2011, 05:52 PM	#3
hot rod Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Posts: 527	On the subject of mileage and fuel additives- A number of years ago, a buddy of mine got involved in one of those schemes like amway (where everybody is a "distributor" selling to someone else who sells to someone else... but I digress) selling these fuel additive "pills" for your fuel tank which were supposed to boost mileage and were supposed to work in gas or diesel. At the time I was running around the midwest putting on a bunch of miles with a dually with 8.1 gas motor and a 10,000# trailer so he recruited me to test these "pills" for him. I had 140 gal fuel capacity at the time, so I would run one "tankfull" with straight gas and check mileage, then switch to the pills and check mileage again. Did 3 tests runs on gas, and 3 test runs with the pills, alternating. Consistently got 10% better mileage on the pills (10 mpg increased to 11 mpg), which as Blizz notes, 1 mpg is a big difference when you are only in the 10 mpg range to start. Sounds good, but the kicker was that if you paid "retail" for the pills, the net cost per mile came out exactly the same either way. BUT that was back when gas was around a buck a gallon (do you remember way back then boys and girls?). So with fuel at 4 bucks a gallon now, the math may work out now. If the pills cost the same now, with fuel at 4x the price, it would work out to a net 7.5% gain in per mile cost, which is really what matters, not the actual mileage. Here's the kicker though- the company got sued by the state of Texas for some sort of scam or fraud, basically the state accused them of selling "snake oil" and ran them out of business. But I'm here to tell you the stuff really worked. I've been racking my brain trying to remember the name of stuff, and it may come back to me yet, but for the moment I'm drawing a blank. The pills were greenish brown, about the size of a horse pill and smelled like mothballs. You used about one per 20 gallons on fillup. Anybody out there remember something like that, or know of something similar today? Blizz- On the subject of fuel economy, I know you spent (presumably) a decent amount of money on a bunch of minor (taken separately) aerodynamic improvements on RumRunner. I remember sideskirting, a nearly full belly pan, and some sort of wind deflectors on the trailing edge. Were you able to do any sort of before and after on those mods, or were they just part of the build and you only have "after"? In particular those little wind deflectors intrigue me as those can be easily added to virtually any rig. Any thoughts on those you'd like to share in this thread?