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Maintenance & Repair Fuel and Oil Additives
1246 messages, Last post on Sep 28, 2009 at 7:37 AM
You are in the Maintenance & Repair Forum. Your Host is mr_shiftright
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Replying to: kurtamaxxxguy (Mar 28, 2009 11:05 am) Some additives have benefit....such as "water wetter" for one, or a strong fuel injection cleaner like BGK44. It's not all snake oil. But neither of the aforementioned additives make outrageous claims, either...and their effects (or lack therefore) are easily measurable. The water wetter's effect can be seen on your temperature gauge right away, and the BGK will either unclog the injector or it won't in a short period of driving. . But the snake oil stuff? The "effects" are vague, and difficult to measure quantitatively.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Mar 28, 2009 1:00 pm) BK had a straightforward web presentation (no screaming testimonials, etc) of a number of gas / oil additives and synthetic oils. I've not used them. The lack of testimonial hype, though, is a good sign.
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Replying to: kurtamaxxxguy (Mar 28, 2009 6:04 pm) I found hype in their description: "BG Fuel Injection System Cleaner cuts through it like a hot knife through butter. Fuel deposits literally melt when exposed to the high pressure cleaning action of BG Fuel Injection System Cleaner pumping through the fuel rail." I was expecting a company that was all facts. I didn't realize they sold their products directly to public. I thought they only sold through the jobbers who push the product. They don't publish their chemical safety sheets on their site so it's hard to see if there's anything special about their fuel system cleaner.
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Replying to: basspro (Jan 13, 2009 11:13 am) Regarding when to switch to a synthetic; it is commonly recognized by synthetic oil manufacturers that problems in piston ring seating can be created when a new motor is switched to an ester based synthetic (virtually every synthetic brand EXCEPT Mobil 1) before the break in process is fully completed. On an automobile, for this reason, I would not switch to an ester based synthetic before the motor had 5,000 miles on it (more or less 100 hours of operation). Some of the more subtle polishing of wearing parts takes that long; and it is often apparent in the increased power output of a motor as it approaches that mileage. Ester based synthetics are so slippery that they will defeat this beneficial wearing in process; which can result in the motor having less performance than it would if the break in was allowed to reach completion. And that would create a downside risk outweighing the amount of degradation which could be expected by using petroleum oil for the first 100 hours of use. However, Mobil 1 synthetic can be used from the very beginning of a break in. I have spoken with Mobil engineers about this; and they assured me that it is perfectly safe; they also said that Mobil 1 is used as factory fill for several high performance GM vehicles. After hearing that, I successfully broke in two new motors of my own on Mobil 1. In automotive applications, I share your preference for multigrade synthetic oils which have wide viscosity ranges. However, 4 stroke engines used in non automotive applications sometimes have significant differences in viscosity or additive requirements. For example; motorcycle engines use the engine oil to also lubricate their transmissions and wet clutches. For that reason, motorcycle oil must have additional anti-shear additives to deal with the shearing effect of operating among transmission gears. Wet clutches in motorcycles have been found to slip when used with oil that meets recent automotive specs; so motorcycle specific oil does not meet those specs. Harley Davidson air cooled engines run at much higher oil temperatures than automobiles; so they commonly use engine oil with a minimum viscosity of 50 weight; and will use oil as heavy as 70 weight in extremely hot weather. The fact that Mercury specifies 25W-40 oil concerns me. There must be a compelling reason that a major outboard manufacturer would go to the expense of designing and testing an oil for use in their engines; which has a very different viscosity than that used in automobiles. They state on their website that resistance to thermal breakdown is the major feature of this oil. So those engines apparently run with substantially higher oil temperatures than automobile engines. As a frequent participant in the Edmunds "answers" forum, I have seen many questions concerning piston slap in low mileage, late model Toyota engines; and have seen similar questions about excessively short engine life in US model Mazda RX-8 rotary engines. There is a clear answer to the Mazda RX-8 problem. It relates to the Federal EPA regulation which mandates the use of "energy conserving" oil viscosities in all new vehicles sold in the U.S. The 20W-50 oil which has traditionally been the preferred oil for Mazda rotaries is not an "energy conserving" (read: diluted) viscosity; so it is legally prohibited for dealer use in new U.S. RX-8 models. As a result, dealers are now using low viscosity oils in those cars; and the engines are frequently failing at around 50,000 miles. However, 20W-50 is still being used in RX-8 cars in Canada and Europe. And those cars are not having problems with short engine life. My experience with Toyota piston slap problems is that it also derives from using diluted energy conserving oil viscosities. And the low mileage modified V-8 in my Dodge van had the same problem; until I switched from Mobil 1 0W-30 (which is an energy conserving formula) to Mobil 1 0W-40 (which is a non-energy conserving, European formula). Switching to non-energy conserving oil viscosities has eliminated the piston slap in my van, and in every Toyota engine I have applied it to. For those reasons; I would recommend extreme caution about using low viscosity, energy conserving automotive oils in your new outboard.
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Replying to: zaken1 (Mar 28, 2009 9:10 pm) Ummm, no. Not one synthetic oil from the likes of Mobil, Castrol, Pennzoil, Valvoline, Quaker State, Pentosin, Total, Amsoil, Shell... (I could go on but you get the point) is a Group V ester based oil. FWIW, the ONLY oils that I know of that are in fact Group V oils are those sold by Royal Purple and Redline. Best regards, Shipo
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Mar 28, 2009 7:03 pm)  The lumpy idle was gone in about 1 hour of highway driving, never to return. (Mercedes 300 diesel). Dare say I was impressed. Of course, we were throwing a known product at a known problem and symptom. I was not looking to "improve fuel mileage" or "increase horsepower", all of which is nonsense coming out of a can. BGK is not a maintenance additive or a "promise" additive---it's meant to (hopefully) clean up really dirty injectors. It's no more magic than Drano. Drano doesn't promise to give you "a cleaner brighter face every time you wash up" and "up to 30% less water usage" It's promises to clean your drain, period.
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Mar 29, 2009 6:49 am) Did you use the direct cleaner setup for injectors or did you put it into the fuel? The usual advertisement I hear for BG is from a car repair shop where they use their injector cleaner pump and run the car off the additive directly to clean the injectors. I always had the impression BG wasn't sold over the counter. >The lumpy idle was gone That's the same as my experience with Techron fuel system cleaner when I used it a couple of times and the idle had changed character.
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Mar 29, 2009 7:00 am)
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Mar 29, 2009 7:16 am) >I double-dosed it with a near empty fuel tank That should clean out anything that was ever going to come out! Putting cleaners into an almost empty tank before filling with the requisite volume of gasoline for the container size probably helps pickup/dissolve some things floating in the fuel or on the intake sock for the fuel pump which sometimes gets clogged and causes problems (on some H-bodies from GM at least). I saw BG being sold as low as $11 on eBay. At that price I would like to try it for one of my biannual cleanings. At $25 per container, I'd be better off just using only Shell, Mobile, Marathon, etc., instead of the grocery chain fuels (Kroger, which are the above-named fuels delivered in blind tankers with the standard additives).
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Mar 29, 2009 8:32 am) |
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