Oil in gasoline

[Trainer]

Will adding 2 cycle oil to your pickup truck gasoline tank increase HP or fuel effiency? Was wondering if I add a small bottle to my truck tank if it would improve performance when pulling a trailer? If not what could be added? I have a 6L gasoline engine in a 3/4 ton GMC. Will be hauling about 7,000 to 10,000 pounds of lumber per load for the next few weekends. In the Ozarks the hills get steep and slow on the climb sometimes.

 

[RobJ]

Never heard of that one, sounds like it could foul your plugs and screw up the fuel system.

I rented a 6l in a big box truck that we loaded up, it pulled nice. Just might have to lock it in a lower gear and slow down. You'll get there.

 

[RonMar]

I have heard tell of a gentelman who is running a little sunflower oil in his tank. He is powering all his diesel farm machinery with sunflower oil, which he grows and presses on his farm. He adds a little to his gas vehicles also, about 1 pint per 18-20 gallons if I recall correctly. He claims 3-4 MPG increase on a jeep cherokee, but I can neither confirm nor deny this. He mixes a little Regular Unleaded Gas(RUG) with his freshly squeezed sunflower oil to break it down and direct burn it in his diesels. If I recall correctly, he is using only enough RUG to get the veg oil into the same viscosity neighborhood as #2 diesel. Apparently this is a method gaining favor with the folks running straight veg oil. The RUG breaks up the longer molecule chains and helps the oil spray/atomize better in an injector, and can eliminate the need to preheat the straight veg oil. This guy dosn't preheat any of his veg oil fueled engines. I havn't tried this yet, as I have no virgin sunflower oil to test with. Anything that adds BTU content to the fuel should improve mileage.
YMMV...

2 cycle oil is designed to pass thru fuel systems, and combust cleanly, so I doubt it would hurt anything up to a certain point. I guess it would depend on what ratio you are running. Of course over oiling may effect the exhaust system components such as a catalytic converter. One of my 2 stroke street bikes had cat converters in the pipes, and it handled the 2 cycle exhaust OK.

Good luck

 

[Trainer]

One of the things that prompted me to as this question is the ethanol is kicking me on mileage and power. Trying to offset the ethanol in the gasoline.

 

[RonMar]

One of the things that prompted me to as this question is the ethanol is kicking me on mileage and power. Trying to offset the ethanol in the gasoline.

And that is the problem with ethanol. It overall lowers the BTU content of the fuel, requiring you to burn more to perform the same amount of work. So tell me again just how burning more of anything is good for the environment or my pocketbook?

 

[Skyco]

I hate ethanol "enriched" gasoline...fortunately I have searched and found two stations locally to buy plain gas. I've been getting it in 5 gallon cans to use in all my power equipment. It stores much better than the ethanol gas, doesn't have the moisture pulling factor....

 

[JazzDad]

Another component that could be damaged- O2 sensor.

 

[jinman]

One of the things that prompted me to as this question is the ethanol is kicking me on mileage and power. Trying to offset the ethanol in the gasoline.

By changing the fuel, you might be inadvertently changing it's octane. Actually, increasing octane will reduce a fuel's efficiency and the number of BTU's each gallon can deliver. Increased octane will reduce pre-ignition (valve ping), but it comes at a price with low-compression engines. If you are getting pre-ignition on low octane fuel, an octane booster product might be best for the engine however. Even though you might get less mileage, your engine may operate without pre-ignition and actually deliver better performance under load. I think it's a tradeoff.

During WWII, conventional gasoline engines had high enough compression to run either gasoline or kerosene. I guess those were the original "flex-fuel" autos.

It used to be common practice (50s-70s) to add something called "upper cylinder lubricant" to gasoline engines. This was nothing more than a lightweight machine oil added to the gas tank. It was supposed to lubricate the valve stems and leave a residue of oil on the cylinder walls to provide extra lube for the upper piston rings. The marketing sounded good, but I'm not so sure it wasn't hype.

BTW: Modern engines sense the fuel performance and automatically compensate by changing the ignition timing. It might take a tankful or two for this to happen, but the engine should compensate for the fuel's octane all by itself.