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Fuel Additives

Brian-H
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Location: UK

Re: Fuel Additives

Post by Brian-H »

Big Col wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:34 pm Brians point about crude is interesting. In my college days a small amount of lecture time was spent on lubrication. My understanding was that the refining process cooked the crude and different products were drawn off at different levels. Tars and the like at the bottom and gases at the top with spirits and liquids at various points in between. The quality of the input determined the ease and costs of refining rather than the output. The output generally being highly monitored for quality. The lighter stuff from the North Sea is said to be good for petrol and gas production.
Yes it's difficult because there's nobody on any car forum who has extensive breadth and depth in the subject of oil fields and refineries, so as to be able to say if/why e.g. Shell petrol is better than e.g. Tesco petrol (or not). Although the petrol at both forecourts will meet EN 228 (?) the specs e.g.1 and e.g.2 contain min and max values that, in the mix, may have different effects (and that's before additives are put in).

Although Shell no longer have any refineries in the UK , Shell fuels come from refineries on the continent into various pipelines and storage depots in the UK. So it's probably still true to say that what you get at a Shell forecourt comes from a Shell facility at a general storage depot, the product having come from a Shell refinery on the continent, and the crude having originated from an oilfield in which Shell have an interest. The point is that e.g. Shell fuel has a clearer provenance than e.g. Tesco, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's worth paying more money for it. Their claims also tend to be on the additives they use rather than provenance.

As an example of a storage depot facility, this image shows the various operators at Buncefield in 2005 at the time of the fire there.
Image
But with a lot of brands disappearing it's anecdotally becoming less clear as to what part of the storage facility supplies each supermarket.

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John-B
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Re: Fuel Additives

Post by John-B »

Brian-H asked me "I have a question, which is, do you guys get to see all the tens of edits that I sometimes make in some of my posts ?" Probably not, although there should be a note that a post has been edited at the bottom, I doubt if anyone including administrators knows what you have changed.

To make sure readers know what you have edited,
1. you can put an explanation in the note that should appear at the bottom (Reason for editing box should appear but I don't think it always does and I don't know why that is as the option is enabled) Edit, this box appears right at the very bottom of the Options menu below the editing box.
2. You can click the pencil icon to edit your post, highlight the text you want to edit and use the white A in red background icon to highlight the edited text in a colour
3. highlight the text you want to edit and click the strike through icon, (A with a line through it), and then insert the revised text and highlight that as in 2 above.

then submit the post.
Last edited by John-B on Fri Oct 23, 2020 7:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Testing "reason for editing" explanation

Brian-H
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Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2019 6:04 pm
Location: UK

Re: Fuel Additives

Post by Brian-H »

John-B wrote: Fri Oct 23, 2020 7:36 am Brian-H asked me "I have a question, which is, do you guys get to see all the tens of edits that I sometimes make in some of my posts ?" Probably not, although there should be a note that a post has been edited at the bottom, I doubt if anyone including administrators knows what you have changed.
I'm surprised about that as I thought that any edits might be in the database.

Even authors such as JK Rowling must sometimes have days when they struggle to get the semantics as clear as they can (never read any Harry Potter btw).

When writing a couple of paragraphs in a post, which is a message to many recipients, until one has seen any response it's not clear if the wording is coherent. Sometimes when I re-read a post which has had no reply, I look at it and think "that's badly written". For example, that paragraph "Although Shell no longer ....." seems ok now, it took me several attempts to get it like that - part of it had been in the 1st paragraph, it was longer and rambled on, and it looked as if I am a fan of Shell fuel (which I am not). At the time of the initial post I wasn't aware of how badly I was putting things into words, otherwise I would have written it offline and re-edited it offline until I was happier with it. After I finally decided I couldn't make it any more coherent (and I'm still not happy with it) I wondered if the original still lurked somewhere so that I could make a comparison. So the only reason for the edit is "edited because the meaning was lost in rambling" - actually like this long rambling paragraph LOL

Sydsmith
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Location: Aberystwyth Wales

Re: Fuel Additives

Post by Sydsmith »

With respect to the OP, when this topic started I thought, here we go again.

The OP asked for opinions regarding the use of fuel additives and though there has been a very interesting discussion, the conclusion is still as has been agreed before, it's up to the user.

Like supermarket fuel v regular brands, some will claim a benefit some none, without any definitive, reliable, scientific research or evidence either way, you pays your money and takes your choice. Syd

Noelex
Posts: 40
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2016 11:27 am

Re: Fuel Additives

Post by Noelex »

Some thoughts to share having restored db18s
1. DB18 cast iron heads do not have hardened exhaust valve inserts. I had a head fully reconditioned with hardened inserts and bronze guides etc specially made. I also have an Austin Atlantic iron head and have just had it fully reconditioned with new hardened valve inserts bronze guides etc because no. 3 exhaust valve was failing. If I had kept driving according to engineer it would have in all probability cracked the head. So my suggestion is if you don't convert head to run on modern fuel check compression periodically. But I would strongly urge you to service head. It is not difficult or particularly expensive.
2. My experience is additives work for specific things. I have used lucas octane boost for anti knock. Very effective in my large motorcycle. This also helps compensate for poor fuel containing ethanol. Some countries are especially poor eg Canada. I use flashlube valve saver in my 300sel 6.3 which has relatively high compression compared to a DB18.
And lastly while DB18s are slow revving the long stroke means that piston speed is very high. Lubrication is critical. I hate the felt oil filter system and plan to change to modern spin on oil set up that I use on my Atlantic. Much better pressure more reliable and better filtration.

Cheers
Hugh Spencer
Australia

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