FUEL TREATMENTS......"snake oil?"

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JETTYWOLF
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FUEL TREATMENTS......"snake oil?"

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Post by JETTYWOLF »

Here is another article wrote on the subject of Ethanol and "Phase Seperation":

This was in my Pops BMW (motorcycle) club newsletter.....

Fueling Around by Roger Allen:

Let me start by saying that I have no financial interest in any of the companies mentioned in the article, nor have I received gifts, sponsorship, or bribes (dammit).

Approximately a year ago I was in BMW Daytona and saw some glass bottles behind the parts desk, it turns out that they were a comparison of the effects of fuel additive. Each 2 oz. glass bottle had one third of the bottle filled with gasoline, another third of water, the appropriate amount of fuel treatment, and a nail.

• The bottle with Stabil was dark brown, the nail had rusted to a considerable extent, and the water had separated.
• The bottle with StarTron was hardly discolored but the water and gas had clearly separated.
• The last bottle had a product I had never heard of “Sentry Fuel Treatment - Gasoline PLUS Formula”, the nail was clean and there was no visible separation of the water and gas.

The demonstration peaked my curiosity and so I decided to do some research into fuel problems and fuel additives, I found the following statements somewhat disturbing:

“…… This means that approximately 3.8 teaspoons of water can be dissolved per gallon of the fuel before the water will begin to phase separate.” (EPA paper on phase separation)


{Jettywolf interjection ...I funnel my fuel from all gas pumps via my Mr. Funnel, so to eleveate water that's already in the gas pumps tanks; BEFORE the fuel goes in my boats fuel tank. http://www.mrfunnel.com }

“If significant amounts of water are present in a fuel tank with gasoline that contains ethanol, the water will be drawn into the fuel until the saturation point is reached for the three-component mixture of water + gasoline + ethanol. Beyond this level of water, phase separation could cause most of the ethanol and water to separate from the bulk fuel and drop to the bottom of the tank, leaving gasoline with a significantly reduced level of ethanol in the upper phase. If the lower phase of water and ethanol is large enough to reach the fuel inlet, it could be pumped directly to the engine and cause significant problems. Even if the ethanol water phase at the bottom of the tank is not drawn into the fuel inlet, the reduced ethanol level of the fuel reduces the octane rating by as much as 3 octane numbers, which could result in engine problems.”

There were many more articles on the effects of ethanol, none of them positive. They all seemed to boil down to the fact that having water in the tank is bad enough, but the effect of significant octane reduction if phase separation occurs is much more serious. In addition, there is a logical argument to be made that the epidemic of fuel strip failures, unexplained stalling, swelling tanks on other brands of bike, and other “North America Only” problems may be due to ethanol / water / separation issues.

Since the issues of ethanol and water are not limited to degradation in storage, the process is ongoing, it made no sense to me to use fuel treatments for storage only, I decided to use the Sentry and see what happens. I bought a 5 gallon bucket of Sentry and have added it to every tank of gas in both Kathy’s and my bike for the past year (about 25,000 miles for each bike).
The results are as follows: No starting issues after storage / No stalling issues / Very slight improvement in fuel consumption / No fuel strip failures.

The question is, did the Sentry actually do anything? ….There is no way to be sure.
What I do know is that I will add Sentry to every tank of gas until I can no longer say “No starting issues after storage / No stalling issues / Improvement in fuel consumption / No fuel strip failures”

I spoke to the owner of the Total Fuel Solutions and asked him why his product was different, the answer was “The other products are petroleum based fuel treatments, Sentry is not petroleum based”.
He recommended “Gasoline PLUS Formula” for use in motorcycles, the “plus” means that it will stabilize the fuel in storage and has increased lubricant. (The basic Gasoline Formula does NOT stabilize the fuel for storage).

Dennis also said that an “ex-employee” was going around to his dealers with a product called K-100 and saying that Sentry was no longer available, that the owner (Dennis Mietz) was dead, Sentry was no longer available, etc etc.
Dennis assured me that he was very much alive and kicking.

http://www.sentrytreatments.com/shtml/products.shtml
Owner: Dennis Mietz
Total Fuel Solutions LLC
4442 N. Morris Street
St. Petersburg, FL 33714
(727) 521-6131
sentrycs@sentrytreatments.com