Posted By : Chris Stanley, 08-Feb-2006,
06:49pm
Folks,
Speaking as a chemist, I'm somewhat skeptical of this. Acetone does vaporise very easily - spill it on the bench and the stuff will evaporate very
quickly. However, I can't see that in the quantites described it would have any noticable effect on petrol. The principal has some basis in fact -
there is a lab technique known as azotroping which works on this basis. When evaporating under vaccum a flask of a high-boiling point solvent from
a solid, such as ethyl acetate for example, removing the flask and squirting in a bit of a highly-volatile solvent (e.g. dichloromethane) before
reapplying the vaccum will help dry out the last remains of the ethyl acetate from the solid.
Not sure what the octane rating of acetone is, but as it contains an oxygen atom, it might be around/if not higher than neat petrol. In larger
amounts in the tank, you might be able to pump up the octane therefore (though methanol or ethanol would be a lot better). This is an old argument
of wether higher octane fuels really give you any extra performance, but in theroy the fuel would then be less likely to predetonate allowing you
to advance your ignition timing. Modern cars with pinking detectors would do this automatically.
By the way, acetone is a great solvent (I keep some in the garage, along with the ethyl acetate (major component of thinners)), and will dissolve
many plastics. Hence, I wouldn't want to stick any great volume in a modern car.
Funny how these sorts of topics always come up. Remember 'fuel cat's'? Now that really is a load of b*****ks. "Molecular re-allignment of the fuel
molecules so they all align in the same direction?" - my arse.
Chris