FireHead Posted June 25, 2008 Report Share Posted June 25, 2008 I only wish I would have paid more attention in Chem engineering classes but here is our research and understanding on the subject. By combining two or more fuels together, you are in effect "diluting" the lower octane fuel. You are not molecularly modifying the fuel. This simply means you will suppress auto-ignition tendencies but it will still occur regardless. This means a potential for erratic burn rates and higher combustion temps than with a single higher grade fuel. This does not mean it does not work, just means that these tendencies must be taken into account. By mixing gasoline and alky, They do not blend in nature so a "surfactant" must be added to allow blending of the two fuels. It is my understanding that the surfactant will NOT change the properties of either fuel but will give each a molecule it can bond ( hand holding) to to create a homogeneous solution. In actual raw fuel creation, fuel is "cracked" with a specialized process to break the carbon chains into the proper order to create gasoline. Unless this process is carried out in a fuel, the fuel molecules are only holding hands with one basic simply bond that is easily broken. In short, a blended 100 octane fuel may be able to suppress auto-ignition at the same levels as an engineered 100 octane fuel, but may not make as much power and run hotter due to the "blend" of fuels burning at different rates with different properties. Brandon That's pretty much accurate.......... Which usually isn't a realm threads like these have ventured into in the past on here. :biggrin: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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