Fuel additives can improve fuel efficiency, reduce engine problems, and decrease deposits in the combustion chamber. They are liquids added to vehicle fuel systems. Fuel additives fall into seven main categories: fuel line antifreeze, gasoline stabilizers, fuel injector cleaners, octane boosters, diesel exhaust fluid, upper cylinder lubricants, and anti-gelling additives. These additives address issues like freezing fuel lines, evaporation of gasoline, clogged injectors, valve wear, emissions control, valve and ring lubrication, and gelled fuel. Many mechanics view fuel additives as quick fixes for fuel delivery problems.
2. Fuel additives can help improve fuel efficiency and
also avoid problems such as weak acceleration, rough
idling, cold-start problems, stalling and stumbling.
They play an important role in the deposit reduction on
the combustion chamber and valves of the automobile.
Fuel additive is a liquid added into the fuel supply of
vehicles either through the filter cap or other fuel
system parts. Supplementing your fuel with additives
gives better performance over the standard fuel.
3. Most of the fuel additives fall into seven categories and
are given below.
Fuel line antifreeze: Generally water condensation
occurs in the fuel (gasoline) storage tank and often
causes the fuel line to freeze during cold conditions.
One of the historic remedy is to add alcohol based anti-
freezes that will mix with water and prevent the fuel
line to freeze up. But, the water dispersant fuel line anti-
freeze will absorb and transfer the water from the fuel to
the engine, where it is vaporized into the exhaust
stream.
4. Gasoline stabilizers: Loss of fuel's volatility is a major
problem in vehicles such as boats, electric generators
and lawn care equipment. By using gasoline stabilizers,
the difficulty in starting is reduced which is usually
caused by the propensity of more gaseous components
in the gasoline to evaporate into the atmosphere. Also,
corrosion inhibitors prevent the corrosion of the fuel
system from ethanol based fuel.
5. Fuel injector cleaners: The symptoms of a clogged
fuel injector are poor engine performance, sluggish
acceleration and hard-starting. These symptoms are
caused when the fuel injector nozzles are clogged by the
carbon deposits. Some of the fuel injector cleaners are
designed as maintenance additives, while the others
help to remove the carbon deposits from valves,
cylinder heads and pistons.
6. Octane boosters: Octane booster additives increase the
octane ring of gasoline for lubricating the valve seats in
high compression engines. Mostly, a valve seat lubricant
is constituted in an octane booster to reduce wear on
collector and antique car engines that are equipped with
cast iron valve seats.
7. Diesel exhaust liquid (DEF): This fuel additive is
metered from separate tank directly into the diesel
exhaust gas stream where it breaks down the nitrogen
oxide compounds into basic forms of water and
nitrogen. In case if the DEF level becomes low the
diesel power-train control module limits the vehicle's
speed until its required level is restored.
8. Upper cylinder lubricants: High detergent, light
viscosity upper cylinder oils were designed to be added
to the fuel tank to help lubricate and clean the sticking
valves that are caused by insufficient oil clearance in the
valve assembly. Nevertheless, modern fuel additives
contain certain type of upper cylinder lubricant to
grease seats, valve guides and piston rings.
9. Anti-gelling additives: These additives are added to
liquefy the solidified gel or paraffin wax that forms in the
fuel and clogs the fuel filters during freezing
temperatures. While the modern diesel engines use
heated fuel filters and lines to prevent gelling, the anti-
gelling additives will help to improve the cold starting
performance i.e., during cold temperatures. Also, many
of the anti-gelling additives include solvents that remove
water, clean the fuel systems and grease the fuel
injectors.
Many professional automotive technicians often
categorize these additives as “mechanical in a can” to
discrete fuel delivery problems.
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