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If you're on a dialup it'll take forever to load if at all. There's a link to download the episode at the top of the player. It's highlighted in Yellow. I've also set it so it doesn't autoplay in IE; hit the play button.
As far as the "fuel reformulator" (Ethos) goes, the stuff is like 26 bucks a pint and you're supposed to use 5 ounces per 10 gallons for the first dosage then 1 ounce per 10 gallons. It doesn't go far. But, I used it for two tanks, about 900 miles. The results were within the margin of error you'd expect, 2%.
Almost nothing in the city and just a couple of percent on the highway. I got the best results when I mixed it with Acetone (it makes a milky mixture). Acetone typically gets me 9 to 10% better mileage and with the Ethos I saw 12%, again within the margin of error that you'd expect so it may have virtually no effect whatsoever. Plus there was no "smoother" idle that they claim.
But the cost to savings ratio is really out there. I will say that the benefits
(if any) I saw on the highway lasted for 300 or so miles.
The thing that turned me off to it (in case you couldn't tell) was the wide disparity between the websites that sell it. One place says it reformulates the fuel, another says it's jet engine oil (that coats the upper cylinder and reduces friction) and another says it's mineral oil with "additives".
I'm doing something additional for aiding hypermiling techniques that I'm most certainly going to talk about in the second part. That is the vacuum gauge I had in this episode. As an example, with no additives, I usually get about 22.5 mpg in the city if I watch the instant mpg readout. I've used it for the better part of a week now and have the city mileage up to 23.8 mpg just by using the vacuum to "see" what my pressure is on the gas pedal. It really, really aids in shift points instead of using the tach. I'm going to try to get some more detailed footage of that. Another point is that I was lazy and didn't put any Acetone in the tank last week. On coast down, the vacuum that the engine pulled was 23 inches maximum (coast down from 55 mph). Well, I had to fuel up and put in the Acetone. The coast down vacuum is now 28 inches from 55 on the same road. Odd but true. I truly don't know what that means if anything but it's a pretty glaring change.
One thing that didn't make it was from an episode last year where I originally did a gas mileage episode. I found that driving alone on the highway at 65 and then driving in the middle of pack of cars at 85, the mileage was nearly the same. But that's with the airdams and side skirts on the truck.
For the second part, I've been working with Ron at Airtabs on setting up a testing procedure for using them. They have a way to place them and repositioning them for their testing that I'm going to use. What I'm going to do is show how the airtabs affect the airflow over the bed of the truck. Should be pretty slick because the results will be obvious.
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Proud owner of Stinkerbutt! [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] -Air Raid cone filter, direct to TB
-Homebrew front air dam
-Homebrew side skirt
-Torza top bed cover
-Now featuring front wheel canards!
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