Flowmaster Muffler and Magnaflow Exhaust

Acetone Increases Mileage in Engines, usually

2011-08-14T09:46:00.003-06:00

If I was trying to sell something, I'd tell you that acetone in gasoline only helps and that it never hurts, but I honestly report that acetone increases mileage in engines usually. I won't spend much time on when it doesn't work as you can find that information in the link in this paragraph.

You see, on a trip with my cousin I rented a van for me and his family. It was a long trip, so I did what I never tell the rental agency. I got under the hood and made a few modifications for the trip that surely wouldn't cause any harm and would only help. After a several thousand mile trip, when the new iridium spark plugs were doing great, I couldn't do the disservice to Checker, now O'Reilly, and take something back that worked so great. I paid it forward and left those nice iridium spark plugs in the engine for the next folks who could spend less on their gas. The iridium spark plugs had paid for themselves in 900 miles.

Now, that's an advantage that was going to stay with the vehicle, but I doubted anyone would keep adding acetone in the gasoline to increase mileage. Over the trip, I tried different ratios of acetone to the gasoline. When my cousin drove, he drove faster and more aggressively then I did, so 4 ounces of acetone to 10 gallons seemed like the perfect fit. The van did about 4 miles per gallon better, with a quite a bit more punch. This van was a Toyota Sienna, V6. When I drove the van with 4 ounces of acetone to 10 gallons of gas it only did 2 miles per gallon better, but with 2 to 3 ounces I'd get 4 to 6 miles per gallon better. My slower to accelerate and slower top speed driving style made for overall better mileage, but the right mix of acetone versus gasoline was still different depending on driving style. The van was doing anywhere from 23 to 27 miles per gallon when we started, but with the right speed, the right conditions, and the right driver, I could frequently get it above 30. I found it hilarious when I took over driving from my cousin that I'd have to drive faster to get as much results as him, but it just wasn't in my personality to drive like that with his whole family on board so it was less stressful for me to frequent the gas station and to the math to get the ratio right, for the right driver.

I don't know his name, and I really want to, but I have traced through the internet back to the man who first did the science on how acetone increases mileage. His research and his words are often copied, and I see traces of him everywhere, but he's done decades of research and his evidence has a foot hold in every copy cat I've ever seen. When some of his personality is missing from the writing I know someone copied it and edited a little. I personally learned of the technique from friends, but I wonder if they knew what they knew thanks to this revolutionary man that I pay tribute to. Those friends did like the internet and he's all over it. Now this monster of a trip that my cousin and I took matched his figures exactly. I'd never put more than 4 ounces of acetone to 10 gallons of gasoline. Regardless of driving style that wasn't good, and it didn't give engine the extra strength that my virileauto readers are after. Our mysterious man's research charts showed a slight decline at this level as well. I so want to share a link to his work to honor him, but for some reason, I can never find again the same websites by him.

I saw traces of this mysterious do-gooder on a website that was debunking Mythbusters and I think this time it was the man himself. Mythbusters claimed (*these are my own words, which are quite opinionated about them and their episode, not to be construed as quotes) that acetone increases mileage was a myth propagated by the internet and people who didn't know any better. He rebounded against their experiments with amazing information that I find entirely plausible. He said that if an engine wasn't tuned right, not that you have to tune your engine to acetone, but just whether it was tuned at all, that acetone would decrease mileage rather than increase it.

Mostly on Mythbusters I see them use old Ford Taurus's because they're a dime a dozen. I've tuned quite a bit of these cars because my family has owned all kinds of versions of them and I must say that they're very difficult to tune correctly. In fact, getting them tuned right taught me advance techniques to perfect the tuning of many easier cars, as it is on by AutoBravado website: Spark Plug Gap: The Controversial Side. I find it entirely plausible that these poorly running cars, from not being loved, not that they can't be great (it's obvious, you can hear it on the show), were poorly tuned and were therefore doing worse with acetone in gasoline.

* Please understand. I have no wish to bag on the Mythbuster's. I think they're great inventors and engineers and the science that they teach us is well thought out and a benefit to mankind. This is why science has to be proven in many labs under the same conditions, to prove that something is true. Under the hood, there are always different conditions everywhere, even in the same model, so it's not hard at all to believe that they're experiment showed acetone lacking, when under other conditions it helps.

P.S. The family I grew up in has had Ford Taurus's and Mercury Mercury Sables, and I haven't tested acetone on them because while I care for their cars too, some experiments can only be approved on my own cars. :)

The High Performance Air Filter

2009-02-11T20:59:00.015-07:00

Have you ever had your engine over heat after an upgrade? The High Performance Air Filter will help get more of that cooling air to get into and help your engines needs.

Call me crazy if you wish, but I pulled this old article out of my hard drive because I was nostalgic over Valentine's Day. You see, I can't go through on major holiday without choosing to celebrate part of the holiday by making my car drive with more performance for that important date of the year. See what I was doing last year: Synthetic Motor Oil on Valentines Day. Or, read my nostalgia about love (even more so in the comments section) and a high performance air filter that makes me even happier about my current love this Valentine's Day!

My favorite and most accessible way to get the air you need to make your car be at it's best is to make use of K&N filtration technology, an incredible high performance air filter. I had been doing upgrades on one of cars years gone by and it tended to run a little hotter. I thought that that was okay, I mean I was getting more performance right? Well, wrong. One day, merrily driving up a violently angled hill on the way to a religious service, but engine's heat kept getting hotter and hotter still until I realized that if I shut my motor off and the radiator fluid stopped going through the engine then I'd be looking at some damage. I decided to leave the transmission in gear and go down the hill letting my engine get to a higher RPM, which would allow for more of my maximized radiator fluid to get through the engine. The temperature kept heating up! At this point I realized the engine was so hot that the radiator temperature, that actual temperature that you see, not that temperature of that actual engine was only slowly catching up with how over heated my engine really was. So, wishing I knew then what I know now (You can leave an engine and drive going down hill in a manual with the engine off so that no more fuel is pumped in, meaning no more extra heat, and allow the radiator and motion of the vehicle to cool the engine.), in exasperation I gave up and shut down the car and waited until it was cool from feeling hood first and waiting until the motor was touchable. I couldn't help but wonder if something in my radiator system/cooling system had broken or if my upgrades were just too much. That particular day I had my heaviest friend at the time, 350 lbs. or more and his wife coming with us. Not the greatest idea on that big hill in my little four banger.

Within a week I had installed my K&N High Performance Air Filter. In one more week - having noticed my engine running much cooler and smoother since it was getting it's air intake needs met - I set off up the same hill seeking the same religious experience for me and a challenge for my upgraded car. For a High Performance Air Filter really is an upgrade, people don’t realize that it isn’t just the super chargers or modified transmissions, which are upgrades, it’s the little stuff. I wasn't able to get my overweight friend and his wife to come to tax the small engine as I had before – they were too afraid to come! So I did the best I could to test my high performance air filter by throwing all of my tools into the back and taking my beautiful and normally sized wife. So, still being 100 to 200 lbs. short of my last experience, I decided to do my best with my little motor to race up the hill. My car not only dug in with its high performance air filter but it ran cooler going up that hill than it did in every day life! That upgrade for my car, or probably just me, craved the higher RPM’s! After this experience I could get away with higher RPM’s without the over heating consequences! Whenever you need to be into the higher RPM's to get up your car's hills in life, install your high performance air filter made by K&N and get the high performance air filter advantage like I did!

Get yours so you can install yours right away! K&N Performance Filtration(click on the blue words)

Or, maybe you should go and celebrate this Valentine's Day and get your love some treats or flowers, but regardless, if you're nostalgic with me read my comments on how I feel this Valentine's Day!

Find a book that'll help below or once you're there search for anything or Valentine may desire!
Valentine Sweethearts: Flowers - Candy and Kisses (If you aren't after a book be sure to adjust the type of search.)

The True Meaning of Christmas

2008-12-25T02:28:00.010-07:00

If you needed an article more usual to this website go to:

Magnaflow Exhaust and Flowmaster Muffler Advantages, Perks,
and one temporary "draw back"

Other than that, enjoy this article on, "The True Meaning of Christmas"!:

The true meaning of Christmas could be never captured in just one moment of typing, but tonight as I worked on someone's car happily, when I was moments earlier asleep - I think I felt the feeling of what is based on one of the true meanings of Christmas: service.

You see. . . just as we crossed over midnight a woman pulled over on the side of road just outside of my apartment and offered help. Her help wasn't required, but it made for a good feeling that someone cared close to midnight on Christmas Eve. Then, we looked at the time and it was Christmas! Later, right as the car started the first snow of white Christmas restarted. It was magic. This was all brought to us by service - a core principle in the true meaning of Christmas. That service principle is a principle I believe in that connects to every religion I've ever seen, but I especially learned about it as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints. You probably have seen my church's commercials. "Family. Isn't it about time?"

You see, the true meaning of Christmas to me has always included family and when I went to write this article I started creating memories by chatting with my brother in GMail. I've never done that before and it is much better than hotmail's version of chat. Well, since I've written most of this article while chatting with my brother, I hope you don't mind a few more comments about my life as I type - I usually don't do this in articles, even if it is brought to you by blog spot, which is meant for blogging! My 1 1/2 hour conversation with my brother teaches me that I'm right about the true meaning of Christmas being inseparably connected with family time this holiday, because I could spend my graveyard time up in so many ways when I'm off tonight. I had many plans including re-working the grounding wires on my own car, since I've done a dozen other people's cars and that taught me more that I should apply to my own, which is what I originally attended to write on today! I must say that talking to my brother trumps car work and writing this article right now. I don't always feel that way, so I guess what I just learned from all that chat is that family means even more during the holidays.

When I first thought of writing this article for VirileAuto, I was thinking about the upgrades I did on my brother's car 2 days ago and how those grounding wires made that car a lot more powerful and a lot faster - a Christmas gift - but I'm now leaning towards telling my audience to read up on that on my other website, take a break from cars, and just think on this for a minute. What is the true meaning of Christmas to you? Leave your comments. Tell me about your feelings and together we'll do better than we can alone to improve the human condition.

I want to write a full article on the True Meaning of Christmas, but since it is Christmas, I might just do a little more living and get back to you on how I've learned more on this concept today.

Fuel Mileage and all about the author of Virile Auto, Auto Bravado. . .

2008-10-08T00:42:00.038-06:00

Well, Auto Bravado is the author behind Virile Auto. . .

Fuel Mileage has been Auto Bravado's hobby for 10 years.
You'll also find some great advice about fully synthetic motor oil, acetone,
and how these things help with fuel mileage.

My Time Waster in life has an actual purpose. I love feeling the results in my car or truck performing beyond what it did when I first bought it and eventually making it run better than what the manufacturer ever intended. It's like the article that started it all car's miles per gallon says, to get results is to have fun. You see, it isn't just about the fuel mileage for me. When I first got into this as a hobby on my first car 10 years ago I had a theory. The less fuel I use to get my car to go forward the longer it'll last. The reason I believed this, is that every moment an engine is having better fuel mileage is a moment that the explosions occurring in the engine couldn't be wearing out all the parts around it more slowly.

For an example a lot of older vehicles with large engines, fuel injected, or carburetted can work better with a little acetone added in. This works on some cars that are newer, but I wouldn't recommend it on anything smaller than a V6; see more specifics under the acetone heading below. When it comes to adding acetone add just an once or two per ten gallons until you've monitored the results carefully. This has helped Auto Bravado on a Toyota van, and some friend's larger engine vehicles. This really works to get better fuel mileage, but remember my advice to use it on a larger engine; on an experiment I did on a little motor I got 10 miles per gallon! The additional gas damaged my catalytic converter and it took months for the blockage to burn off so I get better than 27 miles per gallon. Ouch! I usually get at least mid 30's in town, let alone the 56 I can get on the freeway in September. (The year before was 55, and the year after was 46, the difference this year being that a needed repair was discovered after the trip - whew, that was lucky.)

A lot of people have been involved in making me who I am, to be able to create autobravado.com. Some of Auto Bravado's credit belongs to one of my good mentor's. My hat is off to the hands of a fuel mileage mentor and the many others who have guided my studies! Some of my fuel mileage tricks came from this Army trained mechanic, now turned almost retired in another industry altogether.

Fuel Mileage has been Auto Bravado's hobby for 10 years. I have always sought efficiency. In the early years I had to get 40 miles per gallon by driving slow and getting smaller engines like on my '89 Nissan Pulsar. This is where this hobby, sometimes obsession, all began. Now, I usually drive a 1.8 liter, designed for a Toyota Celica engine wonder and get more than 40 miles per gallon with 1 normal weighted person, two significantly over weight people, and too much luggage for just a weekend trip. I've discovered enough secrets to realize what professionals taught me years ago to be true. Both better efficiency and/or better fuel mileage creates more power and a better performing engine. That kind of performance engine still gets good, or can get even a better fuel mileage than the little non-optimized smaller engines that I used to drive. If you're after racing, you may spend a lot more gas to get power instead, but these methods are often much more expensive and can make the car last less time rather than more time. Auto Bravado's focus is on efficiency for and on power, but with an unavoidable hint on effiency at VirileAuto, which allows for longer lasting equipment, but even if you're after just pure power these methods have made my Chevy Prizm have incredible acceleration. I've just started to modify my truck and with a base line of 15 miles per gallon in the city (a year later, now 17 in the city! Another 3 months after this Jan '09, I'm up to regularly 18.9, unless I sit with it on idle to diagnose and treat it, which usually gets it back to 17. Watch that idling time, it's a waste of money! This additional 1.9 miles per gallon was based on placing an additional grounding wire, as indicated by my Jalopy article.), I look forward to having the Nissan Frontier 4X4 fully Auto Bravado'ed! Update from September 2009: I've fully applied that grounding wire article to that truck, and I've applied the next article link below, and the spark plug gap article, which can be found after going to the NGK Spark Plug page. This peaked the truck's fuel mileage at 25 and it has settled at an aveage of 21 - exciting!

I was doing research that produced the NGK Spark Plug page, which compares the advantages and disadvantages of this plug versus the Bosch spark plug. Results in the lab were not enough. I used my own truck to ensure the information was accurate. (A picture belonged next to this paragraph with my old hosting, but hopefully that picture can be resurrected from the cyber graveyard. Hey! Resurrected within 20 days of publishing!)

You see, the first time Auto Bravado put gas into the '89 Nissan Pulsar and I knew how far it'd gone, I got 23 miles per gallon. I wanted better fuel mileage. The very next tank I was at 40 miles per gallon; I just used a better oil, and different driving habits (mainly I figured out how to use a manual much better!) and my fuel mileage was much better. I've stuck to the same company since after leaving it a couple times and seeing poorer results every time I just put in fully synthetic for the best performance instead. Mobile 1 makes the best oil based on independent lab tests - or so how it's been told to me - so for an old engine I recommend their regular formula for oil by the Exxon label - same company - and for newer cars - I recommend for the best fuel mileage fully synthetic Mobile 1 for the life of the car. Old dilapidated or Jalopy vehicles tend to break down on synthetics. I'm not sure if it is a myth or it would have broken anyway, but if your engine is already ancient go for the Exxon or mobile regular oil, unless you've used synthetic for years since the engine was still young, like say 50 to 70 thousand miles. To read more about Synthetic Motor Oils click here.

This has been a little about Auto Bravado, if you have any questions or comments about this site please contact us. Forward those ideas to autobravado.com@gmail.com.
Return to home: Auto Bravado or Return to the start of VirileAuto or consider these words of wisdom about acetone and better fuel mileage below:

Put Acetone in your gasoline now to improve your car's or truck's miles per gallon:

Try adding one ounce of acetone per ten gallons of gasoline on V6 engines or larger. If that works try 2 and up to 4 ounces of acetone in gasoline until adding more reduces fuel mileage instead of increasing it. Typically a little more is required when driving at higher speeds. It is best to add it just before gassing up. I would use a glass beaker or measuring cup and a rubber tube to deliver it straight into your gas tank. Don't spill it on your paint, if you do wash it off immediately as it is a stripping agent.

Would you like to learn more from Auto Bravado's article on Acetone in Gasoline first? (Coming Soon! Hey! I finished it!) Click link above.

Remember the goal of Virile Auto? Well, just so you know, at lower RPM's having a bigger exhaust makes it easier to get poorer gas mileage but there is more power at all speeds. One of the ways to minimize the low RPM gas cost of upgrading your exhaust is to make use of Synthetic Motor Oil. After that you can get back to the first trick to understanding your Magnaflow muffler and exhaust tubing, which is to go larger to get more performance and better efficiency, but discover if you are going too far at Flowmaster Muffler.

Flowmaster Muffler

2008-10-02T14:35:00.006-06:00

Flowmaster Muffler and Exhaust

First, I must say that I believed the mechanic installed a Magnaflow exhaust tubing system on my car with a Flowmaster Muffler, but when I originally wrote up this article, I figured it was all Flowmaster.

My 2 and 1/2 inch Flowmaster exhaust is simply a dream in comparison to the 3/4 inch smaller tubes, which were most utterly not a Flowmaster exhaust and muffler in any shape or form. The torque boost that Auto Bravado's car received in gears one through three was incredible. In other words, my acceleration was much better at lower speeds. Having a larger Flowmaster muffler and exhaust should make a small boost in your power on the freeway, but it'll effect your efficiency even more than in the city. My freeway mileage increased from 46 under the best conditions to 56, even if the on board power didn't seem to increase that much. These results were obtained with a 99 Chevy Prizm, any gains you receive on your car or truck will be individual from your Flowmaster muffler and exhaust especially considering that my Chevrolet has had many other modifications for efficiency, which create power. The base line of where you get more power should be about the same regardless of the vehicle's designs. You'll get more torque or acceleration increases out of the lower speeds if you upgrade to a larger exhaust, and an efficiency increase on the freeway.

Can your exhaust tubing and muffler be too big?

Be warned, if you go too much larger with your Flowmaster muffler and exhaust you will actually get a decrease in your mileage. My friend and mentor put a 3 1/2 inch exhaust on his old Dodge truck - a nice boost from the 3 inch it came with, but he also went for dual exhaust from each side of the V engine. That was just a little too much Flowmaster exhaust for the design of that engine! He had to keep his engine at 2000 RPM's just so it wouldn't die. He had unbelievable power, and a lot of fun for a while, but it had made the truck barely drivable. He went back to bringing the Flowmaster exhaust together with one muffler, leaving the 3 and 1/2 inches of tubing and he had the desired effect: more power, and more efficiency, without a down side.

If you liked this article also try reading up on Magnaflow exhaust.

Return to the parent article of Magnaflow Exhaust and Flowmaster Muffler.

Return to Home of AutoBravado: Truck or Car Miles per Gallon

Magnaflow Exhaust

2008-09-29T06:34:00.008-06:00

The first trick to understanding your Magnaflow exhaust tubing is that you’ll want to go larger to get more performance and better efficiency, however, you can go excessively larger, which will actually reduce your power and efficiency.

Magnaflow exhaust tubing size recommendations:

If you’re current tubing is 2 and ½ inches I recommend upgrading to Magnaflow exhauststubing of up to 3 inches. If you are starting with upgrading a car rather than a truck, you’ll probably have anything from 1 and ¾ inches to something a little smaller or bigger. There are so many foreign vehicles, that it useless to predict the exact size. Here is the general advice: go between ¼ inch to ½ larger than your original size and you should experience a richer sound, more power, especially at slower speeds, and usually better efficiency.

Warnings about overdoing the size of your Magnaflow exhaust tubing upgrade:

Magnaflow exhaust, if not done to an extreme, will generally improve the efficiency causing your truck or car miles per gallon to be increased. Generally improved fuel mileage, is all you can ask for because if you use your Magnaflow exhaust upgrade to have a lot of fun and accelerate quickly, you can actually achieve poorer mileage than you ever could have before you upgraded your tubing to a Magnaflow exhaust!

The richer yet louder sound to be expected:

When upgrading to larger exhaust tubing, whether you go with Magnaflow, or other trusted brands available through links provided on this page, you need to be prepared for the louder sound. Some of you will be feeling excited about this, while other’s will be thinking about whether this’ll be worth it. First off, when ever you have new Magnaflow exhaust tubing or larger tubing by any other brand, it’ll start louder when it is first installed, and as time goes on that sound will reduce as carbon from your engine coats that resonating metal into something quieter. Secondly, the gain in efficiency, in this day in age of expensive gasoline, is worth a little noise.

In conclusion:

In conclusion, your engine will last longer and you’ll spend less in gas. Yes, it’ll be louder, but the gains in Auto Bravado’s mind and many of your minds, will conclude that a larger Magnaflow exhaust tubing, which should be and accompanied by a high flow muffler, whether it is by Mangnaflow, or the good folk at Flowmaster and their incredible exhaust’s sound deadening technology, the gains/pros will overturn the losses. The cons of this upgrade being losing a quiet running car (a gain to many of you), which in time quiets up a bit, an inefficient and slower running vehicle, along with inferior performance, and excessive use of gasoline. This article has been brought to you by the brand new, power for your vehicle grabbing, VirileAuto!

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