fuel additives

Scott is kind of a hack IMHO at least I disagree with or don't particularly care for most of his opinions.

Check out Project Farms much more scientific testing.

https://youtu.be/agAWXnT4-EQ

I've done my own test and while Seafoam is a good tool and can help a decent engine clean up a little bit it's no miracle.

Personally as far as fuel additives go I have found Startron enzyme treatment helps with gunking and what not from ethanol fuel.



I try to run ethanol free petrol whenever possible I honestly think that is by far the best "additive" is subtracting ethanol.

 

I used Amsoil PI on my 2017 Chevy 2500 @ 50k miles and it actually had noticeable results. Never tried on the Taco (only owned for about a month)

 

Marvel Mystery Oil, a few times each year in all my gasoline engines. Never any problems.

 

I have no idea which one of these additives work, how well they work and under what circumstances they might, or might not help.
I have however, put a lot of miles on several vehicles without the use of any of them.

1996 F-150 work truck - nearly 400K miles with no fuel system related problems on the engine side. 99% of these miles were put on the truck burning no-name 87 octane purchased from the BBQ joint down the road from my house.

Two first gen Tundra work trucks - 300K miles+ on each, with no fuel system related problems. Fuel for these vehicles was 87 octane, purchased wherever convenient.

Just my 2¢, but that's million miles of experience.

Just not needed on a daily driver, IMO.

Shit that sits around - different story, obviouly.

 

Hard to argue results like that lol. For me it actually got me about 1.25 mpg better. On a truck that was averaging 10.9 that was great news. I would agree I don't think they necessarily help the longevity of engine but could SLIGHTLY help performance. Not using shit gas is probably the biggest helper.

 

How did your fuel system get dirty?

 

That guy is a joke. I once subscribed to his channel and I had enough after just a week. 99% clickbait, 1% content.

 

I put the gas in the tank. Just as it comes out of the pump. No snake oil no stabilizers.

 

It's not so much that you have a "dirty" fuel system; it is about carbon build up. Specifically, it is the intake valves that is the problem area. I had an E-30 BMW 3 series and they were very prone to carbon build up on the intake valves. There would still some unburned gas on the intake valves when you shut the car off and the high residual engine heat would cause carbon build up on the valves over time. You had to be pretty religious about running some good intake cleaner like Techron or that BG-44 stuff through the engine periodically, or the carbon build up would get bad enough where the engine would start to run like crap. At that point, you had to do one of those special intake cleaning procedures to clear the build up from the valve seating surfaces to get the engine to run right again.

So, are more modern engines prone to this same issue; I really don't know. But old habits are hard to break and I still run a bottle or two of Techron through my engines each year.

 

The mechanics at work use this on our company vehicles:

Archoil - Nano Technology For Your Engine

For gas and diesel. They swear their has been a notable difference since using it.

Ive been tempted but still on the fence.

 

so .... hypothetically of course ... would one run the 12 or 20 oz bottle for a first application?

 

I assume you are referring to the small or large bottles of Techron. With the Taco having a 21 gallon tank, you definitely want to use the bigger bottle. And if you truck has a decent number of miles on it, I would run two consecutive bottles through your engine. After that, then maybe once or twice a year as PM.

 

Remember, the Taco has a cleaning cycle it put's it's Fuel Injectors through on a fairly regular basis.

The only fuel additive I use is StaBil for ATV's or cars which are going to sit for longer than 30 days. I also always use name-brand gasoline.

 

I do my best to use Chevron fuel whenever I can, thankfully there are a lot of their stations in northern California. I do occasionally add a dose of Lucas fuel additive to a full tank of fuel.

 

http://www.starbrite.com/item/star-tron-gasoline-additive
I run a part of a bottle through everything I have that uses ethanol-based fuel about twice a year. There are many anecdotal reports (some even from the older generation mechanics in my family) that swear it has brought back old gunked up engines from the grave when nothing else worked. Cheap insurance so why not? Oh, and also Techron about once a year since I can't afford brand-name gas and Arco is a BP company since 2000 anyway.

Slightly off-topic, I've noticed more and more gas stations starting to have a non-ethanol pump available, such as Safeway, anyone else seeing this? Or is it just a WA state tribal lands only thing? I can't see those invisible map lines that denote what is tribal property and what isn't so I never know...

 

Have my 2nd gen garaged and do not drive it often. Would StaBil be something one would add to garaged vehicles?

I plan on idling the truck at least twice a month. Should I install a battery charging device too?

 

If you want to keep your battery working for decades you should. I drive my vehicles a few times a month on short jaunts and keep a charger on them all the time.

I only put Stabil in the motorcycle when it gets put up for the winter (with a full tank of gas to avoid condensation, ethanol-free is best) and in my generator that gets used a couple of times every 2 or 3 years. However I do run Seafoam in all of them also so that probably helps. Mostly it's to keep the ethanol from sitting in the hoses and pipes and gunking everything up, kinda like old folks taking a baby aspirin daily I guess...

 

Life in the Twenty-First Century "pro-tip": i just added that to my Amazon subscribe & save items. (1) 20 oz. jug every 6 months.

i am such a hot shit sometimes .....

 

It wouldn't hurt, same with adding a trickle charger (such as a Battery Tender) to the battery. I think the longest my Taco has sat without moving since I've owned it is three weeks so I haven't seen the need to add anything to my tank or connect it to a battery charger.

 

I use techron big jug few times a year it helps on acceleration and mpgs