Richard Gosling wrote:
> James,
>
> It's amazing what pointless gadgets people will try and sell you!!
>
> Numero Uno - The fuel catalyst. I remember several of these things
> appearing a few years ago, in the run-up to the banning of leaded petrol.
> They claim to catalytically 'modify' the fuel (i.e. the material encourages
> the fuel to change without itself being affected), so that it works like
> leaded fuel. It is complete bollocks, some might even consider it a con.
> Their 'proof' relies on a number of testimonials from previous customers,
> all purporting to be delighted. All of these cars no doubt have survived
> well on the well-documented and proven 'lead memory' effect (whereby lead
> impregnated into the metal after many years of leaded fuel use continues to
> give protection for some time after unleaded has started to be used), and
> would have gone on just as well whether or not the Fuel Cat was used.
>
> The MG Owners Club offered to organise and support an independant test (to
> be conducted by car industry testers MIRA) whereby 3 Midgets (I think) all
> with brand new heads would be run - one with 4-star, one with unleaded, one
> with unleaded and the fuel cat. The Fuel Cat suppliers were asked to pay
> for it, on the basis that the sales benefits of a scientific test and
> recommendation by the MGOC (50,000 members) would be well worth it. The
> manufacturers declined, draw your own conclusions.
>
> When the FBHVC were testing fuel additives (in a similar method to that
> described above), the manufacturers of several of these Fuel Cat devices
> were also invited to submit their products for testing - none did. Draw
> your own conclusions. Interestingly, none of the major petrol companies
> submitted their LRPs to these tests either.
I wasn't too sure about this one. I came to the conclusion that I'd never heard
of
it before - and if it really did work then everybody would be using it - and I
would
have heard about it.
>
>
> Numero Duo - Well, I haven't heard of this one before, but I have my
> doubts... Firstly, the coil will not be re-charged between each of these 5
> little sparks, so you will get 5 sparks that are 1/5 as strong. Secondly,
> how do the 4 sparks after the first one help? If the first one succeeded in
> igniting the fuel, the other will not affect anything. There have been cars
> with more than one spark plug in the past - early Rolls-Royces (redundancy
> reasons mainly, so the car will still work if one ignition system fails),
> and recent Alfa Romeos (but their second spark fires on the exhaust stroke,
> I believe, to aid combustion of remaining hydrocarbons in the exhaust to
> improve emissions). If having a sequence of sparks had any real benefit,
> car manufacturers the world over would be doing it right now. They aren't.
I came to the same conclusion here - why isn't everyone using it?
The demonstation was in the way of some sort of flammable liquid - which he
poured
on to the upright spark plug - the traditional spark would make the liquid
ignite -
however using the "spitfire" the flame was much larger. What came to mind as I
watched this magician at work was that the conditions in an engine are
different -
firstly it's under pressure - and "contained" - so as you say the one spark
would
ignite the whole lot.
>
>
> Still, it's amusing to see people try to sell this tat. Even more amusing
> to watch poor innocent sods part with their money for it, as long as it's
> not someone you know...
>
> Richard and Daffy
>
Another ingenious device was a device that allows you to rotate you car on its
side
- you basically attach 2 c shaped pieces of metal to the wheels on one side -
and
you then use this lifting device that's powered by a power drill.
James
1977 Pimento Red Spit
/// spitfires@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
|