Scientific paper on PEA

[rjacket]

For those who have wanted to see some scientific facts, here is an SAE research paper I found.

Note it's a scan and it has even pages before odd pages.

Something I found interesting is that the deposits were found to increase all the way to and then stabilize between 16000km and 32000km (10k to 20k in miles) of driving and that the additive seems to do best when soaking.

I also found that the duration of the additive benefit is stated as 4800km which equals 3000 miles!

So that's why all the fuel additives say to use every 3000 miles!

Lots more to read!

SAE paper on PEA

 

[ltslimjim]

Best when soaking, define that. Long-time in the system?

 

[friendly_jacek]

Thanks for posting this. Is this just me or is it very hard to read such a poor quality bootlegged text?

Good to know if it works. Interesting comment about "soak or commute" cycle (whatever that means) working better.

The most interesting thing is the 70% increase in 40C oil viscosity after 5 consecutive treatments.

I guess the take home message is use PEA when driving in city and right before oil change.

Many people were saying this, now I see why.

 

[rjacket]

It's obviously a tough read but the paper answers the above questions and has so much more interesting info.

The soak cycle was simulating commuting type driving. Half an hour to work in the morning, let the engine cool, half an hour back to home. This was done for a couple of thousand km and found to be more effective than continous driving where they left the engine running non stop, simulating a long freeway drive.

That's why there are no instructions on PEA cleaners as to how to drive ie it's best to drive normally. Indeed, if you have a need for the product because of carbon build up, it's likely you do short journeys, which paradoxically is the best way to use the product for cleaning!

I also think that this is the original Chevron study because they had a large scale employee trial at Chevron.

Something that came out of that employee trial was 2 cases of spark plug fouling (out of 428 total employees) and 1 case of fuel filter plugging. The spark plug fouling came in cars that had seen a lot of stop and go. The lesson here, as well as from the results presented elsewhere in the paper, is to be gentle with the cleaning. No need to go for shock treatments because while higher concentrations do work, they don't work double if you put double in.

On that topic, see the section on how multiple treatments affected cleanup rates and on what engine areas. That analysis starts on page 9. It basically says a couple of key things:

Throttle body gets cleaned the most
About 3 treatments with 0.5% additive gets you to the same place as 5 treatments with 0.2% additive

Now this study is quite old. I wonder what improvements have been made since then, especially since most PEA cleaners say they will clean in a single tank.

What I'm taking away from this is:

1) More shorter journeys will result in a more effective clean
2) Chevron or Texaco gas is a good idea as they have PEA not just top tier detergents
3) Doing some sort of ongoing smaller dosing maintenance is also a good idea

 

[rjacket]

Now onto how much PEA do you need.

They found that there was not much more impact above the 0.3% level. This is exactly what multiple manufacturers say about using higher doses ie it might not make a difference.

In a 20 gallon tank, 0.3% amounts to 7.68oz of PEA.

In a 20oz bottle of PEA cleaner, you would therefore need 38.4% PEA.

 

[GMorg]

And yet, many people still think that treating the tank before a long trip is the best strategy. Long retention time due to light usage seems to be the better way to go.

 

[Capa]

Many thanks for the link. This is exactly what many of us have been looking for!

 

[mongo161]

Nice find and a very good read.

I have not been an advocate of shocking a fuel system with fuel system cleaners. I use the "low dose at every fill up" method of maintaining my fuel system.

3 ounces of Chevron Techron Fuels System Cleaner or 3 ounces of the SOPUS, Gumout/Regane, "Original", fuel system cleaner in 12 ounce bottle to each fill up of 15 gallons of unleaded gasoline.

In addition, I do add some top oil to the mix to help try and combat the dying effects of ethanol blended gasoline. This is especially true of the winter blended gasoline. This is just my personal preference....others feel differently.

IMO....the top oil will help to keep the fuel pump, injectors, fuel line well lubed and hopefully offset the damaging effects of ethanol in today's gasoline.

 

[rjacket]

I like the maintenance dose idea. Why wait 3000 miles until you're back to where you started from?

It would be good to have something scientific on what is a maintenance dose. But perhaps the amount of Techron is Chevron is all we need? I mean a lot of the recommendations we have gotten from manufacturers are based directly from research.

I also read once that detergents in gas leave deposits so the best advice is to change your top tier gas station as detergents differ from brand to brand. Perhaps this is why some who have used top tier still need to use PEA cleaner.

The only detergent that doesn't leave deposits is PEA so it is possible that using Chevron exclusively is the best strategy.

 

[Vikas]

This is a great paper! I am wondering when it was published. Reading some of the results from that paper leads me to believe that this was published during the BMW walnut shell-blasting era i.e. when the gasoline quality in this country was quite poor and when the fuel injection was first showing up.

The paper claimed that in 16K kilometers, a new engine which needed 87 octane in the beginning had deteriorated to needing 98 octane. I just do not believe this has been true for last twenty years.

- Vikas

 

[rjacket]

1983

Official download link

And it was Chevron research as I suspected!

 

[Loobed]

Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek
Thanks for posting this. Is this just me or is it very hard to read such a poor quality bootlegged text?

Good to know if it works. Interesting comment about "soak or commute" cycle (whatever that means) working better.

The most interesting thing is the 70% increase in 40C oil viscosity after 5 consecutive treatments.

I guess the take home message is use PEA when driving in city and right before oil change.

Many people were saying this, now I see why.


I had run 3 doses of Gumout Regane during one oil change and my 10w-30 came out a 40 weight. I wonder if the PEA had anything to do with it.

 

[91344George]

That is the same study I have looked at years ago.

That is where I found out that only PEA (at least up to the past decade...was the ONLY gasoline detergent additive that cleaned but did NOT leave it's own residue behind in the process causing build up to remain after the carbon was cleaned like all other detergents do. Maybe still do.

Probably one of the biggest reasons why PEA should be the preferred gas additive detergent vs others.

 

[rjacket]

Thanks to XB70 here's a clearer copy which I managed to put in the right page order

Download Link

 

[Vikas]

Aha! Almost thirty year old paper but still very useful.

 

[thescreensavers]

So the paper talks about a few different concentrations but for instance 0.1%, 0.3% and 0.5% concentrations of PEA.

If someone where to use Redline Si-1 which contains 4.5oz-7.5oz of PEA

And then they were to dump a whole bottle of 15oz into 20 Gallons this would be

0.18% - 0.293% of PEA concentration

0.1% of 20 gallons is 2.56 oz
0.3% of 20 gallons is 7.68 oz
0.5% of 20 gallons is 12.8 oz

3oz of redline = 0.9 oz - 1.50 oz of PEA
6oz of redline = 1.8 oz - 3.00 oz of PEA

3oz of 20 Gallons = 0.035% - 0.059% PEA Concentration
6oz of 20 Gallons = 0.070% - 0.117% PEA Concentration

 

[drfuelinstein]

If PEA is so good? Then why this?

http://www.autoobserver.com/2011/06/direct-injection-fouls-some-early-adopters.html

Has anybody read any papers or reports that absolutlely identify the scientific causal mechanism for carbon deposits developing in the IC engine?

 

[Garak]

That's because the detergents, either in the gasoline or the PEA additive, don't have any contact with the fouled surfaces in the DI engines. Top Tier gas won't help. Nor will a PEA additive.

The article you linked explains it. "With DI engines, the fuel gets injected directly into the combustion chamber, so there isn't a chance for the deposits to wash away."

 

[Errtt]

Good read.
I almost always use Chevron, once in awhile something else and that would make Shell second, various 3rd.
I had been using a mix of Redline S-1, Techron, and a touch of MMO.
Now I'm down to using the S-1 & Techron mix as a maintainer. I just mixed another bottle today of 6oz S-1 & 2oz Techron. Then I'll use 2 or so ounces of the mix to about 10 gallons of gas as a maintainer.
I think besides using a maintainer dose for now, come next oil change I'll dump a full bottle of S-1 for the tank come just before next oil change, then continue with a maintainer dose after that. I would use just the S-1, but also have several bottles of techron that needs to be used up too. Down the road when I'm out of Techron, I'll probably stick to using just the S-1 for it's PEA and UCL properties.

 

[antiqueshell]

The only thing that might help is using a induction type application of a cleaner containing PEA like the 3M kit.

The only way the PEA will hit the surfaces of the combustion parts is though the induction system. I'd be interested to hear about folks using this route to clean.