No BULL...Mothballs in gastank.

J

jonnyz16

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Kapolei , Hawaii
#1
Well with high octane gas reaching 2.30 a gal. the local news just ran a story about a mechanic who likes to put mothballs in his tank and recommends it to all his customers. [ohcrap] He says you'll get from 1 to 2 more mpg or even double your mileage depending on the car.and better performance .It has to be 5 mothballs to 1 gal of gas and put the balls in before filling up so it'll dissolve...it has to be the old style mothballs with something call naphelyt or something close to that..

the funny thing , or should I say, the funnier thing is the news crew interviewed a guy who swears by it and he 's driving an E30 cabrio and it looks cherry. He says he gets 4 more mpg...

This isn't a joke you non-believers [:D] anybody heard of this or am I gonna get flamed big-time?? [slap]
 
Kirby

Kirby

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It's true. This is an old trick that we used in go kart racing. In certain classes/races, to prevent illegal use of fuel additives they did a " pump around". Basically everybody's gas was drained, mixed and tanks refilled so that everybody had the same fuel mix. But if you could rig a mothball in the tank without being seen, it gave a little extra boost. The mothball disolves in gas. I think it is naptha that adds the boost?

But a go kart engine is one thing, my bimmer is another thing..... no mothballs for my bimmer!
 
B

Big Daddy

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While I have no idea if it did anything for us, as teenagers we use to drop three moth balls into a tank of gas in our "hot rods". I had also heard that too many would cause us to burn our valves. Okay we need a chemist to pipe up here! (Oh yeah, I have never placed any in the gas tank of my Bimmer and do not think I ever will!)
 
jrt67ss350

jrt67ss350

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He he - I did my BS in chemistry! One of the chemicals in mothballs is napthalene. Napthalene is a flammable solid. It's basically two benzene rings hooked together so that they share a carbon-carbon bond. It's got a high flash point and it doesn't autoignite until 979 degrees F in the solid form. However, it would dissolve in gasoline.

The other chemical in mothballs is 1,4-dichlorobenzene. This is a combustible solid that would also dissolve in gasoline. However, it is incompatible with aluminum!! I don't think I'd be wanting to take the chance of running any of this stuff through an aluminum cylinder head, even though it probably wouldn't do anything. It's also a carcinogen, but so is stuff in gasoline. It produces some nasty harmful byproducts when burned.

These are not complex molecules by any means - they are both basically simple derivatives of benzene (paint thinner). I would certainly think that any effect they have would be very negligible.
 
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