[Marko_SJ]

Lucas. Its got what zuks crave.

[Gwagensteve]

Grags wrote:

you still say it's smoke and mirrors with no science on improving the product behind it?
Seriously?

Yep. Mostly. The product doesn't need improving without other pressures, because it's what our cars re built to run. What's the economic incentive to produce a better fuel*?

Pressure to improve fuel quality is mostly driven by legislation. The biggest recent investment by Mobil at Altona was to reduce the level of sulphur and benzene in fuels. This was demanded by legislation. Mobil didn't upgrade their plant to do this voluntarily. They are voluntarily spending money to improve the efficiency of the plant and to permit them to refine a wider range of crude feedstock.

The same legislation resulted in the closure of Shell's Sydney refinery as the refinery couldn't economically produce the required quality around 10 years ago.

Look up the history of refining. Fuels with sufficient octane to run high compression engines with adequate anti-knock characteristics and lubricity have been with us for nearly 100 years. Subsequent advances have all been about increasing yield and have lately been about improving cleanliness.

Fuels are blended DOWN to meet requirements. The cracker doesn't produce 91 octane one day and 98 the next - it produces a base product that the various grades are blended out of. If R&D produced a super mega-fuel with incredible octane and anti-knock characteristics, that would permit the manufacturers to blend more off spec and waste products into the fuel and still have it meet the minimum legislated requirements. This is what ALL refineries do. Occaisionally, they get this wrong and release off-spec products to the public.

In California, fuels are legislated to contain ethanol - another example of the government telling refineries what they will produce.

The mysterious "additive pack" as, has already been explained, is a basic chemical product that's give or take, the same product everyone is using and applying to their premium products. The fact it's mysterious and their descriptions full of vague ad-speak is the proof their being dreamt up by marketing people, not scientists.

*Remember when Shell marketed 100 octane in Australia? It had 5% ethanol in it to assist in boosting octane. It was, by all accounts, a "higher quality" fuel. A tiny number of cars could exploit the increased octane, but the improved performance was very hard to detect. What was easy to detect was the increased fuel consumption due to the lower thermal efficiency. It tanked, if you'll excuse the pun.

[jdk81]

Just because it needed to be posted again

Marko_SJ wrote:

Lucas. Its got what zuks crave.

[Marck]

I think it was last month Vic almost ran out of JETA1 (aeroplane jet fuel) because the shipment from Singapore failed to meet standard.

[jdk81]

Should they have just used a bottle of lucas?

What's you point?