Howard, this reminds me of a product called "Brock Pellets" which were popular about 25 years ago at the time when leaded petrol was being phased out and car owners were concerned that they would have to go to the trouble and expense of fitting hardened valve seats to the cylinder heads of their engines in order to run on unleaded fuel without the risk of valve seat recession. The vendors claimed that the action of these pellets was catalytic when placed in the fuel tank of the vehicle, and for proof claimed that they were first developed to enable WW II Hurricane fighter planes sent to Russia to run reliably on the abysmal fuel available at that time in that country. They were quite expensive to buy, but were very popular. Did they work? Well, proponents and enthusiastic users said certainly they did, whereas the more cynical of us in the Trade were not wholly convinced. AFAIK, the discussions are still rumbling on in obscure parts of the internet.

Dad showed me an article about forty years ago – I think it was in the Civil Service Motoring Association magazine – reviewing a number of fuel-saving devices. The author found that they were all as effective as their makers claimed but also found that as a result he could no longer use his car.

The problem was that they saved so much fuel that every time he used it, he ended up with petrol flooding out of the filler cap.

George

Of course these things work. You, selling it, say that often enough and there will always be some mug who will buy it. After all the idea is that you get the money. The one I liked was a transparant paint that you used on your numberplate so that it could not be read by a speed camera. My mate fell for that one.

However there is a fuel additive that will clean carbon out of engines. It was developed for the American military for another purpose (successfully) but was found to clean, remove, carbon deposited in a jet engine. General Electric, so impressed, bought the company that developed it and licensed production in Europe to Shell. I have sometimes wondered if it is in Shell V-Power that I occassionally use.

I think FTC is probably a con, it offers too much.

JA

Edited By JA on 16/07/2022 17:19:45

I think the “screws-in-a-box” may have some merit.

I believe dad used a button for each spark plug. Maybe only on the weak pot, perhaps?

This was on the old Fordson standard, which had a not-so-strong magneto and the old girl easily oiled the plugs and soon only ran on three. Never required on anything else with a magneto.

The reasoning behind it was to strengthen the ignition spark by raising the voltage/energy before the spark was transferred to the plug electrode gap. I don’t suppose they thought of the reason – and simply did it to improve the engine operation.

I do know that we could hear the old fordson from a long way off – by the interference on the telly, and possibly on the wireless. The tractors with Bosch magnetos did not interfere with the telly.

You can get oiled plugs to fire (Chrysler 180) by pulling the lead off the offending plug about a 1/4", the extended spark ups the voltage no end, the down side is you might twitch a bit and you will need a new coil at some point soon.

Anyone remember the 'Economiser' looked like a pressure regulator.

I used a device on my car in the 60’s it was called the GM Manifold Modifier, ( developed by a gentleman called George Mangoletsi if I remember correctly ) it consisted of a plate shaped to fit between the carburettor and the inlet manifold, it incorporated an annular groove that formed an undercut of a small protrusion that extended into the inlet manifold, this annular groove was connected by a small drilling which admitted air from outside into the inlet manifold. The purpose of the device was to supposedly mix air from the groove with any neat fuel that was running down the walls of the carburettor into the inlet manifold, carburettors on standard cars were notoriously inefficient in those days in producing a homogeneous mixture, if you wanted an efficient carburettor then you threw away the standard device and graduated to such as Weber or Dell Orto for better performance. The GM device actually weakened the fuel air mixture by the introduction of the air from outside and in the process produced a more homogeneous mixture which smoothed the running of the engine. I had one fitted on a side valve engined 1954 Ford Popular and later another on a 1970 Ford Cortina 1300, I remember that on both cars the engines ran smoother with the device fitted and there was a small increase in overall fuel economy so in my case I was convinced that there was some engineering reason for the device and it wasn’t Snake Oil. Dave W

You have to remember that a carburettor is guaranteed to give the wrong mixture under all conditions of load and speed. Some were worse than others.

Chap I worked with put those magic beans in his tank on a Ford engine in a kit car. Didn't stop valve seats regressing into the head, after a few 10s of thousands of miles he had to have inserts

Edited By duncan webster on 16/07/2022 23:15:30

This thread is like going back to the 1980's when, among "petrolheads", discussions about devices to mitigate the effects of unleaded fuel were frequent as were discussions on fuel economy.

My employer had extensive engine and engine component testing facilities. We were asked to test a device that fitted in the inlet manifold that, so the guy who had "invented" it, would improve fuel economy.

An engine was run without for him to see its performance, then the device fitted and the engine run through exactly the same run. There was a very slight improvement in economy, this was enough for him to believe what he had been telling himself.

Examination of the the data from the test soon explained why. Atmospheric pressure had risen over the hour or so it had taken to fit the device. This explained the better(!) fuel economy. The guy dismissed that as irrelevant.

A few weeks later we noticed that as part of his advertising he claimed that ********** had tested it, true but the wording implied that *********** said it improved fuel consumption. A legal exchange ensued and the claims removed,

We tried to get sellers of the catalyst time devices to send us and examples of their products for testing, none were forthcoming………….

Mangoletsi is a name I haven't heard of in a long time, I see they are still in business selling a range of tuning parts.