Diesel Fuel Conditioner/Additive?

[BARNMAR]

I'm a new diesel owner--2005 GMC 3500 4X4 Duramax 6600--and wish to know which fuel Conditioner/Additive is recommended/best. Saw my dealer today and it was suggested I use the 'World Blend' Lubricity Formula from Standyne--one pint/470 ml treats 470 litres of fuel. Any suggestions or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks.

[winemaker]

I have neither a suggestion or recommendation. I'll piggyback on your question. I use Howe's. What say you about this and others? Brett

[More Power]

Your dealer gave you some good advice. However, I might be more inclined to use the Stanadyne Performance Formula, which in addition to added lubricity, contains other ingredients such as injector cleaner, fuel stabilizer, gell protection, and cetane improver. The added cetane could help increase fuel economy just enough to pay for the cost of treating the fuel. Then, the other benefits are basically free.

Jim

[BARNMAR]

Thanks to 'More Power' and 'winemaker' for your inputs. Will look for the 'Performance Formula'. Anybody got a Part # for this in Canada?

[tommac95]

Might look:

http://www.dieselpage.com/add1.htm

http://www.dieselpage.com/art0898sg.htm

http://www.stanadyne.com/new/ppt/ppt_dfa.asp

[Robyn]

What I have to offer might seem over simplistic to some but here goes.
Toss in a pint of ATF shake well and get on with your business at hand.
Been doing this for years and its cheap and it works well.
You can buy ATF at almost any supermarket too.
The type really dont matter either, you are buying a little lubricity and some detergents is all.
I discussed this with our local pump shop and the fellow smiled and said in a hushed voice "me too but I make money selling the trick stuff so be quiet"

Just my 2 cents worth

Robyn

[rustyk]

One can't depend on the additives used in ATF; detergents can be finely-divided barium- or calcium-ash.

I don't use it in my diesels, period.

As I've mentioned on this forum before, "Oil's cheaper than metal."

While I'll be the first to declare that when it come to lubricants, injector pump engineers ain't the brightest lights in the chandelier, but neither are they stupid. They recommend what works.

Rather than ATF, I stick with ashless (as most are ) 2-cycle oil.

[DmaxMaverick]

While I will agree that 2 cycle oil is probably a better option, ATF didn't cause any negative effects in my '85 Blazer. It has about 250K worth of ATF miles. Same IP and injectors. I used the cheapest stuff I could find. I've used it in other Diesel engines, but the Blazer is the longest I've run it.

[Robyn]

I have used the ATF trick in my 500 Cat for 525K now and it purs just as good now as the day I first sat in the drivers seat.
The mileage is still right at 6 on a light to moderate freeway grade at 55 mph
I have used the stuff in 6.2's as well as 6.5's
ATF is bassically a 7 Wt hydraulic oil with of course the detergent additives and it does have friction modifiers that act on the paper products in the tranny to make them work better. (yes the clutch lining in many is a paper product although some are a metalic base)
If one looks at the metal to metal contact in an auto tranny, there is a lot of it and it runs at fairly high heat too and ATF does the job of keeping it happy for many thousands of miles.

After asking the pros at the pump shop that have been through all the tech schools what they thought, the response was as I mentioned in an earlier post, sssshhhhhhhhhhh we make good $$$$$ on the trick stuff.

2 cycle oil might be a little better in some ways as it is designed to go through the combustion process BUT the stuff is spendy and not always available at the mini mart travel centers that many folks fuel up at when out and about.

As is with many patent snake oil products, if you are happy with what you are using you should stick with it.
I use STP in all my rigs and always have, many hate the stuff and trash it every chance they get. I have seen several engines that have had mega miles put on them after using it and then torn down and look like new inside.

My personal opinion is that there ARE good products on the market for just about everything and along with these go a bushell basket full of HYPE and salesmanship.
How does one really know without a track record to look at?
Maverick has had great success with ATF as have I and tooooooo many truckers that have used it for years without failure.
This speaks far louder to me than a company's hype on a product that you know they are making a huge profit on.

ATF has my vote.
Best to all
Robyn

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

The original question was from a DMax guy, but most of the replies have been from us folks with older 6.2/6/5 iron. So, I

[DmaxMaverick]

Thanks for getting us back on track, Moondoggie. He is refering to his Duramax equipped truck.

I agree, and I do not (and would not, unless no other option is available) use ATF in my Duramax. I use the PS additive in my '01, and used Stanadyne, Howes, STP (blue bottle) and PS in my Blazer for the last 150K. I would recommend a good additive designed/marketed as an additve in these late models.

[Robyn]

One thing to consider here, the Dmax has a common rail system with electronically controlled injectors.
The rail runs at about 20,000 PSI and the squirts open and close as directed by the ECM to fuel the beast.
In theory the DMAX will need less additives other than to keep the nozzles and such clean.

The 6.2/6.5 family on the other hand has for the most part a two part system with a rotary pump with a lot of metal parts that mate with other pieces.
The injectors also have several machined parts that work together and can be affected greatly by the fuel.

The DMAX is by far a simpler system in that the injection is not done by mechanical means where as the 6.5 family uses a mechanical pumping action with the electronics to control the amount of fuel each plunger is given to pump..

The Ford system is a HEUI (Hydraulic Electric Unit Injection) and uses engine oil under high pressure to fire the injectors at the precise time and the electronics control both the firing time and the amount of fuel delivered.

As many of you know I am not a real fan of the highly advanced electronics but the DMAX gets my vote as the simplest and most likely the easiest system to keep working.

To sum this up, the addition of tranny fluid should have absolutely no negative effect on the system whatever.
This system is very similar to the CAT System other than the Cat uses the cam to run the injectors.

Having the Dmax operating without the use of the cams to run the injectors will greatly prolong the life of the overhead and all its drive train.
I would not hesitate to use ATF even in DMAX.
Now this is my personal opinion and is always subject to a poke here or there but thats how I see it.

Best to ya
Robyn

[jbplock]

There has been quite a bit of discussion on this topic over the last several years ... For another perspective on ATF use see the post by George Morrison in the following thread ...

atf and fuel

[Robyn]

This is very interesting.
I have over 30,0000 hours on my 500 Cat now and have been running ATF regularly and never an issue.
I am wondering what sort of engine this one Morrison is refering to.
The Kitty cat seems to care less.
Mavericks 6.2 loved it.
Hmmmm I would really like to have more info on this issue just to see what actually was happening and why.
I have run ATF in my 94 6.5 and all seems well too and have done so in every one I have owned.
This is a very intriguing point and deserves more snooping.
It very well may have something to do with the particular engine and injector setup.
Another thought has crossed my mind !!!
I have been inside of too many auto trannies to think about and I have never seen any "RED STAIN" as was mentioned in the article.
Could this engine issue have been due to running high sulfur off road fuel that is dyed red.
The off road stuff will leave more deposits than the on road green stuff.
Possibly with the addition of the ATF to the red diesel there may be a connection.

The one thing that caught my eye was RED STAIN Tranny fuid does not leave a red stain that I have ever seen but off road diesel leaves a tell tale tracer behind that is easy to follow.
I get checked in the big truck regularly by IRS agents that dip the fuel tanks at the truck scales. They explained that the red fuel will leave enough tracer that even if you have fueled a couple times with the green that they can still tell if you have been cheating.
Just a thought.

Robyn

[Robyn]

News FLASH
I am changing my position on this debate.
I spent about half an hour last night on the phone with a long time friend who works as a chemist in the oil industry.
I asked him about the ATF issue.
His reply was, " years ago the ATF worked better than most of the stuff that was out there and the truckers pretty much did well with it in the old high sulfur fuel" ( The sulfur was a good lubricant itself) Aslo it seems that the ATF adds very little in the way of lubricity.

Today with the low sulfur stuff we have, the addition of ATF actually adds sulfur and a whole host of other stuff that the oil companies have worked to get rid of.
Hmmmm Pay high prices for low sulfur fuel then go adding stuff to it that is working against the manufactures hard work. Swift !!!!!!!

I am going to rethink what I do from this point on with the ULSD especially on the Big rig.
Them suckers with the IRS can probably tell if there has been strange stuff poured into the fuel and I definately dont need any "Imperial Entanglements"

My position at this point is going to be one of using whatever the pump,engine or maker of the rig says it likes to eat.

But as usual this can all change if I find that I have been given a bunch of bogus info that is politically motivated rather than scientific.

Robyn heads off to get a case of Stanadyne pump soup.

Carry on troops
Robyn

[jbplock]

Here's an informative post on sulfur by Dr. Lee ...

Sulfur: Good, Bad or Ugly?

[Robyn]

Very interesting reading.
The sulfuric acid I was aware of but not the other goodies in our lube oil.
I wonder about stuff like Amzoil???

[rustyk]

First off, sulfur is a very good lubricant, so its presence in ATF is of minor concern (though I'm totally surprised it would show up in that product). Reports (see the links) of carbonaceous deposits on injector tips are not a bit surprising, as most ATF uses paraffinic base stock, and that's the usual result.

Robyn's chemist friend was a bit off-base - ATF does add some lubricity. BTW, in the oil industry, "lubricity" is frequently thrown around, but it really has no definition! As far as her positive experiences with Cats and ATF, I'm not surprised - Caterpillar engines are far above comparison with the GM 6.2/6.5L diesels. And their designs are made with harsh operating conditions in mind.

And robyn's absolutely right about friction modifiers - in the old days, the slip-stick differential for Type A (evolved into Dexron) and Type F (M2C33 - evolved into Mercon) had opposite slip-stick differentials, which is why misapplication would result in AT failures. The Type A
had friction modifiers that caused the friction to decrease as the parts reached the same speed, so the shift was smooth. Type F modifiers' friction increased as the parts reached the same speed, so a crisper shift occurred.

In any event, to go back to my prior post, although Stanadyne is unlikely to employ lube geniuses, the engineers aren't dumb, and they've figured out what works, so I'll stick with that.

BTW, Dr. Lee's posts on additives are accurate and useful. What he didn't elaborate on is that STP's VI improver, which unless the formula has been radically changed, is polyisobutylene, a molecule of which at low temps is coiled up (acting like a low-vis isomer), but at higher temps, uncoils and acts like a higher-vis isomer. The problem is that polyisobutylene at higher temps is so large that it is physically fractured in shear, and the fragments show up as carbonaceous deposits - in ringbelts and on valves. So his observations recommending the use of products with less VI improver and more ZDP is spot-on. Unfortunately, one can't depend on the makers of additives to notify consumers when altering a product formula.

To robyn's query about Amsoil, being a reformed lube engineer, I'm suspect of any product that doesn't provide formulation data or at least a chart of standard ASTM or SAE test results; anything less is hype, IMHO. Testimonials are nice, but are generally unsupported by rigorous test conditions or testers knowlegeable enough to control specifics. Few accounts of testimonials are likely to include negative reports. They are, however, better than nothing.

[Robyn]

Here's one for ya.
When I pulled down my 94 Burb that had been run on Amsoil since new (240,000 miles) I found pistons, bearings, crank, cam and lifters that looked like new. The cylinders had so little wear that even with a touch up hone job they were still within spec with almost no taper or out of round.
There was zero ridge at the top of the cylinders, just a little carbon build up between where the top ring stops and the deck
Also the engine was very clean on the inside with almost no sludge.

I will say this, the engine is now running Delo 400 15-40 or Rotella T 15-40 as I dont like not being able to buy the Amsoil just everywhere when traveling.
The regular oil is available at any truck stop

I have seen 6.5's with less than half the miles with far more wear showing.
I dont know much about all the chemical makeup of the different oils but I have seen several passenger car type engines that have displayed the high miles with low wear after using Amsoil.
The synthetic may be the key, possibly any of the synth oils will yield the same results.

The synthetic lube I started using in my 18 speed box on the big truck is reported to yield far better life expectancy than regular mineral oil.
It does run a lot cooler and shifts better too.
I got 490,000 out of the first box with 50wt mineral oil so we will see.

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

How come no one asked this question: "So, moondoggie, you found that at least for you Stanadyne Performance Formula didn't increase your mpg at all, a failed promise. Why then do you think their Lubricity Formula is doing what they say it will?" Guess what - can't answer that one.

Blessings!

(signature in previous post)