With no brakes on the ever-increasing price of fuel, I have been thinking about selling both the Vitara and the Benz and replacing them with a motor scooter or small motorcycle which, I am told, still give lots of miles to the gallon, as opposed to the gallons to the mile that vehicles owners are not far from “enjoying”.
As I was considering this alternative to the weekly $190-something fill-up for the Vitara and having to minimize driving the Benz to avoid the $230-something, my memory slipped back to boyhood days and stories of people who reportedly “stretched” their gasoline with kerosene. You could always spot who were doing so by the clouds of exhaust smoke trailing behind the vehicle.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I am hearing rumours that people are again stretching both gasoline and diesel with kerosene, and with kerosene still much cheaper than either of the other two, I had to find out if such mixtures could work to reduce my cost at the pump.
The fastest way to get responses to any questions these days is to go online and Ask. That I did and here are some of the hundreds of responses I found:
Response: Gasoline engines can be converted to kerosene use by lowering the compression ratio by one point, but you must start it on gasoline until warm then it can be started or just switched to kerosene. You will lose 20 per cent power, but gain 15 per cent fuel economy.
Response: Kerosene doesn’t break up as easily as gasoline and a carbureted engine that will burn kerosene typically has a heated intake manifold. Injectors designed for gasoline wouldn’t make as fine a spray with kerosene and if your car is equipped with a catalytic converter you are setting yourself up for problems.
Response: I have been mixing it about 8:1 gas to kerosene and had no problems. I am thinking of upping the ante, as the kerosene I get is free.
Response: Ahhh, you are playing with fire! A 60/40 mix of gas and kerosene is in fact JP4 jet fuel. It is the most easily ignited and explosive of all motor/aviation fuels.
Response: I get more mileage when I mix gasoline with kerosene, ten per cent kerosene and 90 per cent gas.
Response: I am not sure, but when we had the gas shortage in the 1970s, my father put a 25 per cent kerosene to 75 per cent gas mixture in his Datsun pickup and drove it back and forth to work. And I should mention this was a carbureted engine not fuel injection.
When I thought I had it all covered up came the following, which calls for me to search all over again to see if it really works.
Response: I know this may sound crazy, but you can inject a certain ratio of water into your carb/injector and get the same results and get a cleaner burn.
