rubbing alcohol before emissions - Third Generation F-Body Message Boards

91badgreen · 02-22-2008, 01:03 AM

my emissions test is about to come up on my firebird. it hasnt been run in awhile. ive heard from some other people that you can put rubbing alcohol in your gas tank and it helps. is this true or not?

slow_90firebird · 02-22-2008, 01:30 AM

I've heard of using both rubbing alcohol, and Denatured Alcohol (from home depot or lowes).

You cant simply pour in a bottle of it like you can injector cleaner. You gotta plan a ratio. For the Denatured Alcohol , i guess you gotta run the tank down to real empty. Put in 1 gallon of the alcohol, then fill 3 gallons of premium on top of that.

If you use rubbing alcohol, be careful what you get. Most is 70% alky and 30% water. They also sell 91% alky which would be better (less water in your gas tank is always good). Rubbing alcohol is the main ingredient in Isopropyl drygas.

Denatured alcohol is ethanol. Which is just moonshine. Well, they "denature" it by adding a miniscule amount of some other chemical that would be poisonus to ingest, so that we can't just walk into Lowe's and buy a gallon of corn likker.

KYLE87 · 02-22-2008, 07:06 AM

Denatured alcohol works. My brothers truck was sky high and im pretty sure the cat was bad, but, I learned the trick from someone else and we did it and it passed like new. It passed so clean the guys at the inspection station where shocked it was the same truck that came in and failed the day before. They where questioning the tune up and asking what was done and how much he paid. It was funny.

slow_90firebird · 02-22-2008, 08:52 AM

Did you ever tell them what you did to it? If they are like ****'s than I would have just said "I guess it just had a bad tank of gas"

.

Or you could tell them "that bottle of G2P i put in really worked i guess!"

91badgreen · 02-24-2008, 12:10 PM

so if i wanted to go with 91% Rubbing alcohol, how many bottles should i put in like one or two?

Darkshot · 02-24-2008, 03:51 PM

Yeah, how much denatured alcohol should go in with a full tank of gas?

slow_90firebird · 02-24-2008, 04:59 PM

I guess the best way to do it is about a 1:3 or 1:4 raito.

You wouldnt want to do it on a full tank of gas, though. Then you have no way to dilute it right after the emissions test. You really wouldnt want to leave that high concentration in there too long.

Its ok, just for an hour or two, buy these cars are not designed to run on ethanol. I would be afraid of leaving it in the tank too long, especially with how old these cars are, and it would start knocking all kinds of crud loose. Also, I am not too sure as to what effects it has on certain plastic and rubber parts. I would prefer just to mix the 1gal of denatured with 3 gallons of premium, remember you will still have another gallon in the tank probably, even with the needle on "E".

Right after you pass (or fail) the test, top off the tank. Then your percentage wont be bad for the motor.

AC · 02-24-2008, 06:50 PM

I believe the ration is 1/4 tank of gas (approx 4 gallons) per 1 gallon of denatured alchohol. Let your car warm up for roughly 1/2 an hour prior to the test. RIGHT after go fill your tank with premium gas.

slow_90firebird · 02-25-2008, 11:00 AM

Well, if you fill 4 gallons of gas, with 1 gallon of alky, then you really have a 1/5 ratio. If you account for the gas leftover in the tank, then its more like a 1/6 ratio I guess.

DBLTKE · 02-26-2008, 01:40 AM

wouldn't you want to run regular when you go to emissions? Higher octane gas would be more resistant to burn giving you a higher HC output, no?

IncredibleBulk · 02-26-2008, 05:55 PM

AC · 02-27-2008, 06:29 AM

Sorry, I forgot to put the "go through the test" line BEFORE going to the station and filling with high octane. You want the 87 and alcohol for the test and then you want to dilute the alcohol after the test, hence filling up with the "good stuff"

groundrat · 02-28-2008, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slow_90firebird

Well, if you fill 4 gallons of gas, with 1 gallon of alky, then you really have a 1/5 ratio. If you account for the gas leftover in the tank, then its more like a 1/6 ratio I guess.

Actually 1 gallon of alky plus 4 gallons of gas is a 1 gallon to 4 gallon ratio or 1:4.

slow_90firebird · 02-28-2008, 04:33 PM

Alright, i guess I was talking fractions not ratio's ... lol. I am just a stupid person that failed out of school, what do you expect?

groundrat · 02-28-2008, 06:33 PM

LOL, i had to look it up so dont feel bad!