recently after filling my truck up i added some cetane booster and some spilled on the paint. Like anyone who loves their truck I wiped it up immediatly with my shirt and I just noticed I smell like mothballs. Ive heard mothballs added to gas boosts octane, but could they work as a catalyst for diesel fuel?

I don't know but on "Mythbusters" they put mothballs into a gasser and ran it and concluded that it seemed plausible that it had more power and sounded better.

Interesting, I have heard something to the fact that mothballs do something to diesel, what I'm not sure. ;)

test it and report back....:ro)

I Think Wi Huck (mark) Is Trying Them...:)

Mothballs are used by people who like to cheat in racing. If the tanks are properly vented after a pass you can get away with passing a fuel test. Mothballs to my best understanding are more of an oxidizer (like n2o) than anything else. Should work the same on a diesel.

I would use them but it just seems cruel !
After all .. there are only so many male moths.

Anyone tested it yet?? ):h

recently after filling my truck up i added some cetane booster and some spilled on the paint. Like anyone who loves their truck I wiped it up immediatly with my shirt and I just noticed I smell like mothballs. Ive heard mothballs added to gas boosts octane, but could they work as a catalyst for diesel fuel?

How did you get his legs apart?

......and I just noticed I smell like mothballs....


better than smelling like monkey balls I guess...:lol:

Cetane number and octane number are kind-of opposites.

0 octane number = n-heptane (straight chain paraffin)
100 octane number = 2,2,4 trimethyl pentane aka isooctane

100 cetane number = cetane aka hexadecane (straight chain paraffin)
0 cetane number = methyl naphthalene

Naphthalene mothballs close to 0 cetane.

With very few exceptions, whatever is good for octane number is bad for cetane number.

Cetane number and octane number are kind-of opposites.

0 octane number = n-heptane (straight chain paraffin)
100 octane number = 2,2,4 trimethyl pentane aka isooctane

100 cetane number = cetane aka hexadecane (straight chain paraffin)
0 cetane number = methyl naphthalene

Naphthalene mothballs close to 0 cetane.

With very few exceptions, whatever is good for octane number is bad for cetane number.

OK, now could you put that in simple language that the rest of us could understand !!! aka, where is the best balance for performance ??? ):h
THANKS ! ! !

How fast do the mothballs dissolve once they get into a tank?

Whats the estimated ratio? 2 mothballs per 10 gallons or what?

Octane number (ON) is a measure of the fuel's ability to resist spontaneous ignition and detonation, which you want in a spark ignition (SI) engine.

Cetane number (CN) is a measure of a fuel's ability to ignite spontaneously, which you want in a compression ignition (CI), aka diesel engine.

They measure ON by running the fuel in a special test engine with a variable compression ratio. They raise the CR until the engine starts detonating. If a fuel detonates at the same CR as a mix of 90% trimethyl pentane / 10% n-heptane, it's said to have an ON of 90. RON and MON are tested on the same engine, but with different engine parameters (coolant temperaure, RPM, mixture, timing, etc.). In the US, they sell gas by the average of the two octane numbers research (RON) and motor (MON). The averave is called the road octane number or sometimes the anti-knock index (AKI), or (R+M)/2.

They also measure CN with a special test-engine with variable compression ratio. All parameters are set, timing (13 deg BTDC), injection pressure, temperatures, RPM, etc. The CR is varied until the combustion starts at TDC, so the delay is 13 degrees. If the CR of the test fuel, is the same as a reference fuel made from 40% n-hexadecane and 60% methyl naphthalene, it's said to have a CN of 40.

Nowadays, they use heptamethyl nonane as the "low" cetane reference and assign it a CN of 15, but the test works the same.

For, gasoline(ON), diesel(CN)
straight chain paraffin, low, high
shorter chain, better, worse
branched chain, high, low
aromatics (naphthalene), high, low
alcohols, high, low
olefins, hign, low
naphthenes (rings), medium, low

Diesel doesn't burn as soon as it's sprayed in. The fuel has to heat up, vaporize, form radicals, then it's burning. All the steps take time. That time (delay) is called ignition delay. The lower, the better.

But, we buy fuel by volume. The more energy contained in a gallon, the better our mileage. Some of the low CN compounds (like aromatics) have high energy density, so they help mileage. Each engine is tuned for a certain CN fuel. In the US it's 40. Higher cetane is good, but not if it means less aromatics and lower energy density. Unfortunately they don't sell fuel by energy density, so there's no way to tell. CN becomes more important at higher RPM (due to the shorter time to burn). At low RPM (<2000), there is little effect on economy, just engine noise.

In Europe they sell 50 CN diesel fuel, which is why they can spin the engines faster, and still get the fuel to burn in time.

Oh, and back on the mothball thing, lots of mothballs today are paradichloro benzene, and you REALLY don't want chloro-anything in your fuel.

What about mixing gas (or a certain type of gas) with diesel in a small ratio somewhere around a 5:1 example: (1 gal of gas to 5 gallons of diesel).

Reason why I ask is I am told by some Semi Tractor Racers that helps them a ton! Was told no reason it wouldn't do the same in ours...

At this point I question 1) the injection system on ours with small amounts of gas and 2) obviously this would not be possible at events where they check fuel.

Truckers usually add gas to keep their tanks from gelling. Gasoline will utterly destroy an injection pump, so running it at high concentrations (5:1) is a very :badidea:
Generally a trucker will put about a gallon of gas in a 100 gallons of diesel, to avoid gelling.

A little bit of gas as an antigel, or from a few cups in a gasoline can reused for diesel should be no problem.

Mixing larger amounts is unsafe. Gasoline in a tank partially vaporizes and the vapors mix with air. So why don't gas tanks explode? Simple, the vapor pressure of gasoline is so high, that the fuel-air mixture is too rich to burn...just like in a flooded engine.

Diesel is so heavy that the opposite happens. The little bit of diesel that is vapor in the fuel tank is below the lower flammability limit, so the mixture is too lean to burn.

One thing you don't want in a fuel tank is a flammable (explosive) mixture. All fuels are engineered to be either too rich (gas) or too lean (diesel) when stored under air.

If you mix gas and diesel, you might dilute the gas vapor pressure to the point where the vapor/air mix is flammable in the tank, and any spark (static in the tank, static at the fill nozzle, or a short in the level sensor) will cause the fuel tank to explode.