Re: Techron?

["Robert K. Davis" <bob@btv.ibm.com>]

Techron is Chevron's registered trademark for its patented polyether amines used as DCAs or Deposit Control Additives.  It is available by itself or as an additive to all Chevron gasolines.  If you are using Chevron fuels, there is little point in adding extra Techron.

As of Jan. 1, 1995, Deposit Control Additives are now required in all gasolines as part of the Clean Air Act. 

The deposits they combat are seen in several areas: carburetor, fuel injectors, intake valves, intake port areas, and combustion chambers.  Forget carburetors.  Fuel injector deposits, which cause clogging, are basically the result of gasoline in the injector from which the more volatile components have evaporated, leaving behind a varnish.  Improved injector design has reduced this somewhat (see Probst's book) but any good detergent fuel should eliminate this problem entirely.

Deposits elsewhere are due to carbon deposits from burnt fuel (the valve get warm enough to bake on the above mentioned varnish).  These are the deposits that separate the effectiveness of various DCAs.  Texaco claims their Clean System3 fuel does a good job of controlling these, Mobil et al. also claim the same for their additives.  Chevron claims that the superiority of Techron has been demonstrated in various SAE papers.  The last engine (non-Audi) I rebuilt had 70,000 miles on it using almost exclusively Mobil Super Unleaded.  It had almost no carbon deposits on the valves and in the combustion chambers except for the cylinder with the piston with the broken skirt (but that cylinder also had alot of other problems!).

Try it and see if it makes a difference.  It won't hurt, except for the money to buy it.
--
Bob Davis