So my daily driver (as opposed to my galaxie featured recently in the photos section) is a 94 Bronco with 90000 miles on the 302. Say what you will about her looks and efficiency, I love this car. I took it from my mother, who got it new. I have always pampered the car with regular maintenance, synthetic oil, and a little Lucas to keep it from burning oil, so I was skeptical that any additives would make a noticeable difference in performance.

However, the scientist in me had to experiment, so here is what I tried:

For a day before the oil change, I ran a quart of mystery oil in the crankcase. Surprisingly, when I drained it, the waste oil was black as tar. Only 3000 miles since the last oil change, so there had to be some gunk in there somewhere.

I replaced the oil with 4 quarts of full synthetic and a quart of Lucas' new stabilizer that they make just for synthetic oil.

Finally, I treated my last tank of gas with Gunk Gas Treatment to see if I could get any grime out of the fuel system.

It's been about a week now, and I'll be damned if the old girl doesn't pull noticeably harder in all 5 gears. Not sure which treatment did it or if it was all three, but that 5 liter has some real spring in its step now!

Anyone else get similar results?




Evan

'67 428 Galaxie 2 door fastback
'94 302 Bronco XLT

Have you also installed a Tornado air management system? Sounds like the same advertised results.

an' rendered him down for bar oil', or as in, "I put oil on the bar on the front of my chain saw?" In any case, I have had almost miraculous results from the use of Bardahl in a 100K+ 460, so I don't find anything to surprise me here. If it worked, it worked!!!
KS

Evan, unless you had some serious issues that this oil and treatments miraculously cured most of the performance you feel is psychological. It's like changing a air filter to a super high performance. If the original air filter was clogged to the point it was choking the motor then any replacement filter would have felt like a performance increase.
I doubt anything loosened up in the motor to make it go faster. If you wanted it to do then in your mind it probably did. I doubt the changes and additives you made would have barely showed up on a dyno.

No doubt there's an inherent placebo effect, and thanks loads for the patronization. However, the motor sounds audibly better above 3000 revs AND my one flappy lifter shut up, which doesn't usually happen after an oil change. And you're probably right... there is NO way that after 90000 miles of shitty gas that running some detergent through the injectors could improve performance... I didn't say it felt like I threw a turbo on it.

liked my Bronco (80 XLT). It rusted up to the glass, but never left me anywhere. The 351M was a dog, but never apart when I sold it with 330,000 KM on it. Love to get another one. (with less rust)

that looks like it was salvaged off the ocean floor. Probably doesn't help that he leaves his windows open rain or shine. lol

to put fuel injector cleaner in the gas tank. It can make a noticeable difference in engine running smoother and pulling harder. I had an old Lincoln MkVII with throttle body injection that was especially affected by the treatment. I've not tried oil additives.
Gary B

Lucas oil stabilizer is terrible. That stuff does nothing for your engine and just thickens up your oil. Just save your money and use a good oil and change it every 3K miles.

can definitely make a difference, and what you took for a noisey lifter may well have been a dirty injector, they can sound amazeingly similar. Hope you're putting some portion of those new paychecks away for your old dads retirement fund.LOL. Mike

Noticed your Bay tags in the photo.
Ron.

..tank and sprayed Berrymans down the carb or throttle body till the can was empty and the engine died.

let it sit for 3 or 4 hours then fire it up, some would blow chunks of black stuff out and would run better afterwards.

When Chevrolet came out with the dual throttle body small blocks they would foul plugs when the fuel pump pressure would drop below 45 or so pounds.
The ring lands and chambers would carbon up...thats what the owner of the shop I worked at was told at one of his ASE meetings.

Replacing the in tank pumps and doing the Berrymans stopped them from fouling the plugs.

Richard.

she used to have Colorado plates and now she has Jersey plates... I don't know where the hell I live any more.