James, It's amazing what pointless gadgets people will try and sell you!!
Numero Uno - The fuel catalyst. I remember several of these things appearing a few years ago, in the run-up to the banning of leaded petrol. They claim to catalytically 'modify' the fuel (i.e. the material encourages the fuel to change without itself being affected), so that it works like leaded fuel. It is complete bollocks, some might even consider it a con. Their 'proof' relies on a number of testimonials from previous customers, all purporting to be delighted. All of these cars no doubt have survived well on the well-documented and proven 'lead memory' effect (whereby lead impregnated into the metal after many years of leaded fuel use continues to give protection for some time after unleaded has started to be used), and would have gone on just as well whether or not the Fuel Cat was used. The MG Owners Club offered to organise and support an independant test (to be conducted by car industry testers MIRA) whereby 3 Midgets (I think) all with brand new heads would be run - one with 4-star, one with unleaded, one with unleaded and the fuel cat. The Fuel Cat suppliers were asked to pay for it, on the basis that the sales benefits of a scientific test and recommendation by the MGOC (50,000 members) would be well worth it. The manufacturers declined, draw your own conclusions. When the FBHVC were testing fuel additives (in a similar method to that described above), the manufacturers of several of these Fuel Cat devices were also invited to submit their products for testing - none did. Draw your own conclusions. Interestingly, none of the major petrol companies submitted their LRPs to these tests either. Numero Duo - Well, I haven't heard of this one before, but I have my doubts... Firstly, the coil will not be re-charged between each of these 5 little sparks, so you will get 5 sparks that are 1/5 as strong. Secondly, how do the 4 sparks after the first one help? If the first one succeeded in igniting the fuel, the other will not affect anything. There have been cars with more than one spark plug in the past - early Rolls-Royces (redundancy reasons mainly, so the car will still work if one ignition system fails), and recent Alfa Romeos (but their second spark fires on the exhaust stroke, I believe, to aid combustion of remaining hydrocarbons in the exhaust to improve emissions). If having a sequence of sparks had any real benefit, car manufacturers the world over would be doing it right now. They aren't. Still, it's amusing to see people try to sell this tat. Even more amusing to watch poor innocent sods part with their money for it, as long as it's not someone you know... Richard and Daffy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Important Notice: The information in this email is confidential and may be legally-privileged. If you have reason to believe you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it is prohibited and may be unlawful and you are requested to contact the sender urgently and dispose of this email -----------------------------------------------------------exp. /// [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list /// Send admin requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool /// Send list postings to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// Edit your replies! If they include this trailer, they will NOT be sent.
