With the price of crude oil hitting an all time high and prices at the pump escalating, drivers of both diesel and gasoline engines, and people who heat with oil, might want to take notice of Future Fuel Technology’s fuel maximizer, FFT Gasoline Blend and FFT Diesel Blend.
The products, which are actually the same blend and can be used interchangeably in vehicles and in home heating oil, were developed by Frank Norman of Lewiston.
Peter Arnold, Renewable Energy Pathways Coordinator at Chewonki Foundation, who has been a leader in making and using biodiesel in Maine and lately has been working on using renewable energy sources for hydrogen powered electricity, says he feels Norman is moving in the right direction. “Anything that helps with fuel efficiency is important,” he noted, quoting the previous night’s unprecedented high in crude oil at $70.65 per barrel. “I’ve read the studies that Frank had done and there’s no reason to think the additive doesn’t do what he says it does.”
However, he added that marketing a new product like Norman’s fuel maximizer is difficult. “I think people tend to be skeptical of things like that,” he said. “We tend to think they are some kind of sham, a snake oil.”
Norman avoids the word “additive” for this reason, feeling it provokes the snake oil response. He prefers “fuel maximizer, saver or catalyst.” His blend works, he explains, by introducing a small amount of engineered chemical catalyst that entices fuel molecules to burn earlier, at a lower temperature, and longer.
In tests conducted at the Product Testing Laboratory at the University of Southern Maine’s Manufacturing Applications Center, Norman’s fuel maximizer increased fuel efficiency in diesel engines anywhere from 4.65 percent to 13.90 percent, averaging 8.69 percent in 11 different vehicles, and in gasoline fuel vehicles between 5 percent and 13.4 percent, an average of 9.44 percent in 5 different vehicles.
The testing lab noted that uncontrollable variables such as temperatures, traffic conditions, speed and loads carried accounted for the variations in the increase of miles per gallon in different vehicles.
Norman says his experience has proven the FFT blend can do even better. He also has many letters from customers who endorse the product, saying it upped their miles per gallon as much as 30 to 40 percent.
Tests on a Ford Escort rental car at an Environmental Protection Agency-certified laboratory in New Jersey also showed that compared to driving with Indolene, a 96 octane standardized fuel used for testing, using a tank of gas containing the fuel maximizer reduced harmful emissions. When the car was fueled with Norman’s blend in the gas, carbon monoxide was reduced by 5.40 percent, nitrous oxide by 31 percent and carbon dioxide by 2.26 percent.
Furthermore, the fuel additive improves throttle response and overall engine performance because the engine runs cleaner and more efficiently.
Norman says he is often asked about the possibility of long-term problems with engines that have been run on a mixture containing the additive. “We believe that it helps the engine last longer since it runs cleaner and more efficiently,” he says. Arnold agrees. Norman’s mechanic uses the blend in his vehicles.
Arnold says Chewonki considered using the fuel saver, but decided not to because they couldn’t figure out a way to be sure it was put into their fuel tanks in the right proportion. “We have all kinds of different drivers,” Arnold noted, “and we don’t have a way to centrally fuel. We felt we couldn’t keep track of what was being put in.”
A chemist who worked for Fortune 500 companies in sales and marketing and who was last employed by Atlantic Richfield Oil Co., Norman developed his own business of woodstove and energy products and other entrepreneurial ventures before he came up with the idea for a fuel maximizer in 1994. “I was always involved in energy and conservation and knew there was a better way to run an automobile,” he says. “I kept talking with friends, saying if we could put a catalyst into fuel that would make it burn more efficiently, it would be a good idea. They agreed, but no one could figure out how.”
Through trial and error with a small company that produces chemicals, he came up with a formulation and started to test it in his own car. “On one trip,” he says, “when our gas mileage jumped from 25 mpg to 41.3 mpg, I told my wife, `I think we’ve got something.’ ”
He applied for registration with the EPA and received it in December 2000, allowing him to sell the blend. A patent was granted in February 2005.
A 16-ounce bottle sells for $19.95. One ounce is added to each 10 gallons of fuel.
Norman hopes fishermen will consider using the blend in their boat engines as well as their trucks and cars. “I had a friend who was a big deep sea fisherman from New Jersey,” he says. “He used it on his boat’s twin diesels and loved it.”
If escalating prices at the pump cause sales of the FFT fuel saver to take off, he is ready. “I’ve been looking into a plan for gearing up production if we need to expand rapidly,” he says. “We have plenty of product now. I want to keep it that way.” q
Further information and test results can be found at www.futurefueltechnologies.com or by calling 888-961-6600.