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Lucas Oil - Upper Cylinder Lube "It's not all about the MPG"

RiverDave

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In this article we are going to take a look at Lucas Oil's Upper Cylinder Lube, all the controversy that surrounds it, and why I (and YOU) should use it regularly. First lets read the description right off Lucas Oil's website so we have some kind of generic idea of what it is, and what it does.

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Lucas Fuel Treatment complies with the federal ultra low sulfur content requirements for use in diesel motor vehicles, locomotive, off road and marine diesel equipment engines.
A powerful blend of oils and additives that contain NO SOLVENTS. Designed to increase power and fuel mileage and also lower exhaust emissions through a more complete combustion process.
Lucas Fuel Treatment is formulated for both gasoline and diesel engines, carbureted or fuel injected. It gives your fuel system what it really needs - a blend of super slick oils and additives with a high detergent action that allows the engine to operate at maximum efficiency. It cleans and lubricates the carburetor and injectors and increases power while reducing fuel consumption. Lucas Fuel Treatment should definitely be used in vehicles that require leaded fuel because it actually replaces the benefits of lead in gasoline without causing harmful emissions.
Key Benefits



  • A great tune-up in a bottle
  • Cleans and lubricates the fuel system
  • Increases power and miles per gallon by burning excess exhaust emissions
  • Increases the life of pumps and injectors

Directions

Pour Lucas Fuel Treatment directly into fuel tank.
Recommended dosage is 2-3 ounces of Fuel Treatment per 10 gallons of fuel.
Exceeding the recommended dosage is not harmful to your vehicle.


That is a pretty generic description of Upper Cylinder Lube, and the most important things that were in that description were NOT increases MPG, but rather Cleans and Lubricates the fuel system, and increases the life of Fuel Pumps and Injectors. I have mentioned the word "generic" regarding the description two times now in the hopes that it would stand out to the readers, because I feel that this short description almost does a disservice to such an awesome product.

First lets start with the name itself "Upper Cylinder Lube." To take from that meaning Lubricating the upper part of the cylinder above the rings on the compression side of the cylinder. It is amazing to me when I talk to people about Upper Cylinder Lubricant, they will talk about everything under the sun (oil cushion for valves and seats, lubricating injectors etc.. which we will talk about in a moment) but nobody ever brings up or understands the most basic function of UPPER CYLINDER LUBRICANT, which is to Lubricate the upper cylinder. (I know, who would have thought the product name might have something to do with a part of it's actual function)

The fact is there is no better way to deliver a lubricant to the upper part of the cylinder then through the fuel system. I know the most basic question to be asked here is pretty simple. "Why would I want to lubricate the upper part of the cylinder?" Well I'm glad you asked because there is a rhetorical question in return "Why would you not want too?" The fact is your cylinders are made of metal, and metal that is not coated in oil has a tendency to rust and corrode. This process is HUGELY accelerated in a cooling engine and is often called "flash corrosion." Do you live next to an ocean where there is a lot of salt in the air, or perhaps you are running your boat where there's lots of moisture in the air? When you shut your engine off, invariably some of the intake valves are going to be open exposing those cylinders to that air. As the engine cools the air cools, condensation is formed in the combustion chambers. To make matters even worse a lot of the fuels out there now contain Ethanol which actually pulls moisture out of the air! If you leave it sitting for a long time you will end up with some amount of corrosion on the cylinders and in the combustion chamber. On a side note even if you don't leave it sitting for months on end, this corrosion is still happening on miniscule levels. You fire the Engine and ultimately the pistons and rings come up and "scrub" this corrosion and send it down the exhaust, and that causes what is commonly referred to as "premature wear." By introducing Upper Cylinder Lube through the fuel system you put an oil film from the gas tank to the exhaust valves and everything in between, and when you shut the engine off, that protective film stays on everything including the "Upper Cylinder."

Now we are going to discuss the benefit of what is called "oil cushion" on the valves and the valve seats in layman terms. In your engine you have lots of little valves that are going down and opening and then slamming shut. The valves have a precision ground surface on them, that meets with a precision machined (or ground) surface called the "seat." A long time ago there was lead in our fuel, and the lead acted just like our "oil cushion" does. It provided a tiny slippery film so that when the valve shuts it isn't just an extremely hard metal, to another extremely hard metal "dry." That slippery little film also helps to in an instant help guide the valve to it's proper seat and help it seal. This reduces the wear and tear on your valve train considerably. This will extend the periods before valve jobs are required, it helps to prevent "tulip'ed" valves by reducing shock loading, there is not one downside to having oil cushion in a valve train that anybody would ever try to argue. Since we are still on the valve train there is some minor benefits to the Oil film helping to lubricate stems and guides. The most major of which if you are using it in lower technology machines like Tractors, Lawn Mowers and things that may sit for quite sometime the odds will decrease that you will have a stuck valve when you go to start it next time.

So now we will finally talk about the injectors / carburetors and fuel pumps which will close out our "lubricating" qualities of Lucas's Upper Cylinder Lube. You're injectors have little teeny tiny moving parts in them that fire at "pulse rates" so fast it is almost hard to comprehend how someone designed and built them to last as long as they do. Well with our modern day fuels being what they are, those little parts like a little "love" in the lubrication department. I don't have hard data to back it up in terms of longevity of injector life, but common sense dictates lubricating moving parts a little better certainly isn't going to hurt anything. As for Carburetors it's the same thing, there's lots of little tiny passage ways, and little moving parts, and they like to be lubricated as well to continue to perform like they are new. The new fuels that have ethanol in them just rain holy hell on all of these parts including your fuel pump (which is expensive to replace), and all this Upper Cylinder Lube is doing is just adding an oil film and lubricating all of it. This ultimately is good and again can not be argued by anybody, anywhere, at anytime.

This now brings us to the cleaning properties of Lucas's Upper Cylinder Lube and will bring us over to some of the MPG gains. If you are running typical fuels then your engine will start developing Carbon deposits. Carbon deposits will land on the valves themselves, the pistons the inside of the combustion chamber, and all of it is bad. If they get on the valve seats then you're valves will not seat 100% and you will lose a little bit of compression, and in turn this will cost you HP, which will in turn cost you MPG (or efficiency). Carbon deposits also retain heat and will develop "hot spots" in the combustion chamber. These Hot spots raise the temperature of the combustion chamber itself causing efficiency losses, and ultimately if it's really bad they can even cause "detonation" being hot enough to ignite the fuel or quicken the burn before what is optimal.

The MPG claims on the Lucas Bottle aren't 100% correct, in my opinion. You will get some minimal or miniscule efficiency gains on a newer car (hardly measurable). Where the gains come in is when you have a person that has a car with a ton of mileage, or is a little bit tired. The Upper Cylinder Lube will start to break down those carbon deposits (increasing the efficiency of the combustion chamber), it will help valves seat correctly and the oil cushion will help to seal the valves (increasing compression ever so slightly) and by making the whole program work a little better, then yes you will see MPG gains in those scenarios. I noted on RDP that I saw major increases in both of my old Navigators, one of them had 215,000 miles on it, the other had 100,000+. Both of my trucks ran extremely smooth (they are navigators after all), but when I added the Upper Cylinder Lube, it was like the day they were born (I attribute this entirely to oil cushion in the valve train for it to have that big of an effect immediately)

In our final benefit of Lucas's Upper Cylinder Lube is that it actually increases octane. This means it raises the ignition temperature of the fuel which will help prevent detonation and knocking!

My final part of this article is to address the naysayers, or the people that claim "Snake Oil." If you were looking for a magic bottle that could increase the efficiency of your motor 10-15%, then I guess I could see how you could come to that conclusion. It was these same guys on all the engine and oil forums not that long ago saying "Upper Cylinder Lube" wasn't necessary or had any benefits. The vast majority of the guys are now saying "I run a little TCW-3 ashless 2 stroke oil (By the way Lucas makes that as well) in my fuel to lubricate the fuel system and the upper cylinder and valve seats" and they say it lubricates better than Upper Cylinder lube at a fraction of the price. The real experts then turn around and say well I run the TCW-3 and Techron to clean the fuel system!! Congrats geniuses, you have now officially come full circle to an Upper Cylinder Lube that lubricates and cleans, you are paying more for it, and at best it's backyard engineering with zero factual data to back it up. (Lucas has Labs, dynos, race teams, long haul trucks).

For myself I keep it simple, I get it in the quarts, I refill my little bottle and I keep it in my truck. I don't use it every fill up, but every other, and I know and understand the benefits of what it's doing for me. It's not a miracle in a bottle, it's preventative maintenance that greatly increases longevity.

The question isn't "Should I use Lucas Upper Cylinder Lube." The question is "Why wouldn't you use it, and how much is just enough to increase longevity without decreasing your wallet." The Quart / every other tank formula is what I have settled on personally.

For more information please visit www.LucasOil.com

If you would like to purchase Upper Cylinder Lube from us directly in case qty's you can e-mail [email protected] or call me at 949-678-8369.

 
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mjc

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I have it in the Gallon size and do the same refilling 2 little bottles for my cars. i will add a full quart to my boat thursday when I do the first fill up of the year. It has been good to me so far.
P.s. i need a quart on thursday morning
 

Don Johnson

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I agree on the benefits of this stuff. On my old boat I ran Av Gas with Marvel and everytime I took the blowers in for service Littlefield would comment on how happy the blowers were and most of the time refused to restrip them. He would always ask if I was running Marvel in the fuel, he said he can always tell when a lubricant was added to the fuel. Looks like Lucas has some added benefits to Marvel but my point is the benefits of adding an oil based lube to fuel. I never lost a electric fuel pump either in the 100's of hours I had on the pumps.
 

westair

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Been using it pretty consistent for quite a while now, I have some high mileage vehicles that still run strong ....whether its because of this stuff, who knows but it could be;)
 

dread Pirate

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This is the 1st Lucas product I used and it sold me on their stuff. Our van was running a little rough, mostly at idle and we were heading to the lake. Figured what the hell and put a bottle in the tank after filling up. Within 5 miles it was running perfect! Smoothed out and had a tad more power up the hills. This is our `91 chevy van that now has 140k on it. Good shit!
 

screaming pete

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This is the 1st Lucas product I used and it sold me on their stuff. Our van was running a little rough, mostly at idle and we were heading to the lake. Figured what the hell and put a bottle in the tank after filling up. Within 5 miles it was running perfect! Smoothed out and had a tad more power up the hills. This is our `91 chevy van that now has 140k on it. Good shit!



same thing here with the O'le dodge Cummins,,,changed the oil to Lucas...filled it up...Lucas...now its running smooth as ever..432k
 

nowski

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Upper cylinder lube has been around for quite some time now it's nothing new. Lucas makes great products and maybe they perfected this one. I'll give it a shot...
 
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