Lucas Fuel Injector Cleaner on 94' Deville

[boston94deville]

After replacing the instrument cluster in my 94' DeVille to remedy the running issue I described in an earlier post the car began to return to its prime running condition. After about a day or so of driving the car lightly around town, I decided it was about time for an oil change since the car had sat with little use for about 6 months. I changed the oil the next day and added some Lucas Fuel Treatment to a tank with about 10 gallons in it. Now the car is giving me an absolute loss of any power during acceleration after about 15 mins of driving and backfires and sputters on occasion as well. Could this be due to the Lucas treatment?

[submariner409]

First, fill the tank with 93 octane something, then drive 300 miles+.

Forget snake oil treatments and fill the car with a 20 oz. bottle of Chevron TECHRON and 93 octane Shell, Chevron, Texaco fuel.

(OK, Lucas is a well-marketed oil and gas additive producer. Chevron less so. Google "top tier gasolines" to read up on the differences.) Lucas sponsors a few NASCAR racers, so they use the products in the track cars, right ? Believe that and I have a bridge to Brooklyn that I'll sell, cheap.

6 months of E10 in a tank and, absent any fuel stabilizer, you have fuel/alcohol/water separation problems.

If you're going to store an engine/vehicle for more than 4 weeks, treat the fuel with a stabilizer (West Marine EZ-Store/EZ Start) or similar and fill the tank to pump cutoff. NEVER store a vehicle with less than a full tank of fuel, treated.

[boston94deville]

The car wasn't stored per se. It just sat in the driveway for the most part, with the engine running in park and a few small trips around the neighborhood until I fixed the problem. The 10 gallons of premium in it was put in about 3 hours before I changed the oil.

[onecool]

Try and see if you can pull any codes and also snoop around your EGR valve try temporally disconnecting the vacuum hose to the EGR and see if you get power back at take off and try taking the EGR off and clean the ports and report back.

[Ranger]

Most snake oil fuel system cleaners are pretty strong solvents and are to be added to like 20 gallons of fuel. If you added that crap to a 1/2 or 1/4 tank and thus a very strong mix, you may well have damaged the insulating varnish on the fuel pump windings (or the injectors as well). Check your fuel pressure.

[ehall]

6 month old gas has probly gone bad

[abs]

If the gas is 6 months old, I would add water remover (an alcohol), fuel stabilizer, fill the tank with fresh gas and add a fuel injector cleaner (the one that is widely considered the best is the Chevron Techron). The Lucus UCL (Upper Cylinder Lube) is a good product however it is NOT a fuel injector cleaner and it IS possible to add too much - I've done exactly that and had some driveability issues. Diluting the UCL by filling the tank may help depending on how much you've added. I think the ratio is supposed to be something like 2-3 oz for an entire tank.

Andrew