Shell V-Power - Tested with Ford Mondeo (Transcript)

Scientists from Shell’s fields technology group use a range of highly sophisticated and specialist techniques and tools to develop and evaluate fuels for the global markets they serve. Applying automotive engineering skills to the drive for the improved fuel formulations has led to development of a series of modified vehicles which are used as mobile laboratories to further understand and demonstrate fuels characteristics out on the road.

One such vehicle is the dual fuel performance demonstrator. This demonstrator is a modified Ford Mondeo with a two-litre four-cylinder sixteen-valve engine. The engine is fuel injected and fitted with a Motorola engine management system.

The vehicle was chosen as it represents a popular choice around the globe and is typical of modern engine technology. The vehicle has been modified to have two totally separate fuel systems: each supplying two of the engine’s cylinders. This allows simultaneous real-time comparison of fuels in the same car in the same engine, at the same time, out on the road. Accordingly there are far fewer factors that might influence performance, other than the fuel, allowing a more accurate, credible and real-time comparison of two fuels.

To obtain its best performance a car engine needs to draw fuel and air into its combustion chambers in precise quantities. Engines are designed to ensure that the fuel and air flows smoothly into the engine and become perfectly mixed before combustion starts. Deposits formed in the inlet valves impede this process and can result in performance loss. The fuel you choose can have a big effect on whether deposits develop or are controlled. Using a low quality fuel can cause a build up of these deposits leading to a poorly responding engine.

Shell has developed a range of fuels, which contain advanced cleaning technologies, and the dual fuel demonstrator was developed to showcase their capabilities.

In a typical clean-up test scenario the vehicle is first driven with an inferior fuel blend fed into all four cylinders, to allow the build-up of deposits in the engine’s inlet valves. The system is then refilled with one tank containing, for instance, Shell V-Power, and the other tank with a typical market fuel. The vehicle is then driven again for a defined distance at varying speeds to allow the fuels to clean the deposits away from the inlet valves. A borescope is inserted into the cylinders to visually assess the fuel’s cleaning performance.

Here we can see the significant amount of deposits left on the valves fed with the typical market fuel. In comparison, the valves in the cylinders fed with Shell V-Power are much cleaner, with much of the car’s metal surface clearly visible. The continued use of Shell V-Power will remove virtually all of the remaining deposits.

The team of scientists from Shell’s fuels technology group continually use the dual fuel vehicle, not only to provide data to assess the fuel’s attributes of new fuel formulations, but also as an effective, credible demonstration these benefits out on the road.

Shell’s advanced fuel demonstrators. Proving a point.