Building on two decades of expertise, a fourth generation fleet test protocol is presented for assessing the response of engine performance to gasoline additive treatment. In this case, the ability of additives to remove pre-existing deposit from the intake systems of port fuel injected vehicles has been examined. The protocol is capable of identifying real benefits under realistic market conditions, isolating fuel performance from other effects thereby allowing a direct comparison between different fuels. It is cost efficient and robust to unplanned incidents.
The new protocol has been applied to the development of a candidate fuel additive package for the North American market. A vehicle fleet of 5 quadruplets (5 sets of 4 matched vehicles, each set of a different model) was tested twice, assessing the intake valve clean-up performance of 3 test fuels relative to a control fuel.
In this trial, the test protocol successfully identified real benefits provided by the experimental additive relative to the control fuel. This was achieved with fewer vehicles than might have been previously required for the same statistical robustness. The output was an additive dose response for the experimental additive package. Several learning points emerged that will be included in future work using this successful test protocol.
