Redline SL-1 vs Techron

[Luftmasse]

Redline SL-1 was known to have the highest PEA, 30-50%. With the latest update 2016 SDS they have lessen it down to 28-34%. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.redlineoil.com/content/files/tech/830019%2520SI-1%2520COMPLETE%2520FUEL%2520SYSTEM%2520CLEANER.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiysJiI5avnAhXWlXIEHe-gAl8QFjAAegQIBRAC&usg=AOvVaw3RzHUfKYocE-M1iby7zglz Chevron Techron Concentrated version now has an updated 2019 SDS, and some of the trade secrets ingredients has increased. Not sure if they increased the PEA content or not. Trade secret - 25 - 45%. https://www.chevronlubricants.com/en_us/home/products/techron-complete-fuel-system-cleaner.html Which would you choose?

 

[StarCaller]

after I recently ordered a 12-pack of redline SL-1 from amazon I'm not going to ask myself this question.... ;-)

 

[gathermewool]

SI-1 Ess-Eye-One

 

[ChrisD46]

Always run Top Tier gas and a bottle of Techron every 5K miles ... That is my automotive fuel system cleanliness plan .

 

[DGXR]

For $13 a quart, I'll choose Techron Concentrate: Techron Concentrate 1-quart

 

[krismoriah72]

Redline si-1 - 15oz treats 100 gallons (per bottle) Chevron Techron Concentrate Plus - 1oz treats 1 gallon. (per Product Data sheet) im guessing apples to apples Redline 1oz is much higher in PEA than Techron?

 

[Davejam]

I kind of question the treat rate of the 3 PEA products available (Gumout Regane, Techron, Redline), but Techron the most. Gumout concentrated product probably has 25%PEA and recommends min treat rate of around 0.3oz/gal. Techron as you say has 35%trade secret and treat rate of 1oz/gal. Redline is 32%PEA. Treat rate is a bit ambiguous they say whole bottle (15oz) or maint. dose of 1/3-1/6oz/gal...lets just say whole bottle is nonsense and 0.33oz/gal is recommended. You can see where Gumout and Redline have similar recommendations reading between the lines. But Techron is confusing the issue. But back to a recommendation. The 32 oz bottle of techron treats 32 gal. Redline 15oz bottle will treat 45 gal(?). The Redline seems like the better deal then.

 

[blufeb95]

If it helps, Chevron gas is said to have about 400ppm of PEA (Techron) in it, they say the complete fuel system cleaner is about 10x that concentration so about 4000ppm when used in at the recommended dose. The only gumout product I have any idea on pea content is the multi system tune up where the SDS specifies there is 5-10% pea but ays that there are 9.63% of the composition is of unknown toxicity which leaves me to believe there is around 1.5oz of PEA. The Gumout high mileage fuel system cleaner with regaine says something like 20-30% PEA on it so in a 6oz bottle there's like 1.2-1.8oz of PEA. Redline SI-1 has about the same concentration as Techron. Redline recommends using one 15oz bottle to treat upto 20oz when used as an immediate fuel system cleaner. The old whitepaper for SI mentioned using 15oz per 100gal as a maintenance dose, so around 1.5oz per 10gal, so if we consider that the concentration of PEA is roughly equal to Techron which when used at 1oz/gallon leaves a concentration of ~4000ppm of PEA so using 0.15oz/gallon would leave a concetration of like 600ppm which is about 1.5x what you'd expect to find in top tier gas. Anymore I don't think maintenance dosages really mean anything if you use top tier gas since I assume that the newer top tier gas has a lot more detergent than fuel did back in the early 2000s when Pedline used to recommend a maintenance doseage, plus most cars are GDI now and you don't get the intake valve cleaning action since the fuel doesn't contact the back of the valves although running a large dose every 1500-3000mi as recommended by most fuel additive manufacturers should help keep the injectors clean and may help reduce build up on O2 sensors and catalytic converters.

 

[BAJA_05]

Techron Complete Fuel System Cleaner in all vehicles in signature every 3000 miles for years now. Good to go!!!

 

[Davejam]

Originally Posted by blufeb95

Anymore I don't think maintenance dosages really mean anything if you use top tier gas since I assume that the newer top tier gas has a lot more detergent than fuel did back in the early 2000s when Pedline used to recommend a maintenance doseage, plus most cars are GDI now and you don't get the intake valve cleaning action since the fuel doesn't contact the back of the valves although running a large dose every 1500-3000mi as recommended by most fuel additive manufacturers should help keep the injectors clean and may help reduce build up on O2 sensors and catalytic converters.

First of all thanks for that information in general. On the topic of maintenance dose, its not really clear what anyone is actually recommending which was my original point. But I do think the concentration should be 10x the typical top tier dose to do anything (~4000ppm). So, i guess what is the equivalent treat rate for each to achieve that...i'm a bit busy now, but will calculate later unless someone wants to beat me to it.

 

[blufeb95]

Originally Posted by Davejam

On the topic of maintenance dose, its not really clear what anyone is actually recommending which was my original point.

Maintenance dose would refer to an amount added to every tank of fuel to help maintain keeping parts clean, Redline used to recomment something like 1/6th oz per gallon which would be close to 600ppm, Redline's new instruction is to add 1 15oz bottle every 1500mi to upto 20gal of fuel to perform a complete fuel system cleaning, Since the Redline seems to have about the same concentration of PEA as Techron when you use 1oz per gallon in the case of a 15 gallon fuel tank that should be around 4000ppm in the tank when added to 20 gallons that's about .75oz per gallon so that'd be about 3000ppm. a 20oz bottle of techron has about 6oz of PEA in it, when compared to gumout Regaine products which seem to average around 1.2-1.8oz per bottle, that means that they put about 800ppm to 1200ppm of PEA in a 20gallon tank. Although there is one potential issue with my math i believe the MSDS gives concentration by weight, and the products are sold by fluid oz, so technically if the density of the carrier solvents used in the products is of a majorly varying densities the stuff I said about how much pure PEA the product has might not be a useful figure.

 

[Luftmasse]

Disappointed to see the PEA % dropped down from Redline. Could it be possible that Techron has increased the PEA % in their trade secret? I am searching for a fuel additive with the highest PEA % content.

 

[blufeb95]

Techron is probably the most PEA for the money somewhere around 30%, lately the 12oz bottles have been $5, the 20oz $8, and the 32 seem to bounce around but from walmart and Amazon they're around $12-13, although around Christmas i got a 32oz on sale from Amazon for $9. Redline SI-1 is pretty steep at around $12 for 15oz, and the 12 packs seem to jump around $8-9 bottle on Amazon. For the price of an Individual bottle of redline SI1 you could just buy a 32oz bottle of Techron and either use half of it twice or just put in the full bottle and run a 1.5x-2.x dose depending on the size of your fuel tank most cars are somewhere in 15-22gal range. I don't believe Techron has increased their concentration I remember finding some anecdotal evidence in a thread here somewhere saying that the datasheets back in the early 2000s used to say it was 32% and they've since obfuscated them but the ranges of the secret chemicals seem to fit that 32% claim.

 

[4WD]

Originally Posted by ChrisD46

Always run Top Tier gas and a bottle of Techron every 5K miles ... That is my automotive fuel system cleanliness plan .

I use Techron similar to this - like before an oil change. I watch for the buy one get one at ---% off and keep a bit on hand that way. Not to say I don't grab Gumout PEA on sale - but RL is just too expensive for me. Just bought Techron Marine multi purpose - sounds like a great all in one product.

 

[GJM120]

Originally Posted by blufeb95

If it helps, Chevron gas is said to have about 400ppm of PEA (Techron) in it,

IWhere did you learn this? From this thread (sorry I couldn't link the exact post) Chevron is 100ppm of their additive pack which I assume is primarily PEA. https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/5166791/9 I add some Techron when fueling with non Chevron gas. I'm trying to get reasonably close to Chevron gas level. I'm know I'm being a bit over analytical considering 100ppm v 400ppm and the unknown as to what the PEA level in Techron is.

 

[blufeb95]

Originally Posted by 4WD

Just bought Techron Marine multi purpose - sounds like a great all in one product.

I have 24 4oz bottles of it, if Wal-Mart doesn't ask for it back, I ordered a 12 pack of 32oz Techron Complete for $60 a few weeks ago from walmart.com, I think someone screwed up and meant to put it as a 12 pack of 4oz marine fuel system cleaner, so it showed as a 12 pack of the 32oz but on the backend it told the warehouse to fulfill an order for 12 4oz bottles of the marine fuel system cleaner, so when I received the wrong thing I contacted customer service by email and the resent the incorrect item again,then after complaining to the CEOs office I got them to send me what I ordered, so for $60 I got 12 32oz bottles of techron which is a steal and 24 bottles of the 4oz marine fuel system treatment assuming at some point they don't tell me to send it back which I'd consider them well in their right to do.

 

[blufeb95]

Originally Posted by GJM120

IWhere did you learn this? From this thread (sorry I couldn't link the exact post) Chevron is 100ppm of their additive pack which I assume is primarily PEA. https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/5166791/9 I add some Techron when fueling with non Chevron gas. I'm trying to get reasonably close to Chevron gas level. I'm know I'm being a bit over analytical considering 100ppm v 400ppm and the unknown as to what the PEA level in Techron is.

It's what shows up in the wiki article, but I can't locate the orginal source that is cited on the wiki. But let's just use what I said as a relative reference, most of these fuel additives are probably disolved in a mixture of solvents that are a similar density and probably also similar to gasoline, so assuming you add 1oz of techron concentrate which is ~30% PEA by weight in a gallon of gas that means that .3 of 129 relative weight units are Techron which makes it out to be about 0.23% by weight is PEA, which means that if the marketing literature is correct that Chevron gas with techron should contain about 0.023% by weight of PEA, but I have no idea what the particle count is since I can't confirm the particle count in any of the products or fuels mentioned and stoichiometric conversions for the weight and density aren't published, plus we'd have to know exactly how many particles their are to a gallon of pure gas. Pretty much this is all fancy guesswork and anything that mentions ppm can be taken with the grain of salt, but atleast we know the percentage by weight and have an estimate on how much PEA by weight should be in Chevron gas.

 

[Davejam]

PPM is simply a way of expressing low concentrations. If by mass you don't need to know anything about density. If by volume you would need to know density, but it is safe to say densities are all similar. It seems more likely that Techron gas would be around 100ppm and adding the concentrated additive would bring this to around 1000ppm. That would see similar to the other additives. But i'm not saying this is for sure the case.

 

[Luftmasse]

So if you guys had the choice between Redline SI-1 and Techron, which would you choose?

 

[4WD]

The 4 ounce marine stuff is very concentrated