Posted for "Ron Laughlin" <ronlaughlin@gmail.com>:

> [Data points.... about 10 hours have passed now and the 10dF gas/oil
> solution is still just that... it exhibits no stratification of any sort.

Good test Marv! It's probably just one of those pit crew "Old Wives
Tale" that I have been believing all these year. The colder air temps
were possibly causing fuel atomization problems or some such and we
were improperly blaming it on oil mix separation. Hey, maybe even carb
ice was the real problem, eh. Anyway, thanks for taking a scientific
approach.

--
Ron Laughlin
Legacy N44L (res)

[Glad you liked it, Ron... it's being very interesting. BTW, the stuff that started out stratified is now completely mixed and a true solution, all without agitation after about 8 hours or so. Ain't diffusion grand! As for old wives' tales, maybe, maybe not. You have to consider that my little tests today were done with modern day TCW3 type 2-stroke oil. Back in the day there was a lot of 2-stroke oil that was made with castor bean oil, and it's entirely likely that it may have had completely different mixing characteristics and could well have been more difficult to get into and keep in solution. Today about the only place you see castor oil used as an engine lubricant is on model airplane and boat engines that run on alcohol (as far as I know). It seems if you want the creme-de-la-creme of 2-stroke oils you opt for the API-TC oils that the racing guys use... they continue to provide lubrication at higher temps and were developed for use in air-cooled, high rpm, high output 2-stroke engines... maybe there's a message there. Anyway, if you'd like to learn a bit more about these oils I'd highly recommend the little primer that Sea-Doo put together... you can read it at http://www.sea-doo.net/techarticles/oil/oil.htm.

Now, I wonder what the next experiment is going to be? This one's been very informative. <marv> ]