Missouri company moving into Class 8 market with fuel air separation system
Brad Ekstam says his product excels at taking the air out of fuel. (Courtesy Diesel Performance Products)
By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff
10/12/2007
MARTHASVILLE, Mo. — A Missouri company intends to make one of its products as well known in the Class 8 market as it now is in the small diesel engine market.
The product, the Fuel Air Separation System, or FASS, is designed to remove water, or condensation, air and vapor from diesel fuel systems.
“The product takes dirt, water and air out of the fuel,” Brad Ekstam, president of Diesel Performance Products, said.
“Where we really excel is taking the air out of fuel.”
While the company does advertise that using the product will increase fuel economy, to Ekstam that economy is gained by consistent performance rather than guaranteed additional miles per gallon.
“The biggest thing we try to sell to the over-the-road owner-operators and fleets is that we really are pushing is consistent performance,” Ekstam said. “What we mean by consistent performance is that let’s say you had your truck sitting outside overnight and you go out and it’s cool in the morning. The tank is full. You fire up your truck, let it warm up and head down the road. That truck will pull smoother, it’ll pull quieter inside the cab and you’ll also feel that is has power. But as you run throughout the day and the fuel gets hotter, as it agitates and the fuel level gets lower, you’ll notice that your performance drops little by little.”
Those conditions allow more air and vapor to reach the engine, Ekstam said.
“So what we do is eliminate the air so you’ll get a little bit better performance than when you first started out, and we’ll give it to you all day long,” Ekstam said. “Now we’re doing nothing different that what a test cell does. If you go to Caterpillar, Cummins or Detroit Engine, they’ll have an engine on the floor, and the fuel tank will be up on top of the building. That’s giving the engine a positive feed.
“Now on a trucks, the fuel is back a ways and down below so we’re having to suck the fuel up in a vacuum,” Ekstam said. “Any time that you put liquid under a vacuum, you develop vapor. And what makes that vapor worse is heated fuel and thinner liquid.”
Heating has always made fuel thinner, but the advent of low sulfur fuel has made things even worse, he said.
Another difference in the test cell and over-the-road utilization in a test cell, the building is not shaking.
“After an hour and a half of traveling with all the variables — temperature, condition of the road, fuel levels and all that, there is enough fuel displacement in the fuel that it equals about 11 inches of vapor being produced on a fuel filter,” Ekstam said.
New emissions standards have also made fuel economy more difficult to achieve in today’s engines.
“Do you know how much thinner fuel has become than in the old days?” Ekstram asked. “Back in the 1980’s, you had to use Lava soap to wash diesel off your hands,” he said. “It was almost like oil. Almost, but not quite. “Now you could almost wipe it off with a paper towel. Every time they cut sulfur out, they are thinning the fuel.”
The thinner fuel also hurts the lubricity.”
Eliminating air in the fuel tank and fuel lines is absolutely essential to improving economy, Ekstram said.
“Think about it this way. If you have air in your brake lines on your car, it makes your brakes spongy,” he said. “It delays when the brakes are actually activated and how much they actually activate. Air in a fuel system delays and retards your timing. It changes the amount of fuel going into the cylinder. The reason fuel injection came about was to inject a pre-determined about of fuel at a pre-determined time. Air throws both of those off.”
For more information on FASS, go to www.FASSride.com.