What happens when you put sugar in the gas tank of a car?

We all understand that internal combustion engines need clean fuel to operate. But let's say a bad guy wants to pour sugar into your car's gas tank to destroy it?

The term "sugar in the gas tank" is often used figuratively (very interesting) that you can find out for yourself, but its literal meaning is just the act of pouring sugar into the gas tank.

The act of putting sugar in the gas tank in movies

In the famous French-Italian comedy "Razinya" in 1965, starring actors Burville and de Funes, people put sugar in the car's gas tank to prank each other and the results were perfect. making everyone laugh.

 Put sugar in the car's gas tank to prank each other

The 1996 film Kingpin also had a pretty famous scene in this regard. The villain poured sugar water into the gas tank to carry out a malicious plot with the car owner, it cost up to 2000 dollars to fix this error.

Even a child can guess that the road is certainly not good for the car engine, but the actual consequences are still a mystery.

What exactly happens when sugar gets into a car's engine? Let's explore this together today.

First: How do sugar and gasoline interact when mixed?

Before finding out what happens when sugar is poured into the gas tank, let's take a look at the experiment of mixing sugar and gasoline together.

People put a few sugar cubes in a bowl of A-95 gasoline and soaked for a day, but the result was not a round number. It turns out that it's not possible to "make" a new gasoline with added sugar this way. Conclusion: sugar does not dissolve in gasoline.

In fact, sugar is insoluble in gasoline.

So what happens if you put sugar in the gas tank? It can get into the fuel line, but with one important condition: there must be water in the fuel tank - even a little bit. This often happens, for example, when moisture condensing in the air enters the fuel tank during refueling. When there is water in the fuel tank, the sugar will more or less dissolve.

With such assumption, the experiment was continued. People put gasoline, sugar and water in a glass jar. To the naked eye, a thin layer of liquid like syrup has formed at the bottom, while gasoline floats to the top due to its lower density.

To the naked eye, a thin layer of syrup-like liquid had formed at the bottom.

Will this layer of syrup pass through the fuel filter and into the intake manifold when the car is moving? It's not difficult to check: a pump system and a fine gasoline filter are installed in the tank containing the gasoline-syrup mixture. This time, because it's all liquid, gasoline and sweet syrup "pass" through the filter smoothly.

So can this syrup get dry in the fuel line? Theoretically this is not possible because all the tubes are sealed so the water does not evaporate. Of course, the presence of sugar in the cylinders is not beneficial, but such a small amount will not cause serious damage to the engine.

Consequences of putting sugar in the car's fuel tank

There is another experiment that illustrates the harmful effects of pouring sugar into the gas tank. In 1994, forensic science professor John Thornton of the University of California, Berkeley mixed gasoline with sugar and labeled it with radioactive carbon atoms. He used a centrifuge to separate insoluble residues and measured the radioactivity of gasoline to calculate the amount of sugar dissolved in it. As it turns out, less than a teaspoon of sugar dissolves in 57 liters of gasoline, which is equivalent to the average amount of gasoline in the fuel tank of a passenger car.

The engine was not damaged, but there was soot inside.

If you deliberately pour sugar into the fuel tank, what other consequences can be caused?

1. Firstly, this is difficult to do because modern cars are designed with auxiliary neck valves. This valve will prevent strangers from pouring anything into your car's tank.
2. Second, sugar doesn't dissolve in gasoline - we just watched them prove it.

Of course, if the car's gasoline is not fully filled, the amount of dissolved sugar will also be less. This "foreign liquid" part is clearly not dangerous enough to cause serious problems in the fuel system or engine let alone "kill" it.

What happens if you put sugar in the gas tank of a lawn mower?

In this clip we will use a lawn mower. Obviously, if you use a new, good car, the audiovisual experience will be more pleasing to the eyes and ears, but basically, the consequences that the sugar-gasoline mixture causes on the 4-stroke engine of the lawn mower will also be similar. on one's own.

Does Sugar In Gas Tank Destroy Car Engines? See what it does with this Engine!

Before conducting the test, people removed a few parts from the lawn mower engine and then filled it with a mixture of "sweet gasoline". If you were expecting epic fire and explosion scenes like in the movies, then I sincerely apologize – it didn't happen. The engine was not damaged, but inside there was soot that tasted like burnt lollipops. However, in the long run, the engine will certainly still have unpleasant problems.