CLM Debunked
Amateur oil additive enthusiasts often have pet theories about how their favorite additive works. Unfortunately for them, tribological action occurs at the molecular scale, and is not easily discerned without specialized instrumentation and testing. Fortunately for them, this testing HAS been done, and the results are incorporated into the best oils available today.
In their patent application
5245721, the designers of CLM claim it has:
“Small, spherical metal particles (99%<20 microns) such as copper and lead, 33-55% naphthenic oil, 4-6% paraffinic oil, 35-45% chlorinated paraffin, and 5-20% metal powders or soaps together with minor proportions of the anti-oxidant/anti-wear agents and a sufficient amount of grease to maintain the metal powders in suspension .”
In the first place, NO ENGINE OIL SHOULD CONTAIN ANY PARTICLE OF ANY SHAPE OR SIZE LARGER THAN THE MINIMUM CLEARANCES IN THAT ENGINE. The reason for this is easily understood by studying the clearances in an engine under load.
Although the design static clearances in connecting rod and crankshaft main bearings are in the 0.001” to 0.003” range, under load they deflect off center and can be as little as 0.00004” (1 micron). These bearing systems are designed to be fully hydrodynamic mode bearings, and particles entering the bearing gap under load that are larger than the oil film will cause damage to the bearing insert, the journal, or both. In addition, many of the better oil filters have significant filtering capabilities in the 5-20 micron range. Use of this additive with these filters will result in much of the added metal powder being trapped in the filter, potentially reducing flow.
The use of a Timken Machine outside of a laboratory to demonstrate an oil additive’s anti wear characteristics is a common and misleading ploy which many have fallen for. This test merely gives one aspect of a lubricant’s performance, and the lubricant must also conform to all other applicable engine oil standards, which chlorinated paraffins do not. A chlorinated paraffin metalworking fluid (many of which have been phased out), for example, will give excellent results on a Timken machine, but is entirely unsuitable for use as an engine lubricant additive. Modern internal combustion engine oil formulations have eliminated chlorinated hydrocarbons of all sorts since the 1930s when they were shown to have long-term corrosive effects on engine parts due the corrosive chlorine that they release when heated. Their statement that their specific additive tested to be non-corrosive is in direct contradiction to the fact that they included chlorinated paraffin. The mechanism by which chlorinated paraffin works as an anti-wear agent, is pressure-induced heat liberates chlorine which bonds with steel to form FeCl2, an anti-wear film bonded with the metal. When this process occurs in the presence of moisture as is found in the sump of automobiles, highly corrosive hydrochloric acid is formed. If they claim in their testing that there was no chlorine released from the additive, then their test did not actually cause the additive to operate as an anti-wear additive. In this case, why would they include chlorinated paraffin in the formulation in the first place?
The best evidence you can find that this product is ineffective is provided by the patentees themselves in the patent application. They claim that the additive can decrease friction so significantly that the fuel mileage increased from 22.6 to 30.0MPG in one test (33%), and from 13.8 to 17.9MPG in another (30%). There are two easily understood proofs to reject this claim:
1) A gallon of gasoline, when combusted in an average engine releases 132,000,000 joules of energy which is spent as follows:
20% becomes useful motive energy., 50% is eliminated in the exhaust, 20% is conducted into the cooling system, and 10% of the total energy converted by friction into heat and passed into the cooling system. This means that on average, 13,200,000 joules of energy per gallon are wasted by frictional heating.
The gasoline usage in their first test dropped from 2.88 gallons to 2.17 gallons per hour. This is a claimed saving of 0.71 gallons, or 93,720,000 joules. Of the initial 2.88 gallons used, 38,016,000 joules of energy were spent per hour overcoming friction. So, they are claiming that their additive eliminated nearly 2.5 times as much frictional energy as the engine has total? Hmmm, this is obviously impossible, but let’s look at their other test.
The gasoline usage in their second test dropped from 4.71 gallons to 3.63 gallons per hour. This is a claimed saving of 1.08 gallons, or 142,560,000 joules. Of the initial 4.71 gallons used, 62,172,000 joules of energy were spent per hour overcoming friction. So, in this second test they are claiming that their additive eliminates nearly 2.3 times as much frictional energy loss as the engine has in total? I think I can safely discount their mileage increase claims at this point. Even if their additive actually eliminated ALL friction in the engine, the mileage would only increase by 10%.
2) If the energy budget calculations didn’t sway you, then consider this: The US government’s watchdog; the EPA has raised the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standard continuously, from 18MPG in 1978 to 30.2 in 2011. If the average fuel economy of a manufacturer's annual fleet of car and/or truck production falls below the defined standard, the manufacturer must pay a penalty, currently $5.50 USD per 0.1 MPG under the standard, multiplied by the manufacturer's total production for the U.S. domestic market. This has cost the manufacturers hundreds of millions of dollars each over the last thirty years. If there was a single ‘silver bullet’ which could raise fuel efficiency by even one percent, it would be MANDATED, not merely adopted by all manufacturers. Many millions of dollars have gone into engine efficiency improvements, some of which have netted less than one percent efficiency increase.
Oil price conspiracy theorists aside, this technology would have been adopted as standard since its invention if it had any merit, so we can only conclude that it lacks merit. Furthermore, since we have established that the claims are intentionally false, why would you believe ANYTHING the inventor claimed? Add to this that the two claimed mechanisms of operation are both dangerous and have been eliminated from engine oils for over 50 years, and you get the picture.
Snake oil anyone?
