It ’s a popular trope in fable feature cagey cops and remiss children . When someone wants to ruin a car ’s engine , theypoursugar into the gas tank . Upon the target enter the vehicle and turning the kindling , it sputters and devolves into a heap .
Is this what is meant by sweet revenge ? Does it really function ? If so , how ?
Thetheoryis that sugar will flux into an railway locomotive via the fuel lines and create a syrupy mess that will step in with the engine ’s surgery , rendering it useless and relegating the vehicle to the junkyard . But this premiss is flawed . A University of California , Berkeley forensics professor make John Thorntonconductedan experimentation in 1994 in which he label saccharose ( bread ) with radioactive carbon molecule and mixed it with gasoline . After reserve the gelt to dissolve , he removed any persist solid particles and then measured the solution ’s radiation , which would indicate its cabbage message . Only about a teaspoonful of sugar was good dissolved in the 15 - Imperial gallon sample distribution . Since it ca n’t caramelise , it ca n’t really harm anything . If solid boodle particles made it to the engine , they ’d probably be caught by a filter .
The only way sugar could affect a railroad car ’s public presentation was if it choke off the fuel filter or fuel injector . That might block off a car from run , but those could be scavenge — and so could the gas tank itself , if take .
Some enterprising people at Project Farm performed a more practical experiment back in 2017 , tote up sugar to the gasoline tank of a four - apoplexy lawnmower engine and then examine the engine to see what form of catastrophe result .
If you were expecting some sort of explosion , you ’re go to be let down . Most of the lolly stay in the fuel tank of the lawnmower , but some made it to the piston and valves . The sugar became caramelise . It did n’t prevent the engine from starting , but over meter , have this sludge sticking to everything is likely to cause a problem .
Can it ruin an railway locomotive ? unconvincing . Could a few granule of lolly get through the filters and cause a job ? Potentially .
If sugar ca n’t exact vehicular revenge , what could ? mayhap piddle . It will remainseparatedfrom the gas and can get into the fuel line and disrupt burning . But that would n’t be a very courteous thing to do .
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