Project Farm tests Engine Restore
 

Project Farm is a sponsor-free, auto-tech/engineering review channel on Youtube.

They're known for testing products you may have come across like amazon oil vs valvoline, seafoam vs techron vs mmo, etc, but also fun, goofy stuff like 3D printing cylinder heads, JB welding rod repairs, bacon grease for fuel and so on.

Now I recognize this forum's general antipathy toward additives, but found the Engine Restore test, and follow up one year later, quite interesting. And low and behold, there's even a compression test.

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr8jIwVyIFE&t=348s
Part 2 (One year later) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXIu3oo8z4c

Thoughts?

Can you tell us some more about their results/claims? you can save us a collective ton of man hours, thanks

For what it's worth, I put Restore liquid into the oil of an M180 engine installed in a 1965 W111 220S which had low compression, and after a year of intermittent driving, the compression numbers went from:

#1-108 #2-103 #3-102 #4-109 #5-111 #6-120

to:

#1-111 #2-117 #3-122 #4-116 #5-116 #6-115

and I also noticed a lot less oil being thrown out of the dipstick tube and into the carburetors. Obviously it won't repair enlarged cylinder walls and shrunken piston rings, but it fills in cylinder wall scratches which might help the engine last a little longer.

That's good!

Thanks for sharing!

We used to have a 20 year old riding mower at our shop with a very tired B&S engine in it. Tired enough that it was difficult to start when cold, lots of oil in the air box from the breather tube. For giggles, I dumped some Restore in with an oil change and it made a marked improvement. Went for another 2-3 years before the rest of the mower rotted away or fell apart, the engine was still running decently well. It's not a "miracle in a bottle" but it can help get you along for a while.

It's probably worth mentioning that it's only capable of helping compression issues caused by scoring and marring of the cylinder walls. It will do nothing for ring tension, valve sealing, or head gasket issues.

For a data point, I got a hold of a 12 year old rider that likely never had the oil changed. Did an oil change and sometimes it would smoke on start up for about 30 seconds. Power was good and I don't recall any oil out the breather other then maybe a slight dampness.

After about a 1 1/2 years and another oil change the smoke stopped. I feel the oil control ring was sludged / stuck but became cleaned after running with fresh oil. ( Maybe 2nd ring being stuck too )

The sometimes smoke was likely caused when the piston stopped near top of bore where taper is the greatest and oil seeped past the rings. ( It is a vertical shaft engine so oil can lay in the bore. )

Ive used engine restorer for years. Smoothed out the idle on a 300000 mile chevy 305 and others

Ours was just tired. Oil changed twice a season. Just very high hours, tons of use and abuse, extremely dusty conditions. Was an old one-lung flathead 12.5 I/C with the "synchro balance" system in it. I feel like if it were anything else it wouldn't have lasted anywhere near as long. Tough old engine that lasted way longer than it should have.

There must be someone on the forum who's tried a bottle in their mercedes diesel.

I plan on it during the next oil change, though my engine is far from tired. I also put some in a 1960 Ford F-100 and it seemed to almost stop the huge amounts of oil that would get thrown out of the oil filler tube.

Not in a Mercedes diesel. But I had a 91 BMW 318i that started to consume oil at a pretty good clip. Ran really well, didn’t leak, didn’t smoke. Very strange.

I used this stuff and consumption reduced reasonably well; to the point that I was over 1000 miles per quart, from around a tank and a half (-500 miles).

Not scientific. Just figured I’d try it because the car was such a great driver and commuter, but just lost too much oil.

I’m not convinced that this stuff fixed it by increasing viscosity. There was something else to it.

According to their website, Restore does not affect viscosity.

https://www.restoreusa.com/faq/engine-restorer-faq

^ great, thanks! Point made; many additives aiming to improve consumption or compression are just really heavy oils.

Roger that. I’m pretty curious. Think I’ll throw a can in on my next oil change.

I just tossed a can into my 190D. I don't have compression numbers, but it's a bit down on power. Certainly can't make it worse.