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Its all advertisement. does shell clean your engine when you run it? absolutely... along with most every other gasoline out there. every top tier rated company uses detergent addatives in fuel to help reduce carbon buildup. a clean engine has better flow, resulting in a more complete burn of fuel. hence burning cleaner. so in the shell commercials what they claim is absolutely true. thing is almost everybody else does it too so it wont make a difference.
On another note though, Shell is advertising their new Nitrogen Enriched gasoline. Nitrogen Enriched is referring to their new detergent molecule. in a traditional detergent molecule you have a pure organic based molecule (consisting primarily of carbon chains saturates with hydrogen atoms). this is ideal because gasoline, the cause of the buildup, is also organic based. simple chemistry will tell you like disolves like, meaning ideally you want a organic molecule to disolve, or clean, the organic buildup. the problem with these types of detergents is that they, like gasoline, combust in the power producing cycle of the motor. that means there is no detergent left to clean when the exhast valves open. Nitrogen Enriched uses a Nitrogen molecule attatched to the carbon chain, making the detergent molecule more stable. a stable molecule is less likely to change, that is decompose into a non-detergent form. that means that less of the detergent combusts and allows for greater cleaning of post power stroke components. this is particularly useful for cleaning exhast valves, piston surface, and their main goal, DI injectors. But with the good come the bad. these unburned detergents will then get ran through your catalytic converter, making it work overtime. Hydrocarbons are a red flag in emissions because they have adverse effects on health. these detergents are a form of hydrocarbons, or basically anything that didnt decompose in combustion. its up to your catalytic converter to deal with this extra volume. Also, since the detergent is designed to not combust your actually running a leaner mixture of AFR (air Fuel Ratio) through your engine. this isnt such a big deal for stock engines since they normally run rich anyways, but will become previlent in motors with a custom tune.
So basically, if your getting a V6 camaro to just enjoy then Shell has a winner on their hands. But if your aiming at getting a hotrod V8, then your probably better off shopping for gasoline somewhere else
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