Questionable 'fuel Additive' Company Leaning On Aussie Blogger

[ScaryTed77]

Hi all,

A little background:

Daniel Rutter runs the website http://www.dansdata.com/ , a fairly well known website among computer and tech-heads alike. He does independent reviews of computer hardware and a whole host of stuff.

Firepower is a company that is selling a 'fuel pill' which, if their results are to be believed is some sort of fuel economy and fuel octane miracle with amazing benefits. Firepower provided Dan with some 'results' about their product. Results which Dan completely debunked here: http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2008/02/12/firepowers-results/

Now, to quote Dan from his website:

"Someone from the colourful fuel-additive company Firepower has ordered Blogsome, who host my blog, to force me to cease linking to the PDF file of their "evidence" which their Australian CEO sent to me.

When he sent it to me, he similarly ordered me to make it available for download"

For further reading:

http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/forums.asp?s=1...=121327&p=0

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/firepo...0486568678.html

http://buyfirepowerpill.com/

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/news/rabbi...2941065800.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/firepo...8709679192.html

[mad082]

stick it to the man!! LOL

i get sick of all this crap about fuel savers. if there really was something that worked all the car manufacturers would use it and market their cars as being more enviromentally friendly.

there is some crap on the market now that 'uses the power of water' to get much better fuel economy and it's testimonials have some people claiming up to double the economy or more.

and the fuel tests that ACA did the other day with brands was just crap. they never use the same car with the same driver. while you might get all the same cars to carry the same weight, and have the same tyre pressures, 1 car might have a slightly sticky handbrake, or 1 driver may use 5% more throttle when accelerating. none are ever even. if they want to do it even they should use the 1 car, on a dyno so that they can rule out any change in conditions and have the driver floor it up to the set speed so that there is no difference in throttle % when accelerating. i mean ACA even proved that driving hard uses more fuel so how can they call their results accurate since they used different drivers?

[scathing]

Firepower are a bunch of dodgy c**ts. SMH has quite a few articles on them, including links to arms manufacturers and dictators.

Dan's been threatened with lawsuits a couple of times, mostly by homeopathy crackpots, and they never come through. Unfortunately, Firepower has financial and political clout so they might try and do something about it.

Dan's got my full support. He's got a strong science mindset, and a good bullshit detector.

[ScaryTed77]

Damn straight. I hadn't heard of Firepower before this, but the more you read the more...interesting the company becomes.

For example: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...505-643,00.html

From the article:

Despite his efforts to debunk claims of secrecy, Mr Finnin was unable to furnish any proof of Firepower's technology, any scientific work or even put on show the revolutionary pill itself.

The enigmatic Perth-based founder and major shareholder of Firepower, Tim Johnstone, was not at the press conference to answer questions about his relationship with colourful West Australian entrepreneur Warren Anderson.

"There is a rising demand world-wide for our product," said Mr Finnin, who met the principals of the infamous Jordanian trucking company Alia when he was an Austrade executive in 2003.

Austrade, mysteriously, appears to have played quite a role in the "success" of Firepower. It provided the group with almost $400,000 in development grants.

Like Coca-Cola, Mr Finnin said, Firepower was not willing to reveal the secret ingredients in its products.

"Who invented it?" asked a journalist.

"I don't know who invented it," responded Mr Finnin.

Journalist: "You don't know who invented it and you are the CEO of the company?"

"Absolutely," said Mr Finnin, momentarily looking over at his public relations operative for help. "Brian, are you ...?"

The pill had not been patented, Mr Finnin confirmed, as Firepower was reluctant to risk its revolutionary technology being stolen by a rival. Even so, after struggling for an answer as to where the pill was made, he replied, "In a variety of places".