Reaction to Reactor - Motoring

Motoring July 1999

The test car is over six and a half years old, has a slightly faulty turbocharger waste gate and its airflow sensor isn't in its best condition. Mileage is well on the wrong side of 120,000 km and it seldom exceeds 10 km per litre, unless there's an unusual amount of easygoing, lightly loaded driving over many days. Which happens rather rarely, because an Uno Turbo thrives on punting and needs to be "opened up" regularly. Anyway, we were offered a chance to try the newfangled Broquet Reactor over a three-month period. The Reactor is described as a performance-oriented variation of the original Broquet fuel catalyst, with its compact and elegant twin-chamber stainless steel design containing a lot more than the six or eight pellet in the regular in-tank unit, thereby promising a significantly increased catalytic effect on the car's petrol and further enhancing the "Broqueted" engine's combustion efficiency. The major claimed benefits at the end of the day are improved performance, reduced fuel consumption and cleaner exhaust emissions.

Any automotive journalist worth his salt takes things with a pinch of salt. The Reactor demo unit was subjected to the exact same scepticism that we reserve for new car advertisements and the usual marketing hyperbole. "Sure it's the exact same thing that your customers buy? Sure it won't damage my engine? Sure it won't be troublesome? Are you absolutely sure that it works?"

The test car's enginebay is as crowed as a peak-hour MRT train ride, making it rather difficult to find a good spot for the Reactor device. We eventually decided to fit on the strut bar - near the center portion - and had a suitable mounting bracket fabricated to hold it steady here. At the same time, the Fiat's fuel lines were slightly reconfigured using new rubber hoses in order to connect properly to the Reactor. Full installation took less than half an hour and the whole thingamajig looked and felt nice, tight and professional; almost as if it came with the car from the showroom. More importantly, it remained that way throughout our Reactor road test in the Uno, whose ride is always jiggly and its suspension about as pliant as soft rocks.

Our Uno Turbo is known to come alive at 3000rpm where the turbo starts spinning in earnest, pull vigorously from there till about 5500rpm and then taper off quite dramatically towards the redline, which is the signal to change up and repeat the cycle, staying within that torquey 2500rpm power band as much as possible. Immediately after fitting the Reactor, the post-5500rpm drop in the turbo's pull became less noticeable and the top end seemed to be a tad more eager. There is next to no difference at the lower revs though, and the engine isn't any sweeter as it goes about its business.

However, we registered a pleasing reduction in fuel use of between 8 to 10 per cent, without changing our petrol choice and our everyday driving style which is full throttle half the time. This is a genuine cost saving that - in our case - is likely to perfectly offset the cost of the $350 Broquet Reactor within 15 months. For greater peace of mind, the local Broquet sole distributor offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Incidently, the permanent fuel booster unit is designed to last 400,000 km which should be longer than the typical car's lifespan in COE-controlled Singapore.