Topic: Octane boost

[lil goat]

The point system is in tenth of a point so in short NO it won't even raise it 1 full point. 
The only products that will raise octane effectively and somewhat cost effectively are Torco, Higher octane Unleaded fuel the best answer if you can find it at a decent cost,
Toluene (sp), Xylene (sp) can also be used but may be hard to find and not really sure on the cost.  Not sure if there are any negative affects on your vehicles system for the last two but I wouldnt try them unless I know for sure nothing will be harmed. 
I still think the best advice would be to have a duel tune which you can switch over from your everyday driving or if you know your going to race get some Unleaded race fuel and switch to that tune.  Anything else is really not practical IMO.  At least that was they way I treated my other vehicle which is basically a Ford Lightning Supercrew for the past 6yrs.  Have duel tunes for street and track but rarely use the track tune since I really dont like spending $8+ a gallon for 100 unleaded octane.

I went out and bought a bottle of NOS, it does say 60 points or 6 Ron on the bottle, in independent tests it was shown to raise 93 octane gas over 2 Ron consistently, so up to 95 octane. Octane boosters are kind of weird and are not linear, they will raise the octane of lower octane fuel more than high octane. So that said it will raise 87 up to 6 ron, 60 points to 93 or in tests it raised 93 2 ron or 20 points to 95. If you add it to 91 I would expect it to raise it to at least 93 and very likely a bit higher. By the way a lot of people including me mistakenly refer to a point as = to a Ron, 1 point is 1 tenth of a Ron sorry for the confusion. NOS does work, I have seen evidence  on a dyno. I have never seen any tests for Torco, but they are a good name in racing fuel I am sure it works. It most likely is the same as NOS and an MMT additive, some of the cheaper boosters use Toluene and it works but adding 12 oz's to a full tank of gas won't have much effect.

Toluene and Xylene won't harm your car they are already in the gas, there is a limit to how much you can add, it slows the burn and may slow it to much. You could safley ad a gallon if you can find it to a full tank of gas, more than that may cause to long a burn on a high reving car. Best bet is still VP Racing gas or Sunoco 269 GT Plus.

[Sol Asylum]

When my girlfriends Dad flew his plane he had 3 drums of Aircraft fuel in his hanger . My 47 and PT were using that every Sat. Nite at least 115 Octane  Fun Fuel .if you have access to that highly leaded

Aviation fuel or avgas is rated somewhat different then auto fuel in that there is usually a high and low number such as 100/130.  The 100 represents a lean mixture octane and the 130 is a rich mixture.  This does not mean that it's octane rating is the average of the two numbers but that the fuel performs differently depending on the ratio of fuel to air.  Years ago there used to be a 115/145 avgas however that was long ago, in fact I have been around aviation for about 20 years now and have never seen it.  There used to be three different grades that were normally available 80, 100LL, and 100.  Sometime in the late 80s early 90s this changed and 100 was phased out and 80 started to be come quite rare and only a few airports had it.  Anymore 100LL is the only grade commonly available.  I'm going to say that there is no way you were not running 115 octane fuel more likely 100 is the best you could have expected.

Now some of you are wondering whats the difference between 100LL and 100?  Well the LL stands for low lead, lead being what they added to increase the octane rating.  The interesting thing is that 100LL actually has more lead in it then the old 100.  Aircraft engines (reciprocating) are pretty much old school technology in that most designs date back to the 50's and 60's.  FAA certification makes it very expensive for new innovations to be introduced and most engine makers don't wish to spend the money for a market that isn't that lucrative, they also run the risk of being sued if new technology fails so they just go with what has worked and is already certified.  Now the EPA of course would like all fuels to be lead free but in this case bureaucracy gets in the way because the FAA makes it almost impossible to make the changes to aircraft engines that would be needed to make them run on unleaded fuels.  So avgas continues to have a pretty high level of lead.

We should all know that running leaded fuels in a car designed to run unleaded fuel is a big no no.  It will mess up your catalytic converter is the big one right but what will the added lead do to our turbos?  Thats a question that I can't answer.  My guess is that it would not be good.  I used to have access to a lot of waste avgas and would run it in my 1970's lawn mower or in a friend's boat.  The reason I stopped using avgas was because the excess lead was leaving a lot of lead deposits behind like fouling the spark plugs and in the case of my mower it literally sealed off the exhaust ports.  Avgas is much more highly refined then auto gas (mogas).  I found that when we would run avgas in the mower or the boat a tank of fuel burns a lot faster and that is because the avgas vaporizes a lot faster then mogas.  When we would run the avgas we would have to adjust the mixture on the carburetors to make the engines run smoothly.  Which brings us back to are we running a rich or lean mixture and what then is the octane rating?  Here is something else to consider most aircraft engines do not exceed 3000 RPM as higher RPMs would cause the prop tips to turn too fast, therefore the fuel does not have to burn as fast as fuel would need to for a higher reving engine.  Who knows what having unburnt fuel exposed to your turbo would do?  One more thing aircraft engines use 2 spark plugs per cylinder to help the fuel burn more throughly.

Since most cars are not set up for 100 or higher octane and the fact that the mixture is probably going to be very lean your most likely going to be getting the lower of the octane numbers along with the risk of burning up exhaust valves because the mixture is too lean.  There is of course the issue of running lead in your unleaded engine oh and avgas the last time I checked was something like $6/gal, so basically what I am saying is don't use it in your car just like you shouldn't use mogas in your plane.

[Deep-GXP]

I came upon this site...

http://www.need4speedpower.com/torco.html

They have the torco stuff in 5 gallon drums with shipping included comes out to about $250

5 gallons is the same as 20 of the 32oz bottles at a cost of $12.50/32oz.

Someone posted somewhere that he mixed 10oz torco with 16 gallons of 91 to make a 93 octane mix.

If this is true, I may only need 9oz of this stuff to boost from 91 to 93 in our 13.3 gallon tank.

9oz only cost me $3.50......but damn 5 gallons is a lot to store.  What's the shelf life on this stuff???  Im guessing the container it comes in is a very good container to store it in.

[Frank I]

The point system is in tenth of a point so in short NO it won't even raise it 1 full point. 
The only products that will raise octane effectively and somewhat cost effectively are Torco, Higher octane Unleaded fuel the best answer if you can find it at a decent cost,
Toluene (sp), Xylene (sp) can also be used but may be hard to find and not really sure on the cost.  Not sure if there are any negative affects on your vehicles system for the last two but I wouldnt try them unless I know for sure nothing will be harmed. 
I still think the best advice would be to have a duel tune which you can switch over from your everyday driving or if you know your going to race get some Unleaded race fuel and switch to that tune.  Anything else is really not practical IMO.  At least that was they way I treated my other vehicle which is basically a Ford Lightning Supercrew for the past 6yrs.  Have duel tunes for street and track but rarely use the track tune since I really dont like spending $8+ a gallon for 100 unleaded octane.

Tazz:

Don't want to belabor the point but go back and reread my prior post.  NOX Racing Booster claims it can raise up to 60 points which equates to 6 full octane numbers.  One point = one tenth, so 60 points = 6 octane.  That does not mean it is going to raise it six points, it only means it can raise it dependent on what octane level fuel you are trying to increase.  Hence, Goat is correct in stating it depends on what octane level the fuel is that you are starting with.  If you are starting with 87 octane the NOX may increase it up to 6 octane numbers but if you are starting with 93 octane it will not raise the octane number up to 99.  The MMT additive NOX uses is under a lot of scrutiny by the environmentalists and oil companies started using other types of additives to raise octane numbers which pass the test of those environmental agencies.  As for using other brands of octane booster with the additives Toluene or Zylene, you can purchase them at most parts supply stores but their octane boosting abilities fall short of using a booster with MMT. 

I use NOX booster, when I get a poor quality of fuel (which is frequent around my neck of the woods) or if I am going to drive the car hard.  When driving hard, I use it as a precaution to help keep spark retard under control.   

Frank I   

[tazz]

There must be one that I havent seen could you send me a link so I might look into purchasing a bottle.
The NOS boosters ive seen only raise the octane level to the level I stated which isn't much.  Needed something a few years back on my other vehicle and was looking all over the parts stores for something that would work and never found anything.  The G/F put a full tank of 87 in my truck that had 93 tune in it and the tune was not a flip tune.  Could have shot her.  Draining the tank would have been a @##$%^^ to do, so I need to find something that would do the trick and none of the parts places had a crap.  A Napa employee got me in touch with his buddy that sells Torco products and he got me a can so I just used pretty much the whole can of Torco and didnt have any issues with detonation.

[Frank I]

There must be one that I havent seen could you send me a link so I might look into purchasing a bottle.
The NOS boosters ive seen only raise the octane level to the level I stated which isn't much.  Needed something a few years back on my other vehicle and was looking all over the parts stores for something that would work and never found anything.  The G/F put a full tank of 87 in my truck that had 93 tune in it and the tune was not a flip tune.  Could have shot her.  Draining the tank would have been a @##$%^^ to do, so I need to find something that would do the trick and none of the parts places had a crap.  A Napa employee got me in touch with his buddy that sells Torco products and he got me a can so I just used pretty much the whole can of Torco and didnt have any issues with detonation.

Tazz:

There are three different octane boosters sold by NOS; one is for the street; one is called Racing and; one is for off road use.

I have used all three but would recommend the Racing product since it gave me the best results.

You can purchase it at most major brand parts houses plus Summit or Jegs.  Even Auto Zone, Pep Boys, and other discount chains carry NOS.  You can read on the box or the bottle how much to expect each product to increase the octane level.

Your correct on some of the other brands, they won't do much for you.  There are several articles and tests that have been performed and you can access them on the internet.

Hope this helps.

Frank I

[lil goat]

The Race NOS is what I bought, put it in a full tank and drove from DC to Philly in the rain, that was a mistake, if I got on it at all around 3500 rpm in 4th I was spinning my tires, I was running with 6 BMW's and a GTO, 2 of the BMW;s were new M3's we were rolling hard. I also found Xylol (xylene) at Lowe's for $16.95 a gallon it's 117 octane. With the NOS I could feel the difference for sure, if I was going to the track I would certainly put it in.