octane boost

[Guest BennyXRT]

I don't know for sure, but I thought you could use octane boost as much as u like??

I thought it was injector cleaner or "boost and clean" type products that is harmful to your motor if used for prolonged periods

I am pretty sure if it is just a straight octane booster with no cleaning additives, it is fine to use. It's just like using higher octane fuel.

Like turbotom said you can use ULP in your car as long it is unmodded and you are not towing for long periods - you just might notice a slight drop in performance.

Benny

[TURBO4LT]

  OwnaXR6T said:

I use octane boost with Shell optimax, I can't see how prolonged used of Octane boost could harm your car. I use the race formula from wynns. my octane rating would be over 100.

I used to use it in my car and it left a yellowy layer on my intake, pistons and the whole exhaust systems not to mention on the plugs and the car started to ping from the extra buildup and possibly from the coating on my plugs.

Now I only use it if I absolutely have to, it cant do the cat any good either I would imagine.

[Guest cul08r]

IT IS HARMFUL to use the Wynns type products every tankful. It is OK to use then every third tank or so. I have read a lot about this with the WRX club and on other forums. You might not notice a difference initially, but as TURBO4LT has suggested, it leaves a coating on your sparkplugs which will eventually lead to missfires or failure to detonate. Also it is detrimental to the catalytic converter.

If you want to up your octane rating of ULP or OPTIMAX etc, use Methyl Benzine, otherwise known as TOLUENE. You can get it bulk from most fuel depots, but it must go into a metal container and you sometimes have to sign a release that it is not for road use. You mix the MB at a ratio of no more than 15% and acheive up to a 5 ron increase with OPTIMAX.

Andrew

[ZAP]

Also if you use Toluene, make sure you use gloves and breathing protection as it is a known carsongen (causes cancer). It is good stuff, but must be handled properly and stored safely as it is bad stuff if missused

[Biggy]

Be careful when mixing tolulene, do it in a well ventilated area and wear rubber gloves as I think it is carsenagenic (I think that's how you spell it.) it is also not good for your flex fuel lines and maybe not good with the plastic fuel tank. Would be looking into this before using. Had considered mixing it for the rex when I had it but the amount that you need to add to a tank to get a few extra octane made each tank expensive and there is the hassle of mixing it before adding it to the tank. Just be carefull.

Biggy

[Guest cul08r]

Yeah, I forgot to mention that. I had it in my head, but I forgot to type it when the other stuff was coming outa my brain.

BE REAL CAREFUL, and if you get it on your hands, wash wash wash straight away...

Andrew

[3tl]

Thanks guys for all the advice. I think the best option is to get pulp from a retail outlet.

I realize that the T will run on ulp but hey who wants to sacrifice performance if they don't have to?

Certainly a lot of collective wisdom on this site that is worth tapping into.

Thanks again.

[mickq]

Toluene works well. And its cheap. Ive used it in numerous cars in the past, including a toluene injection system. I havent tried it in my XR6T as I have plenty of 98 RON fuel available.

You should have similar respect for it as you do normal fuel. Dont let people make you think it is mega-dangerous. It is not. It is classified as moderately toxic, and only mildly toxic by inhalation.

Toluene is NOT classified as a carcinogen. The main two effects it can have are developmental related (ie stunts development if a pregnant woman breathes lots in) and Central Nervous System effects. It can effect your kidneys. All of these if you cop a very high dose (lock yourself in a room and breath in strong fumes, or drink it) or medium dose for a long time.

There are NO conclusive results that prove it causes cancer.

Whats interesting, and again is against what others have written here, is that toluene most likely still is an accepted fuel additive in Australia, and a level of toluene is taken into account in several common car fuel standards. The relevance of this is that I bet you the XR6T is made to suit certain common fuel standards, and likely the same ones that just about every other Aussie car is made to meet. So its quite likely that our cars are "tested" to a certain level of toluene. That includes the fuel lines in the car.

A good place to star is to research exactly what fuel standards the XR6T is made to match (I think the manual only says octane...but I might be wrong). Then research those standards on the internet and see if they mention a level of toluene is OK. If it is, find out what that level is, and use toluene mixed with your fuel up to that level ut dont go over it. Start low.

Also from memory toluene is lighter than fuel. So assuming you arent using toluene injection, put it in your car before you fill up, and fill up your car when you still have a few litres left in it...dont run it near empty just to be safe.

Oh, FYI water is an excellent octane booster as well, and Ive used water injection as well with good success but as water doesnt burn it requires more careful mixing to get a good result.

In a sec Im going to post a long article I wrote for my internet site back in 1998 on toluene injection. Might be of some assitance. (Although it doesnt mention Optimax etc as they werent around, and the F1 fuel mixes mentioned are no longer accurate).

Edited 12/08/04 01:06 PM by mickq

[mickq]

Here you go. I first whacked this on my internet site waaaaay back on October 12, 1998. Might still contain some info of use to you!

Toluene Injection

Background.

Instructions.

Cost: $80 MAXIMUM

Time: 2 to 3 hours

Difficulty: 3/5

Background

High performance engines, whether turbocharged or naturally aspirated, dont like low octane fuels. The high in high performance is achieved by burning high octane fuels under high compression. Lower a fuel's octane level and a performance engine will start to ping or knock.

Octane levels were increased by adding lead to fuel; however since 1986 all new cars sold in Australia have to operate satisfactorily on unleaded petrol. Lead, an anti-knock agent, was removed from petrol for environmental reasons.

As a guide to its effectiveness, the official Research Octane Number (RON) of super leaded is 97, of unleaded is 91-93, and of premium unleaded is 95. Expensive premium unleaded fuel doesn't match the old stuff for octane, let alone normal unleaded being up to the old super mark.

If the fuel octane is too low for the effective compression ratio being used, the engine will detonate. Uncontrolled detonation will damage the engine by either punching holes through the head or piston or breaking the rings. This can happen very quickly when the engine is under load!!

Even EFI engines running knock sensors are not immune from the problems as the detonation may become too severe to be controlled by the computer especially in modified engines.

There are a number of ways of getting around low octane rating fuels causing problems. The first is to use leaded fuel in an unleaded car. There are a couple of negatives associated with this. Firstly its illegal. Leaded fuel also ruins the catalytic converter, and over a period will coat the exhaust gas lambda probe (oxygen sensing) causing it to give false readings. This will upset the accuracy with which the EFI system sets the mixture.

Another method is to use water injection. Water injection tends to be used formost on turbo cars, but in the U.S poor fuel has meant that many water injection kits are sold for use on normally aspirated engines running high compression ratios. A water injection setup will normally consist of a small windscreem washer pump, a jet, and some method of switching on the injection when it is needed. The switch is usually a pressure switch, working off the low vacuum on a naturally aspirated engine or working off the boost pressure on a turbo motor.

Water, however, is not a fuel. Water injection works only as a detonation suppressant. What is needed is something that will burn, increase performance and control detonation. Some people mix volatile fuels (metholated spirits) with the water, which gives a little more energy to the charge. Better than metho/water, the answer may be toluene.

A great deal of research was done into the area of suppressing detonation when Formula 1 cars ran turbos. McLaren-Honda were the dominating cars, running both high turbo boost pressures (how does 43 psi grab you) and high static compression ratios (up to 9.4:1). How the engineers did this has got implications for the street cars of today.

Formula 1 engineers tried water injection initially as a way of reducing detonation, but discarded this when they achieved better results by modifying the fuel. Straight octane boosters were prohibited. So three different fuels were experimented with by Honda, and the critical ingredient in each was toluene. On the test bench fuel with toluene amounts of 30%, 60% and 84% toluene was tried. The fuel with 84% toluene (the rest made up of n.heptane for those interested) allowed the ignition timing to be advanced 10 degrees compared to when the fuel had only 30% toluene.

So, what has Formula 1 and toluene got to do with you? Toluene is available in Australia under a number of different brand names, the most common being Shell's or Ampol's Toluol. Toluene is available in single litres upwards; however it is distributed from the refineries in 20 litre drums. Fuel companies recommend that proportions not over 20% be used to increase the anti-knock properties of fuel, otherwise there is the potentioal for burnt valves.

Overseas publications also warn about unpredictable results when toluene is added to unleaded becuase it may already be present in the fuel to make up for the loss of lead. As far as I have been able to ascertain, it is not a component of Australian unleaded-although the actual fuel mix varies from refinery to refinery. Mobil states catagorically that none of its pump fuels contain toluene.

Obviously one way of adding toluene to the engine's fuel is to simply pour it in the tank. If you add 20% you'll certainly get an increase in the anti-knock properties of the fuel. However, burning a toluene-rich fuel mixture all the time is unnecessary.

It's been estimated that a turbo road car uses full boost about two percent of the time, and a naturally aspirated car in normal use would be similar in full-throttle applications. What is needed is a way of having the toluene added only when necessary.

About the only disadvantage that the F1 boys found with fuel rich in the stuff was that its atomisation is poorer than more normal fuels. Filling up the water injection tank with toluene is not recommended! The nozzle would simply squirt a solid non-atomising jet into the air-stream in the intake manifold. Not to mention safety aspects of plastic containers and windscreen washers and highly volatile fuel.

But there is no reason why an EFI system for toluene cant be set up. I hear a chorus of groans - he's been leading up to this.Where the hell am I going to get a full EFI system cheaply? Well, you'll be suprised.

INSTRUCTIONS

The fuel delivery side of the toluene injection sytem consists of a tank, a high pressure regulator (which you can do without in this application) and injectors. The tank is obvious. You need a small one (about 10 to 20 litres) with inlet and outlet hose connections. The injector and electronic fuel pump sound expensive. But with so many wreckers importing second-hand stuff straight from Japan the lot shouldnt set you back $80.

In fact, I recently bought four EFI injectors, and a manifold for $20! You'll also need a switch to turn it all on, but more on that in a moment.

From the toluene tank (independent of the cars fuel tank) the fuel passes by gravity to the EFI pump, and then gets pumped to the injector to return in a circle back to the tank. On the return line to the tank a restriction is imposed, which gives the pressure side of the line just that...a pressure. Normally the fuel pressure regulator does this, and varies the fuel pressure with manifold pressure, but whenever the toluene system is operating you'll be flat to the boards anyway. A T-piece takes fuel to the single injector, which needs to be mounted where it gives equal toluene to all cylinders.

In an EFI car the injector would be mounted before the throttle body, and with a carby car perhaps just before the carby. In either case, the toluene should be injected before the throttle butterfly to aid atomisation. An over-the-counter EFI filter straight after the pump would be a nice touch. How you switch on your injector depends on the application. A turbo car would use a Hobbs pressure switch connected to the manifold to switch on the injector at a certain (high) boost pressure. A micro-switch (available from any electronics parts store) could perform a similar function on an atmo carby car, clicking over near full throttle. And an EFI atmo car could use either a micro switch or the full throttle contacts in the throttle position switch. Don't feed 12 volts to the injector- it may not like it for very long. Use a heavy duty resistor to reduce the voltage (same electronics parts store)to a lower voltage.

The actual voltage depends on the source of the injector, but 9 volts should be safe enough. If you dont know the resistor value to use, the electronics store will have the gear to measure the injector resistance and work out the value of an appropriate resistor.

Injectors are usually pulsed, but in this application it's not a problem to hold the injector fully open. If you're concerned that the mixture will become too rich, relax because the F1 boys found that max power with this fuel was when they were running 15% rich. Changing the amount of fuel which the extra injector puts in is fairly easy - just change the size of the restriction in the return line. A multi-turn miniature stop-cock would do this nicely and simply.

Toluene's effect on Octane.

Adding 10% toluene:

91 Unleaded -> 94.3

95 Premium Unleaded -> 97.5

97 Super (leaded) -> 99.7

Adding 20% toluene:

91 Unleaded -> 97.6

95 Premium Unleaded -> 100.8

97 Super (leaded) -> 102.4

Adding 30% toluene:

91 Unleaded -> 100.9

95 Premium Unleaded -> 103.7

97 Super (leaded) -> 105.1

[Blown BA]

  Biggy said:

Be careful when mixing tolulene, do it in a well ventilated area and wear rubber gloves as I think it is carsenagenic (I think that's how you spell it.)

As stated in the OH&S regulations