Does Octane Booster work in a pinch???
 

I'm currently building a Raylar/Whippled 496HO that will produce approx 725 HP and will require 91 octane minium, As probally everywhere on the water it's near impossible to get anything over 89 octane on the water around here.

I'm sure this topic has come up before but what do you guys do about this ???

Does throwing in some octane booster do anything if 91 or better octane is un available on the water and it's a good distance back to the ramp???

And finally if it works what type is reccommended ???

Thanks Kevin

Saw this not too long ago in the Q&A section under "Can you run 87 octane in an Ilmor 625?"

Short answer...
No, octane booster does not work very well.

Chris

As a general rule, I was told by a guy that ran a knock engine for testing the octane of fuels (he had done this for over 25 years at a research center) not to waste your money on them. The following link might be an exception to this:

http://torcoracefuel.net/pro-accelerator.html

here is a good read on different boosters , torco tested pretty good, as well as outlaw and lucas
http://volvospeed.com/Reviews/octane_boosters.html

In short.......NO. It's not going to make a worth-while difference.
Eddie

well I dont believe it hurts to put it in. Please give me some input on this also....I have been in this situation myself. a 87 octane fuel will run fine in your 91 octane motor if you need to get home just dont pound the throttles. Is this correct?

It really depends on what you're running. High compression motors won't even stay running on 87 octane. They'll more or less start to fire and shut back off, or backfire. Tempermental supercharged motors will likely have major detonation with 87 and could cause harm to the motors, even if you're easy on the motors.


That said, I had a car motor that was fairly high compression (it was a 408 stroked Ford Windsor motor, probably 11.8 - 1 with an aluminum head). Premium gas would spark knock at high RPM but octane boost + premium gas seemed to suffice when I couldn't get race gas. Still, I don't think I would want to monkey with it on a boat. The gas tanks are too big (you'd need 10 cans of octane boost to do anything) and the motors are too expensive.

This was in a thread in the Tech Q and A a short time ago. Pay close attention to the quantities.
Eddie


3rd

Amsoil Series 2000 Octane Boost

354ml treats 57 litres RRP: $23

Recommended for off-road and racing use, the Amsoil Series 2000 claimed to increase the octane rating by up to seven points. It came up a little short, but still proved surprisingly good with a full 2.0RON improvement. And good enough for the bronze medal in our Octane Booster Olympics.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 98.8 (+2.0 RON)

2nd

Toluene (Toluol)

20 litres treats 100 litres RRP: $48

Since toluene (pronounced toll-you-een – also known as methyl benzine) isn’t a commercially advertised octane booster. We were unsure of exactly what ratio to mix the clear Toluene to the fuel, with recommendations between 10 and 30 percent. From personal experience, we have seen high percentages increase octane even further, though 30 percent is considered the maximum. Available only from various fuel distributors (it is a special order through services stations), under advice we ran a 20 percent mix (quite a lot more than the others) and saw an impressive improvement of 2.5 RON, for the silver medal.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 99.3 (+2.5 RON)

1st

NF Octane Booster Racing Formula

250 ml treats 80 litres RRP: $29.95

Time for an Aussie-made product. From Perth, the NF Octane Booster Racing Formula was the smallest bottle in the field, but looking at the mixing ratio, also the strongest NF relies on an incredibly small dose – a mere 3 percent! Claiming to increase octane as much as 6.0 RON, NF took the gold medal in a surprising tie. If it were a split decision based on concentration though, it would be the clear winner.

Good post YP. Thanks for the info!

I didn't consider it an "octane booster," so I didn't bring it up, but I've used it a # of times so I'll share my toluene experience. If you have trouble getting it a lot of home improvement stores carry it by the paint thinners. It is generally used as a solvent, but works great in gas tanks, but only under proper use! I used too much in a car once and burned a hole in a hyperutectic piston (might have had a timing issue too, I was still mad about it though!).

That said, the product works great for octane boost as well as for an injection/fuel system cleaner. I've put it in cars that were running like crap and dieseling (still running with the car off) and it cleared up everything. The solvent seems to do wonders with cleaning out old crap, and the fact that it burns hotter than gas due to the higher octane seems to help clean the carbon off of the valves.

I also use it in my boat for the first tank of the summer to clear out the staybilize in the gas tank, and any other gunk that may have formed in there over the winter. I take my 1/4 tank from winter and fill it up to about 1/2and add 10-20% toulene. It works like a charm. That said, I never go over 20%. It may work for some people, and it might be ok, but I've had issues with carb seals and dried out rubber lines, etc. when I've gone over 20%. You can do it, but I caution against it.



I really don't know the difference between the two products but Xyolene seems to work the exact same for me. I'm not going to recommend it (just like I wouldn't recommend toulene until someone else brought up that they use it) because I don't know any results from studies on the product, but I know it seems to work well and similar to toulene for the applications that I've used it in.



Just a quick sidenote... I thinkit says it on the bottle, but just in case it doesn't... use toulene and xyolene with care. There have been studies that suggest that the two cause cancer and they should probably be handled with rubber gloves... End over protective sidenote....