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Best way to boost octane from regular to high test

Old 05-18-2012, 09:21 AM
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Originally Posted by articfriends
The advertising is false with that crap, when they claim it raises your octane 7 points they mean .7 of 1 point and it takes alot of it to even do that when we are talking 100 gallons of gas. Adding race gas, clean tolulene or using Meth injection are the best ways to keep from knocking. A excellent suggestion was made too, start out with 100% race gas, fill up at 1/2 tank and you will still have alot of octane, alot of guys around here do that with there turbo snowmobiles, Smitty
Hey Smitty, how much Methanol do you think it would take to raise 100 gallons 4-5 points? I know in a car you can get about 50 gallons of fuel to about 1 gallon of methanol injection, but these boats are going to run 2-3 PSi of boost for almost all of their fuel consumption so it seems like it would take a lot more, any idea? I had bounced around the idea of a "get home tank" for my buddy's MTI just in case we could only get 87-89 but have no idea how much the boat would have to carry.
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Old 05-18-2012, 09:29 AM
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I have been looking at the water/meth injector system from Snow. It's a pretty sophisticated system and gives you a ton of control and the pressure injection does a great job of atomizing the solution. I'm a premium only motor too and most of the poker runs are beyond my range so I sit them out. I'm wanting to take some longer trips so I have to do something if I want to get home in one piece. I just need to find out how long the juice lasts, I may not be any better off.
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Old 05-20-2012, 01:04 PM
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articfriends, i wonder how well the clean tolulene would do, gas products have some portion of tolulene, acetone and xylene added. adding more has seemed to start going backwards. i used to use acetone 30 yrs ago when premium and racing gas was not available, you probably refer to mixing with rv-offroad gas. water meth injection is controlled by nozzle/pressure, you could fab your own kit. most kits are setup for intake injection on turbodiesels and require higher pressure to atomize over intake air pressure, misting over carb/throttle body could get by with low pressure 20-30psi.
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Old 05-20-2012, 06:20 PM
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Originally Posted by keith2500hd
articfriends, i wonder how well the clean tolulene would do, gas products have some portion of tolulene, acetone and xylene added. adding more has seemed to start going backwards. i used to use acetone 30 yrs ago when premium and racing gas was not available, you probably refer to mixing with rv-offroad gas. water meth injection is controlled by nozzle/pressure, you could fab your own kit. most kits are setup for intake injection on turbodiesels and require higher pressure to atomize over intake air pressure, misting over carb/throttle body could get by with low pressure 20-30psi.
The more expensive octane booster IS usually Tolulene (114 (RM/2 )octane) or Xylene (118 octane) and the older leaded race gas was comprised by more Tolulene than anything else. The race fuel used in F-1 racing years ago was 84% Tolulene and they would run more except the rules limited octane to 102 RON. The "100 octane LL" aviation gas planes run on IS 14 % tolulene. And there is already some in the premium we buy already.
Drawbacks to Tolulene is if you add too much it is harder to get to fire and if you spill it on your paint or fibreglass its going to **** it up.
Supposedly it can be had in 55 gallon drums from paint supply houses for less than the cost of race gas but I haven't found it that cheap yet. If you were on the water and bought 50 gallons of 89 octane and you really needed 91 octane to keep your motor from detonating you would need to have 4 gallons of Tolulene (7.5%) with you to mix in , would be a REAL PIA plus it is a good example of why a 16 ounce bottle of ANYTHING can't really raise your octane a measurable amount, if Tolulene is 114 octane and it takes 4 gallons to raise your 89 to 91 the stuff in the bottle would have to be about 400 octane (which doesn't exist). If you started out with a 100 gallon mix (50 each) of 93 octane pump gas and 110 octane race gas you would have 101.5 octane , if you filled up with 89 octane when you were down to a 1/4 tank (75 gallons of 89 added to 25 gallons of whats left of your 101.5) you would have around 92 octane overall , Smitty
http://www.serioussolutions.com/evo/octcalc.htm
http://members.rennlist.com/951_race...etFuelFAQ.html
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Old 05-20-2012, 06:37 PM
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Originally Posted by Ted G
Hey Smitty, how much Methanol do you think it would take to raise 100 gallons 4-5 points? I know in a car you can get about 50 gallons of fuel to about 1 gallon of methanol injection, but these boats are going to run 2-3 PSi of boost for almost all of their fuel consumption so it seems like it would take a lot more, any idea? I had bounced around the idea of a "get home tank" for my buddy's MTI just in case we could only get 87-89 but have no idea how much the boat would have to carry.
For most disscussion they say Methanol is around 105-110 octane BUT the octane test is based around gasoline, Methanol ACTS more like 120 octane due to its cooling propertys (some race cars that run on it don't even have a cooling system). The best and really only way to use it on our boats is to use injection to get the most cooling efect along with detonation suppression. It may have a great octane number but if you had a auxillary furl tank with it or wanted to mix it into your gas tank you would have some serious issues to face- the most important one being the air fuel mixture on it is around 6-1 vs gasoline at 13-1 so IF you mixed it directly with your fuel your motor would lean out and self destruct. Sure, you could build a efi motor and use injectors twice as big as normal , have a fuel sensor like the flex fuel vehicles and some very good efi programming BUT if it hiccuped it would be game over for your motor. The next major problem is Methanol wouldn't neccesarily mix real well with your gas and you might be getting low octane gas or high octane methanol as fuel sloshed around. The other drawback that would make me avoid it (as far as mixing it) is that it is VERY corrosive , is hydroscopic (attracts moisture) and would definately not be good when using aluminum fuel tanks, I do have friends that run it in there drag cars and I also know a guy that runs his blown v drive on it but he has to flush his fuel system and change oil more often, it can be bought in bulk for about 2 dollars a gallon, used to be about 75 cents a gallon not to long ago, Smitty

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Old 05-20-2012, 08:44 PM
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Thanks, but I was talking about an injection system, like the Snow system or the old Edelbrock Varajection. It seems to me like it would take 10-15 gallons per 100 gallons of fuel since you are under load/boost all the time with a boat.
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Old 05-20-2012, 09:43 PM
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I have read good things about Torco Octane booster. You may want to check it out.
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Old 05-20-2012, 10:53 PM
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Great post Smitty, I worked in a shop years ago with a sprint car on methanol. In/out box, they would push it to get it started then roll it inside. It didn't seem to bother some people but I couldn't take it, I had to go outside I always heard that 50/50 100LL and unleaded 93 would raise the octane higher than the average because of all the lead. Have you heard this? 100LL has less lead than 100/130 (Green) but it still has a lot of lead in it. Doug
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Old 05-21-2012, 09:58 AM
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Originally Posted by Ted G
Thanks, but I was talking about an injection system, like the Snow system or the old Edelbrock Varajection. It seems to me like it would take 10-15 gallons per 100 gallons of fuel since you are under load/boost all the time with a boat.
Thats a good question, I think some of the big shots from around Chicago with blown twin engine cats are running it so you might want to start a thread and see if they respond. A few years ago we had a good discussion on here about Methanol and there was a little info posted, not sure if capacity was mentioned, I will try to find the thread, Smitty
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Old 05-21-2012, 10:19 AM
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Originally Posted by Ted G
Thanks, but I was talking about an injection system, like the Snow system or the old Edelbrock Varajection. It seems to me like it would take 10-15 gallons per 100 gallons of fuel since you are under load/boost all the time with a boat.
Here is a link from a while back, you might want to pm these guys to get more info, Smitty
http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...injection.html
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