Learn me: Octane boosters and snake oils

Good morning all. I've been prepping my car for a TNIA this coming Wednesday, and was wondering about octane booster. The car has fresh oil, ate 200, with stoptech 309s on the front. All that's left is really to clean the windshield and pack my belongings.

I'll be taking my celica gt-s (2zz), and I recall in the toyota pro/celebrity races they used 100+ octane on a mostly unmodified car.  I'm wondering if an unleaded octane booster like (https://vpracingfuels.com/product/octanium-unleaded/?c=207&) VP Octanium would be harmful. It's supposed to be 90 degrees, so wondering if this would do anything other than make my wallet $20 lighter

What are you guys' thoughts on this? Save the $20 for gatorade and ice cream?
 

When a booster product says it increases octane up to 3 points, that means .3 octane.  So from 92 to 92.3.

The only way to boost octane by a useful amount is to go to a station that sells 100 octane and mix at least a few gallons in with with the rest of your tank.  IME most tracks sell 100 octane (albeit at $10 or so per gallon), so this can be a viable way to buy some safety margin for a turbocharged engine on a hot track.

For a Celica 2ZZ I wouldn't bother.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Sunoco's website lists where you can buy CAM2 100 octane unleaded.  There's a Speedway station a quarter mile from SWMBO's house on the list, so I bought tankful at $8/gal just to see how the car liked it.  Not "significantly" more expensive than 92/93 in light of how much, say, C16 costs.

Mostly it smells nicer   this being on a factory high pressure turbo application.  Not naturally aspirated but also not really tuned for it.

The product advertises +70 points or 7 octane numbers per 10 gallons and it coming from "VP" gives it some sort of credibility.

I agree I wouldn't spend the money on race gas at the track, but for some reason 20$ seems like a gamble I'm interested in.

edit: I'm not looking to gain power just lose less power in the heat

lnlds said:

The product advertises +70 points or 7 octane numbers per 10 gallons and it coming from "VP" gives it some sort of credibility.

I agree I wouldn't spend the money on race gas at the track, but for some reason 20$ seems like a gamble I'm interested in.

$20 would buy you 3-4 gallons of race gas (given cost differentiator vs 91 octane).  7 gallons of 91 plus 3 gallons of 100 gives you 10 gallons of 93.7, substantially better than the 91.7 you'd get putting that bottle of snake oil into a tank of 91.

In reply to lnlds :

Look at the ingredients. Ethanol or methanol are alcohols that are 114 / 116  octane each.   You can buy E85 for a little over $2.00 a gallon.  Buy $4.00 worth of E85 instead of $20.00 worth of snake oil and you'll be at the same place. 
    Do not use 100% E85! 

In reply to frenchyd :

I'll probably just buy 100 octane at the track. I read some chatter about the MMT gunking things up and making things orange and fouling plugs, so I'll steer clear.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
This makes the most sense I dont know why I didn't consider it. I'll just get a few gallons after the first session. Octane boost and a significant volume of gasoline

frenchyd said:

In reply to lnlds :

Look at the ingredients. Ethanol or methanol are alcohols that are 114 / 116  octane each.   You can buy E85 for a little over $2.00 a gallon.  Buy $4.00 worth of E85 instead of $20.00 worth of snake oil and you'll be at the same place. 
    Do not use 100% E85! 

putting 20% E85 in your tank is going to screw up the air fuel ratio.

I have been told that aside from 93 making things burn a bit cleaner it is not useful unless you have a valid tune to use it in modern stuff like the Celica.  The system just compensates by changing timing and spark curves so you gain almost nothing.  With a tune is a whole different story.  

The modern High Pressure Fuel Pump Turbo guys like the Focus ST and Kia Stinger crowd swear by a tune with a couple gallons of E85 to get them to E30 as it is a respectable increase in hp that maxes out the fuel flow supported by the pump.  Apparently with a boostapump setup or better pump/injectors they like the e85.

In reply to 84FSP :

I haven't seen a PCM that ratchets timing more advanced if there is no detonation, only pulling it back from ideal if there is.  So if it isn't detonating on 92 (or 87 for that matter) then there's not going to be a benefit.

Now, could it be possible that the stock tune detonates on 92 when coolant and oil temps are screaming high like you might find during a celebrity race after the TV star driver mooshes the front bumper to close off half the airflow to the radiator and the temp gauge is just trivia to ignore.  Then 100 might be of some use 

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

lnlds said:

The product advertises +70 points or 7 octane numbers per 10 gallons and it coming from "VP" gives it some sort of credibility.

I agree I wouldn't spend the money on race gas at the track, but for some reason 20$ seems like a gamble I'm interested in.

$20 would buy you 3-4 gallons of race gas (given cost differentiator vs 91 octane).  7 gallons of 91 plus 3 gallons of 100 gives you 10 gallons of 93.7, substantially better than the 91.7 you'd get putting that bottle of snake oil into a tank of 91.

They claim 70 points so if mixed with your 10 gallons of 91 would put you at 98, significantly higher than mixing $20 worth of 100 octane. I think where this stuff can come in handy is if you are running a tune for 94 or more and can't get access to it somewhere you can have a bottle of this stuff in the car as a stop gap.

I'm planning on running some fuel system cleaner through my old car on the two hour drive to the track next week, I don't expect it to make a huge difference but it's been a while and can't hurt. I went with a Liqui-moly product but something from BG etc. wouldn't hurt either.

adam525i said:

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

lnlds said:

The product advertises +70 points or 7 octane numbers per 10 gallons and it coming from "VP" gives it some sort of credibility.

I agree I wouldn't spend the money on race gas at the track, but for some reason 20$ seems like a gamble I'm interested in.

$20 would buy you 3-4 gallons of race gas (given cost differentiator vs 91 octane).  7 gallons of 91 plus 3 gallons of 100 gives you 10 gallons of 93.7, substantially better than the 91.7 you'd get putting that bottle of snake oil into a tank of 91.

They claim 70 points so if mixed with your 10 gallons of 91 would put you at 98, significantly higher than mixing $20 worth of 100 octane. I think where this stuff can come in handy is if you are running a tune for 94 or more and can't get access to it somewhere you can have a bottle of this stuff in the car as a stop gap.

I'm planning on running some fuel system cleaner through my old car on the two hour drive to the track next week, I don't expect it to make a huge difference but it's been a while and can't hurt. I went with a Liqui-moly product but something from BG etc. wouldn't hurt either.

See previous comment by Pete.  "7 points" means it adds 0.7 to the octane number.

In general a stock car isn't going to see any benefit from boosting the octane above premium.  Exceptions are for when you live in a state where "premium" is 91 (like CA), when you're running a turbo car at the track on a hot day (lots of heat soak), or if you've retuned the engine somehow to advance the timing.

Toluene has a 114 octane rating. You can get 5 gallons at a paint store. 80's F1 turbo motors ran a mix of something like 85% toluene mix. But seeing how you are NA maybe it won't help any.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

adam525i said:

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

lnlds said:

The product advertises +70 points or 7 octane numbers per 10 gallons and it coming from "VP" gives it some sort of credibility.

I agree I wouldn't spend the money on race gas at the track, but for some reason 20$ seems like a gamble I'm interested in.

$20 would buy you 3-4 gallons of race gas (given cost differentiator vs 91 octane).  7 gallons of 91 plus 3 gallons of 100 gives you 10 gallons of 93.7, substantially better than the 91.7 you'd get putting that bottle of snake oil into a tank of 91.

They claim 70 points so if mixed with your 10 gallons of 91 would put you at 98, significantly higher than mixing $20 worth of 100 octane. I think where this stuff can come in handy is if you are running a tune for 94 or more and can't get access to it somewhere you can have a bottle of this stuff in the car as a stop gap.

I'm planning on running some fuel system cleaner through my old car on the two hour drive to the track next week, I don't expect it to make a huge difference but it's been a while and can't hurt. I went with a Liqui-moly product but something from BG etc. wouldn't hurt either.

See previous comment by Pete.  "7 points" means it adds 0.7 to the octane number.

In general a stock car isn't going to see any benefit from boosting the octane above premium.  Exceptions are for when you live in a state where "premium" is 91 (like CA), when you're running a turbo car at the track on a hot day (lots of heat soak), or if you've retuned the engine somehow to advance the timing.

From the linked website - Octanium Unleaded provides an octane boost up to 7 numbers (70 points).

Inlds text that you've quoted twice now - The product advertises +70 points or 7 octane numbers per 10 gallons and it coming from "VP" gives it some sort of credibility.

adam525i said:

Inlds text that you've quoted twice now - The product advertises +70 points or 7 octane numbers per 10 gallons and it coming from "VP" gives it some sort of credibility.

Sorry, guilty of not reading closely enough.

I agree that VP is a decent brand name, but I'm still dubious.  Why?  Because if they had a product that would raise the octane from 91 to 98 for $2/gallon (and that's retail price over the counter, the cost of what they put in the bottle has to be way less than that) then they'd sell 98 octane gas for $2 more per gallon than 91, and they don't.  So while I'm not saying they're lying, there has to be some reason they can't just sell you the gas.

Looking at the web page, I suspect I see why.  32 ounces treats "up to 10 gallons", but the maximum safe amount for cars with "emission control devices" (apparently cats and O2 sensors) is 2.6 ounces, which the graph says is only going to get you 2 "octane numbers".  I'm surprised that 5% of the stuff gives you 20% of the benefit, my impression is that this sort of things is usually linear but I'm not an organic chemist so I dunno.

So while the bottle says it's safe for catalytic converters, the fine print says that's only true if you're very careful in measuring how much you put in.  I think I'd still stick with running the 100 octane stuff that's sold at a pump though.  That stuff really is safe (meets Federal standards) and you can run it straight if you want to and all it'll hurt is your wallet.

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

frenchyd said:

In reply to lnlds :

Look at the ingredients. Ethanol or methanol are alcohols that are 114 / 116  octane each.   You can buy E85 for a little over $2.00 a gallon.  Buy $4.00 worth of E85 instead of $20.00 worth of snake oil and you'll be at the same place. 
    Do not use 100% E85! 

putting 20% E85 in your tank is going to screw up the air fuel ratio.

 

Some pump grade E85 tends to be closer to 51% ethanol rather than 85%.  There is a $20 tester from Holley to tell you if you should buy I gallon or two. 
It also depends on how many gallons is in your tank. Or how big your tank is. That should be in the owners manual. 
  Someone here also explained a trick using a baby bottle. 

frenchyd said:

Some pump grade E85 tends to be closer to 51% ethanol rather than 85%.  There is a $20 tester from Holley to tell you if you should buy I gallon or two. 
It also depends on how many gallons is in your tank. Or how big your tank is. That should be in the owners manual. 

Lower percentages of ethanol will give you lesser amounts of octane boost, there's nothing free here.

Fundamentally, if you add enough ethanol to substantially change the octane rating on the gasoline, you have also substantially changed the amount of fuel that you need to make the mixture ratio correct.  On a modern fuel injected car the narrowband oxygen sensors mean that a stock ECU will compensate for small changes at partial throttle, but once you go full throttle the computers usually go open loop.  Adding 2-3 "numbers" (I hate this terminology) of octane this way will make it dangerously lean at WOT unless the car is designed for it.

"Designed for it" means flex fuel -- a sensor that detects the ethanol percentage of the fuel and adjusts the mixture appropriately.  If you don't have one of these then the ECU tables need to be retuned (or carburetors significantly adjusted) to deal with any useful amount of ethanol.

But yes, you can get huge octane boost this way once the tuning has been set up for it, and switching a turbo car to E85 can add huge amounts of power.

sergio said:

Toluene has a 114 octane rating. You can get 5 gallons at a paint store. 80's F1 turbo motors ran a mix of something like 85% toluene mix. But seeing how you are NA maybe it won't help any.

Have any of ya'll actually tried toluene as an octane booster?

And if you did what was your impression of the results?

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

frenchyd said:

Some pump grade E85 tends to be closer to 51% ethanol rather than 85%.  There is a $20 tester from Holley to tell you if you should buy I gallon or two. 
It also depends on how many gallons is in your tank. Or how big your tank is. That should be in the owners manual. 

Lower percentages of ethanol will give you lesser amounts of octane boost, there's nothing free here.

Fundamentally, if you add enough ethanol to substantially change the octane rating on the gasoline, you have also substantially changed the amount of fuel that you need to make the mixture ratio correct.  On a modern fuel injected car the narrowband oxygen sensors mean that a stock ECU will compensate for small changes at partial throttle, but once you go full throttle the computers usually go open loop.  Adding 2-3 "numbers" (I hate this terminology) of octane this way will make it dangerously lean at WOT unless the car is designed for it.

"Designed for it" means flex fuel -- a sensor that detects the ethanol percentage of the fuel and adjusts the mixture appropriately.  If you don't have one of these then the ECU tables need to be retuned (or carburetors significantly adjusted) to deal with any useful amount of ethanol.

But yes, you can get huge octane boost this way once the tuning has been set up for it, and switching a turbo car to E85 can add huge amounts of power.

 

Your statement is extremely confusing.   91 octane. ( or 92/93  if you're lucky ) is around $3.69/9  here. While E85 is $2.09/9  adding 1 gallon of E85 to say 10 gallons of 91 octane  gives you an average of 96 octane.  While saving you $1.60. Plus the $20 you didn't spend on the additive.  Now it does increase the ethanol percentage from 10% to between 12.7- 14.3% depending on the percentage of ethanol in that batch of E85.   Since all cars built after 2001 are designed to run on up to 15% ethanol I fail to see any risk.   Flex fuel is great. Just pour E85 in and enjoy the added power. But not required in this case. 
    No it's not free but it does save you $1.60 plus the $20.00 you didn't spend on the snake oil,  while increasing your octane to 96. 
    Sorry my numbers might be off a tich , doing this in my head while  "listening" to SWMBO. 

jharry3 said:

sergio said:

Toluene has a 114 octane rating. You can get 5 gallons at a paint store. 80's F1 turbo motors ran a mix of something like 85% toluene mix. But seeing how you are NA maybe it won't help any.

Have any of ya'll actually tried toluene as an octane booster?

And if you did what was your impression of the results?

I used it in my 89 turbo Trans Am when I ran the Texas Mile. Cranked the boost from 16 to 18psi, with an open dump pipe. Drove the car from Houston to Berlair old Navy airbase. Ran 149mph with a CAI, the rest was stock other than the boost increase, open pipe and rocket fuel. I had about a quarter tank when I added 5 gal. of toluene. I guess I should have ran it stock first then add the mods. But the first run was the fastest because the temps were the lowest. Didn't go any faster on later runs. Next morning was warmer than Saturday and after two slower runs I went home. 

I've read that you shouldn't use more than a 30% mix, mine was probably closer to 40-50%. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Ethanol has approximately half the potential energy of gasoline.  So you add a bunch of E85 to crank up your octane, but you then decrease the potential energy in the fuel for the volume of fuel the car is expecting.  On an NA street car, I could see this being a real issue.

frenchyd said:

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

frenchyd said:

In reply to lnlds :

Look at the ingredients. Ethanol or methanol are alcohols that are 114 / 116  octane each.   You can buy E85 for a little over $2.00 a gallon.  Buy $4.00 worth of E85 instead of $20.00 worth of snake oil and you'll be at the same place. 
    Do not use 100% E85! 

putting 20% E85 in your tank is going to screw up the air fuel ratio.

 

Some pump grade E85 tends to be closer to 51% ethanol rather than 85%.  There is a $20 tester from Holley to tell you if you should buy I gallon or two. 
It also depends on how many gallons is in your tank. Or how big your tank is. That should be in the owners manual. 
  Someone here also explained a trick using a baby bottle. 

I love the ContinFlex Fuel sensor plumbed into my GM setup as it reads realtime ethanol content crossing the rail grabs from one of 100 maps for the closest fit.  It will read you out the e content on a generic obd2 scanner.  My buddy has an app on his phone that reads it as well.  In southwest ohio (lots O corn) we typically get e75.

In reply to 84FSP :

Flex fuel sensors really make it easy.  I wish every car had them. Although I am seeing more and more of them on even Imported cars. Recently I've seen several on Toyota Prius.   But they must be using it just for the lower costs?  Would more power really help a charging engine?  

We run Boostane in some high compression motors here. One of the few that seems to actually make a difference. Here's the mixing chart.

Although TBH, I don't think a 2zz needs it. Is your premium pump 91 or 93? I'd be more concerned with oil starvation than preignition. I ran my Elise in 95* ambients on track without any issues. I've also owned a 2zz Celica, and iirc, the ignition curves are slightly less aggressive, and redline set lower.