Has anyone had any experiance with octane boosters?? I have been thinking about this trackday that is coming up and I suggested to Rat that he should use some just as a safety precaution against pinging.
Now I had a read and NF RACE looks good, but then so do oil additives 😕 . Guys do these things work, any performance gains??
Fifth Gear did a test a while back of 6 popular boosters on a MKV GTi
ALL of them resulted in a net loss in power (2 - 10%) and only 1 left power exactly the same.
They might help lower knock, but only if you specifically tuned for it.
Not worth it in my opinion...... use good quality highest octane fuel and have the car tuned for it.
I have heard of people using acetylene with the normal 95 octane and 102 octane and somehow it changes the molecular structure of the fuel and that it can handle more "stress" or compression(thus harder to ping) and when it burns its more potent!
But what brands did 5th gear test??
I can make racing fuel which will give me the same power and a bigger safety margin, so I am sure you can buy a product that will.
I am sure Toby said to me that the stock ECU will advance timing gradually till it "hears" a ping then retards it X amount. If this is so the these products will work becuase the ECU can advance the timing more without picking up the knock.
Gary57 wrote:
I am sure Toby said to me that the stock ECU will advance timing gradually till it "hears" a ping then retards it X amount. If this is so the these products will work becuase the ECU can advance the timing more without picking up the knock.
This is the case with a Stock CA ecu as well as the MKV GTi, in fact they drained the tank and re-set the ECU between each test and it STILL resulted in a loss of power.....
Not sure of the brands, but it was the top 5 recommended by tuners that side, off the shelf stuff...
Found a similar clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jbcCr2ll3c
Watch it, you dont get more of a thourough test than that.
Dammit I was about to post the same thing!!!! 😂 😂 😂
Wow, now thats an eye opener! 😮
cant watch it at work 😈 can someone give a quick summary of it?
Well its a load of junk! Makes you perform less and you pay more!
so what do i do for the track day? Just run on pump fuel? i can maybe get racing fuel but costly so could i mix it 50/50 with pump fuel?
Rather get 40 ltr (2 cans) of racing fuel and run that.
Racing fuel is R210 for 20l so its about R20 a liter.
Leaded / Uneaded
My BP 102.6 was leaded, I think you only get it in leaded!
HancoB wrote:
My BP 102.6 was leaded, I think you only get it in leaded!
BP had an unleaded 102.6 octane. Shell only came in leaded.
Octane booster and race feul with a higher octane is not to increase your base performance, but to allow you to increase the engine compression or boost, buy helping to stop detonation. Detonation is when low octane feul combust without spark under high compression and heat. That is what breaks your engine. So, you need high octane to stop detonasion when you boost high, usualy over 0.8 bar.
off the shelf octane boosters simply DO NOT work. if boosting octane ratings was that easy, you would be able to buy 105 octane from the pump.
one reliable way i know of boosting pump fuel octane, is mixing with acetone, or toluene ..
problem with acetone is, anything plastic in your fuel system will be destroyed,so no go..
toluene is about the best, concensus among dragsters is 10% mix to fuel
gives about a 2-3 point octane boost.. 😉
try googleing toluene for more info..
none of this makes any sense?
is your car knocking at the moment? NO? then why do you want to add octane boosters of any kind, specially if its just for one race???
are you going to turn the boost up for the race meeting??? if you are, then it would make sense - but i hope that goes hand in hand with a dyno tune, to be able to use the increase in RON value that you are aiming for!
so i think the lesson is - if you want to increase your cars performance by tweaking the engine tuning and you are on the limit of knock, then use a fuel with an increased RON value to safeguard your engine from blowing itself up!
It was just an idea that gary suggested, safety for the engine not power. cause i dont drive everyday at full boost for 15 mins at a time.
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