Red Sleeper

First off I would never just experiment by dumping a gallon of Toluene in the tank when a simple bottle of Torco would suffice. The subject of Homebrew Gasoline Octane Boosters is common here in the Corvette forum and you can find lot of info with a simple search but I haven't found any recent or up to date info.

I ran across this article which intrigues me. The article basically just talks about adding Toluene to the tank to boost octane. There are several testimonials. I also found out that Toluene is the main ingredient in over the counter octane boosters anyway. I believe it is save for O2 sensors. I'm just curious if anybody has tried it.

Thoughts?... any volunteers? Pro Cons?

http://members.rennlist.com/951_race...etFuelFAQ.html

White_Lightning

I put about 50 5 gal toluene dums through my turbo subra back in the day.. Never had an issue.. 10 gal 93.. 5 gal tol and 25oz marvel mystery oil for lubrication.

On my car it gave me the same timing curve as ms109 or c16..

That being said i switched to torco and never looked back.

Red Sleeper

I'm not seeing any huge price advantage over torco anyway.

Corvettinator

Of course, one of the main ingredients of Torco is toluene, which is why it smells like airplane glue, which is why I always leave the funnel I use for it outside overnight so all the fumes evaporate.

As far as an octane booster goes though, that article claims you'd need a gallon of it mixed with ~15 GAs of 92 just to get to 93.4.

With Torco, supposedly 32oz gets a 15GA tank to about +7.5 octane. YOMV of course...

PowerLabs

A gallon of Toluene really isn't going to do a whole lot for you:
Toluene has an octane rating of 114. Your fuel tank has a capacity of 18 gallons. Lets say you dump a gallon of Toluene in and top it off with 91 octane.
Effective Octane rating is now: ((1*114)+(17*91))/18 = 92.2
For 93 octane the gain is even smaller: you go up to 94.1

5 gallons of Toluene from Sherwinn-Williams costs about 100 bucks, and Toluene is carcinogenic, so the people who really need it (California, and its 91 octane max fuel) most definitely won't find it easily.



Torco contains Toluene but the main octane booster in it is MMT.

White_Lightning

Keep in mind.. When i was running it.. 5 gal of toluene was $29.. At 100$ for 5 gal i wouldnt have done it.

Red Sleeper

Interesting subject. You are to the point and it obvious that raising octane in this manor is a poor choice.

Thanks!

The_Raging_Bull

Sorry PowerLabs there is no toluene in Torco...via gas chromatography...and my nose.

Besides being a Vette owner, I'm also an industrial chemist; so I always smile at the use of toluene. By the letter of the law folks like Lowes and Sherwin William who sell toluene have to sign a waiver to the EPA that none of it is diverted to use in cars as a booster; then again its not exactly cheap right? I'm the technical director at a regional paint company; and we sell toluene at a high enough price to specifically prevent this type of diversion. It is illegal to use toluene in OTR vehicles per EPA mandate.

PowerLabs is spot on in the rest of his post..as octane booster manufacturer's like Torco, Klotz, and others use methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl; an organometallic compound which acts like tetraethyl lead (TEL) used to, when used at a specific loading level. It's formulated with surfactants (cleaning) mineral spirits, and an oil lubrication package - can yield a octane booster which gives you the ability to make 91 octane gas into 93 to 104 octane fuel. An interesting side note, my brother who ran the Ethyl Corporation TEL plant in Singapore (as their Executive VP) also worked on bringing MMT to gasoline in the US; and he worked with a number of folks involved in these type materials who are now old friends since his retirement.As a point of fact Ethyl Corporation, after winning 5 court cases against the EPA, go the market MMT in Canada, but the car manufacturer's didn't want it used in the US; and after millions in expenses Ethyl gave up onMMT in the US. Note the waiver from Torco..use only in off road vehicles. So I might know a little bit about MMT as I've thought recently about doing a commercial project around it...

So use Torco for now, its easy if not a little expensive.

PowerLabs

According to Torco's MSDS it is over 50% C7-C8 Isoalkanes. I presumed Toluene (C7H8) since it is a C7 Isoalkane? Then again I am not a chemist.


That seems unlikely; aside from not being in the MSDS, lubricating oils typically have an octane rating of 15 - 30, so even a small amount of oil in your fuel can have a dramatic impact on overall octane rating.

old motorhead

So....having read all of that. How safe is Torco to use on a fairly consistent basis?

Thomasmoto

I went through all the octane does and don'ts back when I was racing turbo Buicks. To over simplify what we found out was it was just better all around to use racing fuel. We replaced O-2 sensors on an hourly basis it seemed like, but there are better heated 0-2 sensors now, but even better unleaded racing fuel if you want it. It all came down to how hard you want to lean on it or how hard you could afford it. JMHO

old motorhead

And your opinion of Torco is....?

The_Raging_Bull

ANswer to the question immediately above this post....Torco is an excellent product that I have used in the past w/o any concern of its effect on the engine.

Smile.

C7 or C8 isoalkanes are aliphatic hydrocarbons with 7 or 8 carbons...ie heptane (C7) or octane (C8) or isomers; could even be branched isomers of a C6 aliphatic....hexane.

Toluene is an aromatic compound, meaning it has a benzene ring, in fact its also C7 compound..but would be methylbenzene.

As a matter of fact you don't need to list your ingredients,especially those that are non hazardous on your TDS or MSDS, especially if you use a material that differentiates you from your competition.

That said note they list a small amount of napthalene (C10H8 - the ingredient of mothballs). Naphthalene was used circa WW2 in gas as an octane booster and can prevent pre-compression ignition in high-displacement engines. Remember the old wife's tale about adding mothballs to your gas tank...well so does Torco apparently.

That said any work i ever do in reverse engineering a commercial product via GC-Mass spec, I wont give my "recipe " to the world in a TDS, as I'd intend to make $$$ off of folks like us; and given that they've come up with a formulation that works, I'm equally sure they wouldn't just give it away either. I hadn't seen that document, but they also have naptha in it, and I would have thought mineral spirits as well..but apparently not.

Dont be offended, but it's naive to think Torco would give away the key ideas that make their product better, if they are non hazardous and don't need to be disclosed. I do that type of stuff every day. Flammables (flashpoint < 105C) and combustibles (flashpoint > 105C) are hazardous and must be reported in the MSDS, so they also disclose them in their TDS.

Anyway, I've done a little with MMT myself, and my Z06 is none the worse for wear. MMT is available from Afton Chemical here in the us, as well as a generic MMT additive; which is what I suspect Torco is built on top of.

My brothers group at Ethyl ran engines for 100,000's of miles, then tore them down to see the effect of MMT on the engine, and I've seen a few report of that work. They literally spent > $100 million on the project, and built a huge lab in Richmond to do this work in the early 90's.


Cheers...no offense meant to anyone.

links to afton chemical info...this is Torcos "source code"

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Solutio...0Improver.aspx

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Insight...ience_mmt.aspx

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Insight...7-01-1078.aspx

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Lists/B...HiTEC_3000.pdf

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Lists/B...s_Brochure.pdf

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Insight...In_Action.aspx

Last edit...
heres the links to materials "recommended" by Afton, which include lubricity additives...

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Insight...Spec-Surf.aspx

The_Raging_Bull

True on count one, oils can be used as octane boosters...
False on count 2, I suspect it is as there are oils specifically recommended by Afton Chemical to use for that very purpose in their materials list for recommended additives for MMT.

see: AB6 at this URL automotive gear oil used as Multifunctional Axcel Booster (AB)

http://www.aftonchemical.com/Insight...Spec-Surf.aspx


Remember these guys have spent a fortune on the work needed to ensure that MMT can be used worldwide without wrecking car engines. And it is used worldwide, just not in the good old US of A...thanks to Democrats and liberals who run the EPA as part of their bureaucracy.

Corvettinator

Interesting section from GM's 2014 Warranty.

The_Raging_Bull

My 09 went out of warranty in October '13, which is when I started playing with MMT. However the reason that MMT isn't making all of our gas 93 octane now, is that the big three all took a stand against it's use.

It's used in Canada, so I wonder what a Canuck sold vette warranty says on its use?

That might be why there are issues with using a USA vette in Canada? The other reason that MMT never made it was the overbearing attitude of the EPA. Ethyl fought them and won 5 times,only to find each time the EPA took another bite of the apple. That's the pinkos at the EPA at work.

Since the car companies did that Ethyl saw the handwriting on the wall, I'll ask my bro if they sold or licensed the technology to Afton. None the less the amount of work they did tearing down engines after extreme mileage running MMT gave literally thousands of tests to verify that there were no issues. It was as effective as TEL in adding octane.

So I use it w/o reservation. As it is a cyclopentadiène type organometallic...it leaves orangish residue when it burn, so I'd imagine that a competent GM tech would have no issue identifying it. Besides all you need to do is look for the presence of manganese in any combustion residue via atomic absorption or ICP inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy....