I need to know if anyone has ran the 104+ octain boost, and if it only helps mild grade, or if it will help with the highter octain gas. thanks

 

If you are referring to the 104+ branded octane boost, it's a waste of money IMO. This product, at best, will raise your octane level by 5 points. Remember that there are 10 points per octane rating. If your using 91 rated pump gas, and you add a bottle of 104+, you end up with an octane rating of 91.5.

 

Not worth the money.

 

I've never used the product myself, but I am curious, without any re-programing, would the car's computer even know how to handle a fuel with an octane rating significantly higher than 92? I seem to recall hearing once that the computer was programed to run on 92 octane. Just a thought.

 

In Houston, we are pretty lucky. While most stations carry 91 or 92 as their best grade, their are still a lot of stations that have 93 octane. That is what I run in my Z06.

I avoid the stations that have all three grades going through one hose. I don't know if it makes a difference or not. However, it seems logical that, with a single dispense hose for all three grades, your gas would be somewhat contaminated with some of what the last person bought.

One other oddity of note. In Houston, the Chevron at w. Airport and Dairy Ashford didn't have any octane ratings posted for any of their pumps. I didn't by gas for my Z06 there and I hope that the practice of not disclosing the octane rating doesn't spread.

dave

 

My understanding is that a higher octane fuel minimizes the risk of knock which allows more advanced timing (PCM mod) which is where the HP gain comes from. However, I believe that even in a stock PCM, if the knock sensors sense knock is incipent, the PCM will take out some timing, which will reduce HP. So by using a product like this for the drag strip or track (or to boost low octane fuels), you are not really buying HP, but preventing the loss of HP.

As a caution, many Octane Boost products, including AMSOILs have lead in them, which will damage your O2 sensors.

 

I hate to admit my ignorance here, but don't the Z06's use some type of NOX sensor anywhere. Running any of this stuff that has MMT(lead substitute, basically) in it, It will fry/plug the NOX sensors on the Turbo Buicks in short order. Just checking? Wouldn't running a few gals of non-lead racing fuel in a tankful should do wonders for the same purpose, albeit a little more expensive, but safer.

 

Gary,
Good point. I hadn't thought about that aspect. You are 100% correct.

I do use 100 or 104 octane unleaded race fuel which is available at all the SCCA race tracks I race at.

 

Don't take my word for it, but I belive the computer will not adjust above 96ish octane...

 

if it is for a Z06, you would be wasting $$$ - Z06's are designed to run on pump gas w/out snake oil's

 

Octane is the rating of resistance to knock or ping or predetonation, whatever ya wanna call it. If your car is not pinging, octane booster or higher octane fuel buys you nothing. If you are pinging, you only need to go to as high an octane rating as you need to stop it from pinging.

The knock sensors, as has been mentioned, will pull timing to stop pinging. That said, just because you have higher octane fuel does not mean that you get more timing (thus making more power)- max advance is predetermined by the computer- so if you aren't pinging at max advance, that's it. Find someone with Autotap, or some kind of mobile diagnostic computer, and take it out for a hard run- if timing isn't being pulled, you are good to go.

I have Autotap, if you are anywhere near Richmond, VA send me an e-mail and we'll take her out for a run.

Good luck!

 

Gasoline is composed of hydrogen and carbon atoms. Octane is gasoline composed of 8 carbon atoms per molecule. The octane rating, traditionally, was a measure of what percentage of gasoline is composed of octane molecules. 90 octane gas is composed of 90% octane gasoline molecules and 10% heptane gasoline molecules and other additives. There are several ways to measure octane which is why you can have gas with an octane rating of over 100.

Octane, amongst the gasoline molecules (heptane, octane, nenane, decane) has the desirable characteristic that it can be compressed quite a lot before it spontaneously combusts. It also burns slower. A four cycle car engine doesn't count on spontaneous combustion. Instead it assumes that combustion will occur when the spark plug fires. If the gasoline combusts before the spark plug fires (beginning of power stroke), the engine will not make maximum power and can be damaged

The compression ratio of the engine determines the amount of octane you need in gasoline. The higher the compression ratio, the higher the octane percentage.

Here is the key thing. Your car's performance is a function of how many BTU's of energy it can process in a given period of time. Does higher octane gasoline possess more BTU's per gallon than lower octane gasoline - emphatically NO (octane and heptane have the SAME BTU rating)!! Thus using gasoline with more octane than required to control pre detonation, gives no added value, and may cause unburned gasses to pass directly to the catalytic converter unburned, shortening its life.

 

Your fears are unfounded, there would be very little risk of your tank being contaminated by such a small amount of another grade of fuel to even worry about.

 

It's not worth your time. I have tried the 104 Boost with no noticable change to my engine. Maybe if I used a case of it?

 

A little more expensive is a gross understatement. When I go to road courses, if available its between $ 5 and $ 6 per gallon. I currently pay about $ 2.05 for 93/94 octane. The racing fuel, non-leaded is usually 100 octane.

 

I currently pay $ 2.159 super premium (91 Octane), which is the least expensive 91 octane in my area (Arco). I have heard that non-leaded gas is available out here as high as 100 octane, but I don't believe that anything above 91 is available out of the pump. Regardless of price, I would buy and put 3 to 5 gals of that in my tank long before i would put any on the currently available high octane boosters, which all contain MMT, which will in Turbo Buicks, but I don't know about late model vettes, eat/plug up the NOX sensor in a heartbeat.

 

if your not running N2O or FI then don't worry about it... just a waste of money.. the ECM will only advance timing to what is the highest threshold in the High Ocatane table in the ECM. i am 450+ RWHP and even with 92 Octane my car runs fine unless i lug it at a low RPM in 5th or 6th gear.. moste of the additives today have manganese which burns orange... so if your running rich it will ahve an orange tint as will the plug procelain.. doesn't hurt anyhting but some people don't know the cause..

 

This simply is not correct. Octane rating is how resistant the fuel is to detonation in comparison to Octane/Heptane mixtures. Octane in fuel lingo, is short for Iso-Octane, a highly branched hydrocarbon. Heptane is straight chain heptane, a linear molecule. The more branched a hydrocarbon molecule is the more resistant it is to detonation. So a fuel with a 90 octane rating has the detonation resistance of a mixture of 90% iso-octane and 10% n-heptane.

Having run GC analysis on several samples I can tell you that real gasoline has very little actual octane or heptane and often contains well over 50 different compounds.

A fuel with over 100 octane rating is simply more resistant to detonation than pure iso-octane. Things like toluene and ethanol have octane ratings above 100.