In one of my engine mags there is a ad for Snow Performance and how it adds octane to your engine.

Just curious if it really works, as 91 octane is all I can get, would it increase performance?

Would these chemicals eat up anything in the engine over time using it all the time?

If it works, when I do heads, maybe I could go for higher compression to make some more power.

 

I wouldn't base my compression ratio on chemical additives. You should be able to run 11-1 if it's tuned properly.

 

I don't know this particular product but most of the others are not worth the money. They often claim to add one point to the octane rating which is 0.1, this is a waste of money. By the time you add enough to raise the octane rating to 93 or whatever for every tank you will go broke. If you are really set on adding an octane booster you could use Toluene (paint thinner), it has an octane rating of about 120 and is pretty cheap if you buy it from a chemical supplier. Probably best just to tune for 91.

 

Snow also makes a meth injection kit, maybe the article is relating to that product.

 

Yes, sorry for the confusion, it is a water-methanol injection system.

The thread about someone getting their engine decarbonized made me think of this, as it claims

"Engine Health - Snow Performance systems effectively steam clean the valves, valve seats, and even the piston tops and intake when they inject. This reduces carbon build up."

 

 

Octane (C8H18) has less energy than an equivalent volume of gasoline. Therefore a higher Octane concentration in your gas will lower the amount of power in the same volume of fuel. The reason for having any octane in the fuel is to prevent pre-detonation. You want to use the minimum amount of Octane necessary to prevent pre-detonation. Obviously that number will be higher with increasing compression ratios, but using fuel with more Octane than necessary is just wasting money and horsepower.

 

water/meth kits are typically only used in turbo/supercharger setups, since they delaying detonation and lower intake temps which means you can run more BOOST and make a lot more power.

In N/A setups it could help, but it doesn't help as much and I think it would be best to run 100% meth instead of water/meth mixture.

Methanol basically adds octane, and you hook it up to inject methanol at WOT and/or above a certain RPM (say WOT above 3,000 RPM). Its like using race fuel, but only when you need it.

That said, methanol is somewhat expensive, and if the tank runs dry or the pump fails, and you WOT all the way to redline... you may blow up your engine.

Another approach is to add racefuel to a tank of gas to raise your octane. The ending octane rating of your fuel is just the weighted average of what fuel is in it.

For example:

10 gallons of 87 octane + 10 gallons of 93 octane = 20 gallons of 90 octane.

And 19 gallons of 91 octane + 1 gallon of 110 octane = ~93 octane.

If you have a station or race track nearby that sells race fuel, that's probably the easiest way to raise your octane. Just keep 1 gallon of race fuel in the car and add it when you fill up. 110 octane fuel is ~10-12 dollars per gallon, which per tank of gas really isn't that bad.

Buy 5 gallons of it on one trip (~50 bucks) and it will last you 5 tanks of gas or ~2000 miles.

The most important thing is consistency. Once you tune the engine for a certain setup, the fuel needs to be consistent or else you may end up damaging the engine if you get a bad tank or forget to put in your race fuel or whathave you. Tuning the engine takes away a lot of the PCM's ability to adjust to the environment and fuel.

 

I bet an NA engine would use a fraction of the water meth compared to the boost guys. Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to stay on top of things. Folks commonly use the windshield washer tank for the mix, so it will tell you when it's low.
There is a good write up on this in the FI section, but you will have to find it.
We have 92 octane E10 fuel. And I get random KR, so I've considered this too. I'm 11:1.

Race fuel? Have you priced it lately?

Ron