Additives, useful or not?

[Mark B]

If you have a high mileage beater car... Like me... there is this stuff called "RESTORE." It goes in with your oil and suposedly restores compression, reduces oil consumption & restores power. I have used it on a couple of my cars that were over 100K miles and it really did make a difference you could feel. I dont know how that stuff looks at the bottom of my oil pan though.

Mark B

[Jeff_in_Atl]

If you have a high mileage beater car... Like me... there is this stuff called "RESTORE." It goes in with your oil and suposedly restores compression, reduces oil consumption & restores power. I have used it on a couple of my cars that were over 100K miles and it really did make a difference you could feel. I dont know how that stuff looks at the bottom of my oil pan though.

Mark B

You could put some 80-90 weight gear lube in it and it would do the same thing. It will make the oil pressure go up to. Does that mean the oil is flowing better? It actually means less is flowing through the little holes in the main bearings, lifters, etc.

[Rhode Island Red]

These fuel system cleaners offer some benefit but are highly overpriced. if you want to use an additive, go to a paint supply store and purchase Xylene in gallon containers. Mix up to 25% with pump unleaded and add 1 ounce of marvel mystery oil per gallon of Xylene. Yes it is safe, Xylene is the principle ingredient of high octane race gas. By mixing in the metioned ratio you will have an honest 100 octane and after a tank of that, your fuel system will be as clean as it's going to get. I've been doing this for years.

Joe 1320, don't you mean Toluene ?
the link you posted,
http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/misc...explained.html, refers to toluene , not xylene oh and they refer to using Mineral Spirits vs myster oil... I assume the mystery oil you have found to work better

[Joe 1320]

You can use Toluene or Xylene. As long as you stay within the proper mix ratio, these work stellar.

here are some formulas:

http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/misc/octanebooster.html

[Trans Am]

I ve used stp injector cleaner and that worked ( car wasnt driven for a year ),
tryed it yesterday in my mondeo and it passed emissions, idle isnt rough anymore

[redbird94]

hey joe, what octane gas would you use for that? premium is so damn expensive, is there a better way to get this 93 octane fuel, buy 87 and what?

[Joe 1320]

hey joe, what octane gas would you use for that? premium is so damn expensive, is there a better way to get this 93 octane fuel, buy 87 and what?

No matter how you try to formulate this, it's always cheaper to get the highest octane available at the pump. These additives are just a more cost effective way to get higher than 93 octane than with over the counter bottles of octane boost.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

Yes I am resurrecting an old thread here.

In Atlanta we are still having a hard time finding gasoline due to the hurricanes a while back. I had to buy regular this morning because there is no premium around. I have not done this on the Vette because my scanner died but on the Z28 when I used regular I could see the knock retard being sensed and fed into the computer. I noticed about a 3 mpg reduction of gas mileage because of it. So this morning I thought that I would just stop and get a bottle of octane booster to make up the difference. The bottle says it will treat like 15-25 gallons. Anyway I remembered, for some bizarre reason, that Joe posted this link so I went back and looked at it again. By my calculations to raise 10 gallons of 87 octane to 93 I would need 3 gallons of Xylene or Toluene. So how in the world can 1 16 oz bottle treat a whole tank of gas? The bottle sounds like they are lying about how much it can treat ie snake oil. I know they can be using Methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether to raise the effectiveness but the math is still way off. Am I missing something? Sounds like you need 24 bottles of 16 oz octane boost to treat 10 gallons. @ $5 per that would be $120. LOL

[Rhode Island Red]

might have to try this stuff out as the hawk pings in hoy temps, 6th gear ang long grades uphill

FORMULA 1
Toulene
R+M/2...114
Cost...$2.50/gal
Mixtures with 92 Octane Premium
10%...94.2 Octane
20%...96.4 Octane
30%...98.6 Octane
Notes: Common ingredient in Octane Boosters in a can. 12-16 ounces will only raise octane 2-3 *points*, I.e. from 92 to 92.3. Often costs $3-5 for 12-16 ounces, when it can be purchased for less than $3/gal at chemical supply houses or paint stores.
FORMULA 2
Xylene
R+M/2...117
Cost...$2.75/gal
Mixtures with 92 Octane Premium
10%...94.5 Octane
20%...97.0 Octane
30%...99.5 Octane
Notes: Similar to Toulene. 12-16 ounces will only raise octane 2-3 *points*, I.e. from 92 to 92.3. Usually mixed with Toulene and advertised as *race formula*.

I want around 95 octane rating, so how much mixture of xylene and mystery oil would I need to a 1/4 tank before fill up?

[RAF7789]

i did a 4:1 ratio of gas to toulene and there was a big difference! WARNING: it will spoil you, and you will have remorse when you are running straight 92. i think it was around 97 octane.

[ryan34]

Do the formula's change now that most of us have 10% ethanol fuel?

[Bismarck318]

Speaking of ethanol....

True Jeff these #'s don't add up. As my Camaro sits idle as it never passes my county's emmissions program, I'm looking for a solution, but one that will not trip the SES lamp.... but at least it stays off the road in the winters.

Interesting thread, I often wondered is this all similiar to what David Blume was trying to sell us in Alcohol can be a gas? The comparison of Toluene or Xylene... I'm not a chemist but aren't these some form of alcohol?

Now wouldn't all this wreak havoc with your sensors & such?.. issues with cold starting?

When compared to gasoline, ethanol has about 35% less energy per unit than gasoline. That is, you need 35% more ethanol to produce the same combustion results as gasoline. Here's where this becomes a problem for your normal automobile.

When the engineers were writing up the engine calibration for your vehicle, they were assuming you were going to run it on gasoline, with up to 10% ethanol. All fuels have a stoichiometric air-fuel ratio. This is the ratio of air to fuel which produces your ideal combustion event (it's much more complicated that this, but it'll do). Stoich for gasoline is 14.7:1 and stoich for pure ethanol is 9:1.

Now, the engine controller will allow for a bit of fudging from the initial calibration in an attempt to acheive a more perfect combustion event based on driving habits, ambient air temp, air pressure, fuel quality, etc. It determines this by measuring the oxygen content of the exhaust via the O2 sensor(s). This auto-learn process is called fuel trim. It is based around that magic 14.7:1 stoich number.

When you dump lots of ethanol into your tank, the combustion process changes. You engine controller is trying to acheive that magic 14.7:1 and ethanol wants to burn nicely at 9:1. This is going to manifest itself as the engine running lean. Your engine controller is giving the engine sips of fuel and your ethanol-fuled engine needs gulps. Your O2 sensor will pick this up and say, "Woah, we're lean! More fuel!" This will affect your fuel trim since it is self adjusting to add fuel. The problem is, your engine controller still thinks there's gasoline, not ethanol, in the tank. Eventually, the engine controller is going to reach a point with the fuel trim where it says enough is enough, something's wrong here and I'm going to set a DTC. When this happens, the engine controller will ignores the O2 sensor and defaults to a base fuel map. Remember though, this base map was written for gasoline, so trying to run ethanol off a base map will result in some pretty significant driveability concerns.

A flex-fuel vehicle has a sensor located in the fuel line which measures the oxygen content of the fuel. This allows the engine controller to measure the amount of ethanol in the fuel, from 85% (E85) to 0% (pure gasoline), and adjust it's desired fuel trim accordingly.

Yes, ethanol can make lots of power. Ethanol has an octane rating of up to 110 (R+M/2). This allows for very aggressive ignition timing and a higher compression ratio because of the fuels resistance to detonation. Also, being an alcohol, it has a high evaperation rate and provides a cooling effect on the incoming intake charge. This is especially benefitial on forced induction engines.

On the flip side, ethanol has a few downsides. As I mentioned above, ethanol is less energy dense when compared to gasoline. That is, you need more of it to make the same amount of power. The EPA estiamtes about a 25% decrease in fuel economy when going to E85 from gasoline. You can come up with some stories about specific engines that can match gasoline in effiency and fuel economy, but these are engines designed to take *full* advantage of ethanols advantages. Part of ethanol's downside is its lack of availability. Automakers need to design an engine to operate both on gasoline and 85% ethanol because you need to account for folks traveling in California, where E85 pumps are few and far between, as well as those in the midwest, where E85 is at nearly every corner gas station. This means that you can't fully exploit ethanols advantages. An engine calibration can do a bit with aggressive ignition timings and such through the use of the fuel sensor, but these are just performance factors. The real efficiency factors, such as an ultra high compression ratio or a combustion chamber designed specifically for the burn properties of ethanol, will always be limited because the engine has to burn gasoline as well.

As well, ethanol doesn't like to light off in cold temperatures. This means that 100% ethanol is impracticle for much of the country. Even E85 drops down to about 70% ethanol during the winter months to ensure proper starting in cold temps.

Going back to Blume's world; there are a number of folks who have converted their vehicle to run strictly on a specific percentage of alcohol. It's actually quite easy to do on a carburated engine. You need to have some type of programmable engine controller for fuel injection, but it is certainly do-able. There is a group of Subaru WRX and Mitsubishi Evolution enthusiasts who are running either a strictly E85 setup or a dual-fuel system. A dual-fuel system will have two fuel tanks: one for gasoline and another for E85. Switching between the two simply requires loading a difference engine calibration (many of todays aftermarket engine management systems will actually hold more than one calibration and allow switching between them quickly without the use of any tools or computers). A system designed strictly for ethanol (be it 50%, 85%, or anything else) will have to continue using their ethanol blend. You can't switch to gasoline for the same reason gasoline cars can't switch to high-ethanol. Why WRX and Evo? Forced induction. The high octane and cooling properties of ethanol allow the use of aggressive ignition timings and higher boost levels without fear of detonation, leading to higher performance.