What will 100 octane gas do?

[Lil bastard]

Originally Posted by eightsandaces

Hey Lil B what about toluene, I read once ( I think it was here) of people using it in place of booster buying it in bulk. What wasn't clear to me was where to get it without ending up on the homeland security Christmas card list.

You can get Toluene (aka methyl benzene) at Home Depot, Loews, Menards, even Sherwin Williams - by the gallon.

There are two problems with Toluene as an octane booster:

First, it's very nasty stuff to be handling and breathing, a neurotoxin by definition.

Second, at it's highest effective concentration, it will at best only raise the octane rating of premium fuel one point. Toluene is very rich in carbon and can very quickly foul your plugs. Also, because it is an excellent solvent, it readily attacks any rubber or plastic components in the fuel system - lots of those these days.

The only time Toluene was used extensively in fuel was in the old days of forced induction or turbocharged cars in formula one racing. But it was actually used to lower the octane rating of the primary fuel - Methanol.

Toluene has an octane rating of 124 (RON), while Methanol has a Ron rating of 115 octane. Perhaps counterintuitively, these could be mixed in certain combinations to produce a 100 octane mixture which was the maximum octane allowed by the FIA.

The advantage to this mix over conventional 100 octane racing fuel was that Methanol contains a significant amount of oxygen in it's chemical makeup and so acts like a natural turbocharger, allowing more oxygen into the cylinder. The FIA has since changed the rules which now specify ordinary pump gas (albeit well refined).