Use of Racing Gas

[PSL-Boxster]

has anyone used racing gas in their boxsters before? If you have, how does the performance factor increase? especially for the 2.7 engines . Thanks.

[heyjae]

A waste of money on the street. Not really worth it even on the track. Even on my modified 3.2, it doesn't seem to make a difference in performance. I only used it to see if it would help my smog check. Also some race gas is leaded (usually 105 octane), which will destroy your cat converters.

[boostiality]

Theres a thread on 6speed in the 996TT/GT2 section about someone asking a similar question on a stock TT motor. Now you got to take into consideration that obviously it's a different motor altogether & that its boosted, but it gives you a general idea of how Porsche's DME acts.

What was stated by the tuner/softronic manipulator is that these motors can be filled with 87 octane and not blow up on a completely stock car / unmolested DME. At the same token, when race gas was used the DME actually put on 30-40 more horsepower then stock. What this means is that the DME's are advanced enough to know that something is either going really wrong and cut back on ignition timing or it'll go more advanced when it's recognizes that knock isn't happening and goes the other way. BTW, if you want to give it a shot just buy unleaded race gas which goes up to 109 octane ala VP racing MS109.

Although it'll never be this dramatic to our motors being that they are NA, the same algorithm does take shape. So is there a gain? just slightly if anything. All the guys like softronic/giac/ etc etc do is manipulate the ignition timing. Porsche puts X amount of advance with a safety variance in mind, all the tuners do is bump it up a bit then find a way to charge people $1,000+ . Must be nice

[Lil bastard]

Actually Race Gas contains less energy (BTUs, Joules) than regular pump gas. This is because the octane boosters used contain less energy and replace a certain volume of what would otherwise be gasoline.

What it does do is allow changes in the CR, Spark curve, mechanical timing, etc. so that more energy is extracted than would be the case with pump gas. And, all this is dependent upon the fuel not pre-igniting or knocking which is where the octane boosters come into play. But, only if your engine is mechanically and electronically modified to make use of it.

There are very specially designed engines which produce much more power from pump gas - such as in Formula 1. But, these engines use exotic materials and technologies costing hundreds of thousands of $ and not available for a street car.

No doubt, the TT can make better use of this fuel than an NA car can. To accomplish this in an NA car, you're talking pistons, cams, DME flash, etc. to get any benefit from this fuel.

With any unmodified engine, using Racing Gas will decrease performance, unless the DME contains untapped maps which don't come into play on pump gas.

[Benny986]

if you have a chip that is programmed for it. otherwise, you won't be able to tell the difference. i have heard that in some cars, with equal driving, you get ever so slightly better mileage, but i have not tested this.

i run 100octance on my 100octane program, and its a BIG difference.

[edevlin]

I am curious to see if it makes any difference in my 2.7L boxster. One of these days I will go over to Performance Autosport in Richmond where I have my dyno pulls done in the past, fill up the car with the 100 octane lead-free fuel they have there and do a pull. I have done 4 dyno pulls there and the results have been very consistant with the sorts of things I have done to the car. I find learning about the car with dyno pulls great entertainment,

Ed

[Lil bastard]

Originally Posted by edevlin

I am curious to see if it makes any difference in my 2.7L boxster. ...

Yea, but unless you're going to use it all the time (@$6+/gal.), it is exactly as you say - just a curiousity.

Sure, you may see the numbers climb on the Dyno, but it's like holding your thumb on the bulb of a thermometer - you will make the thermometer rise, but you haven't changed the temperature of the room one bit.

[Topless]

On hot track days I have run 100 oct. racing fuel a few times. I felt no difference. At $8/gal I probably won't do it again.