Back Yard Race Fuel (DIY)

[EnricoPalazzo]

Just curious, To those that add aprox 20-25% toluene, do u adjust the cas timing, and if so how much is it safe to advance? im thinking aprox 3 degs?

[Steve]

Sprung dean, dyno day coming up and who goes shopping for tolulene???

[cameron]

let him so were can see the difference it makes (curious to normal power then power with toluene)

[Steve]

only good if he does back to back runs with and without it though.

[GiJOr33]

so fill up halfway with normal, do a dyno run, then chuck some toluene in and go down and fill up full, and drive back and do another run.

[cameron]

or take a jerry can with you !

[GTRgeoff]

I was at the motorsport expo yesterday and spoke to a guy who does 102 RON 90 MON fuel without ethanol. About 95 for 20 litres.

He had a nice increase from a carb VK commo stroker but hasn't yet tried a real car and I told him about wanting to tune for 98 and touluene. He wants to come on board at the tune session and do a comparo for his stuff which he can pay for the dyno and fuel. Formula 4000 race fuel I thin it is and he has been doing High Quality lubes for 30 years so may be interesting.

I'll post up some info later.

[MK2]

Ah, our old brain damaging friend C7H8.

I used to use it in bikes a long time ago for a bit of extra zing and run it through the Sil when I was stuck out in the sticks and there was nobody selling anything but 92RON rubbish and had to get home in the middle of summer.

I'm suprised that its still on the market being sold in bulk with no background checks actually, given that with a bit of 'fiddling' mild heat, high potency nitric and suphuric acids it also magically turns into Nitro Glycerine and Tri-Nitro-Toluene, or TNT as most people know it.

It will eat through lots of things, but most things in cars are fairly resistant to it for the simple reason that as mentioned before that its a fuel additive.

A few other things I should warn you of though.

I cant emphasise enough how dangerously flamable toluene is, it evaporates very quickly into a fairly heavy vapour that is heavier than air and with no wind or ventilation quite happily settle down into the lowest part of the area it was in. (like gutters, garage pits etc) And its got a flash point of about 4deg celcius, petrol has a flash point of 45deg celcius if that gives you any idea of how dangerous it is!

11x more...

Aside from that a few other things you should be aware of when handling it is that it cannot be excreted from the body because it isnt very water soluble and has to be broken down by being metabolised and this releases a couple of very nasty chemicals in the process that will cause irreversable nerve damage to your brain. Under no circumstances have any of it around pregnant women or their kids will be born with nerve damage.

Edited April 22, 2006 by MK2

[LBR33]

Here is the link to a very detailed thread

http://forums.v8owners.com.au/showthread.php?t=764

[justin911]

were do u get this in vic ?

i've asked at one or 2 service stations at there seems to be a communication problem or something

??

thanks

[bbe]

used a 10-1 mix...carr pulls so much smoother all the way round...way more value than octane booster !

Edited April 29, 2006 by bbe

[RB20_ZED]

73psi/ 5 bar of boost (1200HP) on the F1 engines in the old turbo days using toluene real world enough for you?

Side effects ;

uncontrolled grin ,

a lack of pinging under very high loads,

wheel spin.

lmao

[png godzilla]

It's a bit of a very rough guesstimation, since the real calculation of RON is done on a knock engine.

My idea (probably wrong) is that the chemicals present do not adversly effect each others RON/MON by reaction. That way we can work out the rough average RON of the mixture.

I guess the bottom line is that the Toluene or Xylene mixture is definately better than the ocatne boosters commonly found on the auto store shelf.

hey Rev, great stats hope you help me with mine.

We only have 91 octane pump gas here, that's it, no other options. so i'm currently running water/methanol injection to overcome this, (well i have to use Metholated Spirits instead of Methanol because i can't get Methanol either). it works well. 91 octane at 1.2 bar with the water injection & around 30 on the Power FC Knockometer.

I'm looking at importing some 200ltr drums of Toluene from Australia to mix at 25% with the c rappy 91 octane we get here. Any idea what rating i would end up with?? I have asked the question of the fuel companies here but no-one seems to know. i'm really hoping i can get a min of 96?

PS: Also i was told by the manufacturers in Australia that as of 1st July in Toluene, Xylene, Methanol, Ethanol & Isopropyl Alcohol has a Tarrif on it because people are using these products for Fuel or Fuel additives & the Govt. reckon they are missing out on revenue!! they told me Toluene has a Tarriff of 0.38143c per liter.

hopefully i won't have to pay that for Export out of Australia, not sure still checking..................

[png godzilla]

just realised rev's post was 2003

anybody techo minded in fuel & additives out there? i'd really like to know what increase i can get out of 91 with Toluene?

[rev210]

25% mix of toluene (122) + 75% 91 is about 98 octane using blunt calculations.

Whatever the number is a retune to suit is in order if you go that way. The AFR's need tweaking along with the timing to get the most out of it.

[png godzilla]

25% mix of toluene (122) + 75% 91 is about 98 octane using blunt calculations.

Whatever the number is a retune to suit is in order if you go that way. The AFR's need tweaking along with the timing to get the most out of it.

Thanks rev, even 96 would be good in conjunction with the water/methanol injection. 91 sucks & really limits everything i do here!!

if i can get 98 with 25% toluene i'm a happy man.

i've ordered 5 x 200ltr drums in our next solvent order, so will be here in a few weeks to try!

as for tuning, i'm still learning, have to get my head around the fuel maps on the Power FC, have a wide band O2 fitted, so keeping an eye on things.. no Dyno's here either, so i'm the tuner!

thanks for the heads up!

[Ska]

HOLY CRAP! Where are you? Any chance of reselling on 20ltr drums?

[Beer Baron]

dude, his name is PNG godzilla. take a wild stab at his location...

[Ska]

meh I dont take much notice of usernames

[mild25/30]

I used to use toluene as octane booster in a 11.5/1 comp 308 streeter.

1) Benefits: No pinging with a 15% ratio mixed with premium.

Can be obtained at very good rates for 200L.

2) Downsides: Will only last for a day or two in the tank before evaporating/going off. I learnt to mix only the amount I could use on a saturday night / the drags etc cos if it sat for a week the poor donk would ping its head off like the toluene had never been there in the first place!

Running at more than 30% seemed to have negative performance effects on my N/A engine. This could very well be simply that too much of a good thing is bad! That is to say that because octane is a rating of how fast a fuel burns, and the higher the number the slower the burn i.e. 110 burns slower than 91, you should only ever use just enough octane booster to prevent engine damage! Higher octane fuel will NOT turn a daily driver into a race car (oxygenated fuels like Methanol with a higher energy content are slightly different). Back in the day when avgas was still decently high octane I did a comparison down the drag strip with my 15 sec celica. Ran a couple of runs on a 1/4 tank of normal leaded, then filled up with avgas for the money runs... We lost almost a second and a good handful of MPH...

At a 50% ratio I once tried, the engine had lost a lot of low down response. This was in part due to the above, but also because toluene is much lighter than petroleum and therefore used in large enough quantities will lean out the engine if no further corrective action is taken.

My conclusions are that toluene is a GREAT octane booster when used with a minimalistic approach. Use just enough to prevent detonation and engine damage, and dont leave the brew sit for more than a couple of days.

My 2 cents worth...

Steps down from soap box