Just to start, this is a huge debate, good luck.

Personally I use B-12 (at any autozone) once maybe every 12k or right before a big trip because it increases mileage and slightly cleans things in the fuel tank (once again debatable, but I see minor increases). Not to mention its a whole 3 bucks, why not?

 

I've been a believer in Techron, We use it in our shop with good results in customers cars. I think the better fuels will reduce the need for these products though. The biggest reason we have for using it is the build up of carbon on the backs of the intake valves. This is most noticable with the oxygenated fuels. This carbon acts like a sponge and soaks up the fuel before it can get into the combustion chamber causing hard cold starts. The better fuels, in our area called Top Tier Fuels, will have the additives already blended into the fuel.

 

+1 and BG's BK44. I use a can every 10-15k.

 

+1 on Techron, I use it maybe once an oil change or so? That's probably a little aggressive, but you can't really over use it so why not.

 

The only thing I use that doesnt require special equipment is Lucas

 

Lucas oil additives are bad for use in a situation with gears. Do you want air bubbles in your trans/diff?

 

I think he is talking about gas additives... I know it probably did next to nothing, but I used to get a half a tank of 93 octane and dump a bottle of NOS "race only" octane booster in. I could have sworn the engine became a bit more responsive in the lower revs, especially when accelerating from a stop.

Just do an Italian tune-up every once in a while.

 

I didn't know that lucas made gas additives, if they did I probably would not use them. This is based off of the experience I had with building small marine engines. We HAD to use lucas oil and it did nothing but bad. I can't imagine one product is better from the same company. bobistheoilguy.com

 

Lucas fuel injector cleaner/gas treatment is, I believe, the only one to not contain alcohol. Its a lubricant-based product that makes sure oil is not pulled off of surfaces by the additive. It does in fact work to break things loose when used in conjunction with a proper Italian tune-up.



Octane boosters do not increase octane by a measurable amount. Furthermore, increased octane does nothing to clean out your engine. All octane is is a measure of resistance to detonation.

 

Techron, before oil change.

 

Same, use a bottle of Chevron Techron once a month or so. Probably a bit too frequent but every oil change interval seems like a good time for it.

Haven't tried the Lucas fuel treatment/injector cleaner yet. Might give it a try but like others have said I don't think it will make much of a difference if you are using quality gasoline to begin with.

 

i have heard of adding acetone to get more performance
has anyone tried this?

 

Too big of a pussy to try it.

 

Chevron Techron get's my vote too. A mechanic friend of mine told me he can tell every motor that has been running it that he works on--very clean internals. He also uses it in his own cars--collectible VWs.

As far as the octane boost, acetone's OK, but it is commonly sold as nail polish remover. It will melt paint and certain plastics. Use toluene if you want to boost octane. Toluene is what the refineries use to increase octane and is also the stuff you'll generally find in the half-assed "octane boosters" that you can buy at WalMart and the like--just in very small amounts. Throw a gallon of it in your tank if you want to see any real octane increase.

 

As far as the octane boost, acetone's OK, but it is commonly sold as nail polish remover. It will melt paint and certain plastics. Use toluene if you want to boost octane. Toluene is what the refineries use to increase octane and is also the stuff you'll generally find in the half-assed "octane boosters" that you can buy at WalMart and the like--just in very small amounts. Throw a gallon of it in your tank if you want to see any real octane increase.

Not really. Refineries have processes to increase octane that create aromatics and hydrogen from paraffins. The octane increase comes from the creation of aromatics. Toluene is an aromatic, but they don't specifically target that reaction. We try to target benzene since it has high octane and has one less carbon (so you can get high octane with less mass).

 

I have used toulene, but it's not worth it anymore due to cost. It used to be pretty damn cheap, but not now.

 

Yikes! I just checked the prices of Toluene and Xylene. When did the prices jump so much? Producers used to base their pricing on about $.50 over the wholesale (pre-tax) price of regular unleaded pump gas. Now Toluene is over $10 a gal--that's nuts! At that price it would cost over $5 a gal for a Toluene/Gas mix to yield 100 octane.

 

and this is why this recession is slowly draining everyone.

 

I'm no chemist, so I'll defer to your expertise. I see benzene's got a lower octane rating than toluene (101 vs. 114). Is it commercially available to use as an octane booster? Price?

 

Ive tryed STP booster, junk. Not recommended. I do wanna try the NOS Octane Booster sometime for shits. Btw...what is the highest octane we can put in our cars straight out of the pump?

 

Junk is the optimal word here. The small bottles of octane boost only raise your octane a few points. A point is 1/10th of a whole. so if a bottle states it will raise your octane 3 pts let's say, and you're using 93 octane pump gas, that would be 93.3 octane--not exactly what you're looking for I'll bet.

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Tikka, would it help to pre-heat the fuel. I recall reading that the Honda Formula 1 team used to run a fuel that was about 90% toluene back in the 80's. They ran the fuel lines by the exhaust to pre-heat it to around 70 degrees. Not something I'm recommending to anyone for a road car--just free thinking.

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BTW, years back I used to run this Toluene Home Brew in my FWD turbo Mopar--and yes, it made a noticeable difference. You can probably tell by my shock at the current price of toluene (and the outdated prices at the link), that I haven't run it in a while.

 

Benzene is one of the most hazardous hydrocarbons around. It reacts very readily, and would probably cause havoc to fuel lines and the like. I'm not sure you can even buy it without a license. It's not recommended as a straight octane booster.

Also, octane isn't the only important factor of a fuel. Another one you'd be affecting is drivability index. The drivability index is a representation of the distillation curve of the fuel (what % of the gasoline is vaporized at different temperatures). A good burning fuel has a fairly flat curve which means it has a good variety of hydrocarbons of different molecular weights. You need lighter molecules like butane to have sufficient vapor pressure to start your cold engine, and you want a variety of heavier molecules to help with heat release during burning. If you just mix in a bunch of toluene in your gasoline, you'll make a big bump in the distillation curve at 110C (bp of tolunene). You'll certainly still see benefit from the higher octane but to get full potential of the fuel you'd want to flatten the curve out by adding high octane compounds of different weights. To optimize the fuel in that much detail would be pretty expensive, and a lot more work than it's worth, just something to think about.

 

I used 2 gallons of unleaded race gas mixed in with a tank of 91 and it made a huge difference, almost made my car an entirely different animal! The only downside was that it cost $10 plus the cost of fuel so I wouldn't do it regularly. I think that it basically gave me between 96-99 octane, at least thats what I thought it came out to.

 

Thanks for all the great responses.