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Octane booster

14K views 83 replies 12 participants last post by  AseanAero 
#1 · (Edited)
We've started making a pre-production batch of 500 liters of octane booster for our own cars and for sale to local car and bike street racers.

The booster is based on BTX chemicals and additives to give an octane of 117 to 118 without the use of TEL (tetraethyl lead), a bit like the old 1990s formula 1 fuel. It's a blend of BTX chemicals with a top lubricant and an oxygenate. We're still experimenting with the blend with our tame chemist / petroleum engineer (code named Chemical Barbie) who has access to petrochem labs.

We're looking at some other non TEL exotics to push the blend to 125 to 130 octane.

Avgas is hard to buy here and racing fuels are damn expensive , this blend gives us the benefit of avgas at 40% less cost than buying avgas when available.

Blended 25% booster to 75% of normal tank of local 94 octane fuel it provides just over 100 octane.

Biggest difference is in smoothness and drivability.

We're using my 530 , Taffy's M5 and various office staff motor bikes as test mules.

Last night in the 530 i was able to go full throttle in 5th gear at 1,200 rpm with no audible detonation so it's working (normally the 530 will detonate in 3rd gear at part throttle at low rpm, the fuel here is THAT bad).

Taffy tried it briefly in his M5 this morning and has a 10 degree drop in oil temp (normally close to 99 to 100 deg C , now 89 to 90). The bike riders have also noticed that their bike engine crank cases are running cooler when touched by hand. I can only think this is because of less pre-ignition events ?

It won't make any difference to power output until the cars are re-mapped but throttle crispness, drivability and smoothness at high rpm is there already.

I've snuck a trace of Castrol R into the blend for that vintage racing smell :)
 
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#2 ·
I put 20 liters in my M5, the idle is much smoother.
So much better driveability, it can pull from 1100 rpm in 3rd gear anytime.
Engine is much stroner, linear and top end power is very noticeable.

My biggest surprise was the 9 deg celcius drop in oil temp from 99c to 89c. That is HUGE!
 
#4 ·
Showing 90 deg C when at idle or low rpm driving , Taffy went to redline a few times and it climbs to 100.

Before it would be 100 at idle , then 110 with a bit of spirited driving , 4 laps of the local racetrack will see 120 to 130 deg C oil temp.

Hopefully this has solved the high oil temp problem on track days , if the oil temp can sit between 110 to 120 that's good.

I'm convinced we have crappy cut fuel here.
 
#5 · (Edited)
I'm convinced we have crappy cut fuel here.
:tonquesmilie:


You have there very hot climate and it melts engines.
Also 25 billion moped and those makes car full off little dents. Also crazy moped drivers might beat you up.
Lightless trucks driving 40km/h in toll roads when you are going 200km/h.
Snakes might kill you in your back yard.
Roads full of pot holes destroy wheels.
Impossible to import car parts etc from overseas.
Crappy fuel.

And you depart from Australia?

:eek:h:



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#7 · (Edited)
I forgot to mention 40% of the city is below sea level so it floods when there's heavy rain.

This is on the way home from the cinema tonight , Kemang area about 5km from the city centre

We take the opportunity to listen for under car exhaust leaks.

This is going UPHILL against the current
 

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#10 ·

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#11 · (Edited)
Did you know that CASTROL is an abbreviation of 'CASToR OiL' ?

That smell takes me back to my primary school and high school days, going to circuit races, speedway and even model aircraft.

My DD 530i is stuck up on the car lift tonight (bloody thing won't come down) so I borrowed Taffy's M5 and gave it a moderate but spirited drive home , oil temp didn't get over 92 deg C and went back to 90 deg C at around town speeds.

Testing it in 3 different cars (M5, 530i, 320i) and half a dozen motorbikes and so far no problems just compliments. It's not that the additive is so great (there shouldn't be a big difference for higher octane unless the engine tune is remapped) I think it's because our local fuel is poor quality.

There's so many opportunities for people to dilute in the supply chain without getting caught and I suspect that the real octane of pump gas is 3 to 5 points lower than advertised.

The difference in drivability is vast and there shouldn't be a 10 degree drop in oil temp from running higher octane fuel.

As a side note I thought about why I liked driving the E34 M5 on the way home , it's such a well balanced car that you can still push on a public road without getting up to ridiculous speeds (with todays 500 to 600hp monsters), 25 years old and it can still kick *** of most of the cars you meet on the road. By todays standards it's not fast on paper but in the real world it's still a very quick point to point sedan.

Taffy , I'm growing to like your short shift ... but I'll keep mine stock. Short shift is nice for a track car or weekend blaster but a bit clunky if driving in traffic.



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#12 ·
Yup.

My lungs are very well oiled from years of two stroke karting - I miss that smell of driving into a cloud of smoke on the rolling starts ! (I doubt I would boot it fully in such circumstances now, I remember thinking once how much of a lottery it probably was driving into those clouds on max accelaration with others all around you lol)
 
#14 · (Edited)
I did some digging around today through some of my more shady contacts and the dilution chemical of choice is ... crude oil and natural gas condensate in concentrations of 5 to 10% depending on how many pigs are feeding at the trough in the supply chain.

Condensate was used as vehicle fuel 80 to 90 years ago and has an octane rating of 30 to 50.

It's commonly used as a filler in cheap low quality paint

On the basis of 94 RON diluted with this crap we would get resulting 87.5 to 88.5 RON depending on concentration.

This makes a lot of sense to me and goes a long way to explain the hot running and other problems that cars (especially high performance cars) are having.

The temptation to make a quick profit is too great and the chances of getting caught are almost zero.

N-heptane is even worse , it has an octane rating of ZERO and is also soluble in fuel, it burns and is easily available if you have the right contacts.

Years ago of blending subsidized kerosene in fuel was rampant, it was 25% the cost of the cheapest pump gas until the government replaced subsidised kerosene with subsidized LPG
 
#17 ·
Yep just a suggestion, it readily available over here but as I gather everything is different over there.

I suspect it is easier to tamper with petrol than with LPG which is just a mixture of propane and butane. Its' really knock resistant ron>100 so if you do it right you could gain some power.
I run mine on LPG everyday, and have done so for the past 80k kms but having some troubles as of late which I'm trying to solve. Replaced the pump thus far and replaced some wiring which was rubbing against the subrame.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Spark plugs

I'm putting a fresh set of spark plugs in for a dyno run next week

Here's what the spark plugs look like after 900 kms of octane booster

The spark plugs are 2 years and 20,000km old
 

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#20 ·
in all honesty I can't remember that clearly, it was 20++ years ago!

IIRC, the plug would be changed twice in race day anyway, and, the mixture setting on the needle (carb') would have controlled the appearance of the plug, and, I would always have made it very rich for the slowing down lap after a race to oil up the piston to protect it when I came to a stop in parc ferme (hot piston and sudden stop with no clutch = engine damage without increasing the low speed).

nb.
in 2 stroke karting with no clutch you "choke" up the engine on entry to very slow corners (like hairpins) by covering the air intake with you hand as you turn in

if you have time and it's a very slow sequence of bends after a lonnnng straight, then you might also adjust the jet screw position, if you can find it without looking down / behind you to find the tinnest adjuster / screw head! We often soldered coins into the jet screw head to make it easy to find by touch, as the chain was also in the area as well! many karters of that era have missing fingers on the right hand due to this! I think it's banned now, and they have centrifugal clutches!! whimps hiha
 
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#21 ·
FWIW - I think the tips of you plugs are a little too hot, but not excessively so.
 
#24 ·
Just to add some information on octane boosters.

Manganese (iron) addatives in octance boosters (also used in "chinese" fuel) tend to show a brown/red discoloration on the spark plug and exhaust parts. Be aware of such! The contamination on the spark plug can make a bridge between the negative and positive electrode with misfires and eventually engine break down as a result!

We had such fuel in our testcells. I replaced the spark plugs every 60 hours to prevent engine damage.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Thanks for the tip on the manganese , I thought about it but for the reason you mentioned I'm worried about fouling spark plugs.

The Castrol R is run in a very small quantity just to get the smell and I think that's what is on the plug insulators , castor oil stains but it's not fouling the plugs yet.

I'm adding some fuel dye to the next batch , it will be interesting to see if that shows up on the plugs also.

The fuel dye before mixed looks a bit like colored valve grinding paste and that also has the potential to leave plug deposits.

'Consumer testing' (asking friends and Facebook friends) is trending for cobalt blue or green. I'm leaning towards Cobalt Blue but also like a blood red.

The color I really wanted was a Predator blood fluorescent yellow / green but that color isn't available.



Here's the colors available , which color would appeal to you ?

Here's a photo of a tablespoon of the additive being burnt in an ashtray , Friday night, car guys , coffee, beer , fuel additives and matches is a dangerous combo.



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#31 · (Edited)
More road testing

Trying some things you shouldn't do to see if I can get the M60B30 to get a pre-ignition ping

- stomping on full throttle in 3rd gear from 750rpm
- quickly squeezing full throttle in 5th gear from 1,000 rpm

The engine doesn't bog down , ping or do anything nasty except slowly pulling away in that gear

On normal Indo pump gas I can sometimes hear a slight ping in 2nd gear at low speed and in third gear at 2,000 rpm if power is applied.

Taffys M5 has similar drivability improvements.

Interesting.
 
#33 ·
Each of those plugs looks different to my eyes, with the final picture showing a oiled up residue... are these are from the 530i?
 
#35 · (Edited)
Poor Quality Fuel

Digging around in the internet this week I found this table on a Jakarta Toyota Avanza owner's blog

He tested the various types of fuel available in Jakarta (hopefully most M5 owners don't face these problems in your home country )

The Toyota Avanza has a 10:1 compression ratio.

In my experience the MINIMUM RON required is 10 times compression ration minus 10 as a rule of thumb

10:1 x 10 = 100 - 10 = 90 RON

V Power 95 RON

Pertamax Plus 95 RON

Pertamax 92 RON

Premium 88 RON

The 40% difference in fuel consumption between V Power and Premium (V Power 10km per liter, Premium 6km per liter) says a lot more about calorific values of the various fuels rather than Octane rating.

To me this is evidence of massive amounts of fuel dilution , the rumors are that condensate, n-heptane and even straight water are being used.

I find the quality of Shell V Power can also vary which could be a reflection of the honesty of those involved in the supply chain, this is what has prompted us to make our own octane boosters.
 

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#36 · (Edited)
Got a chance to test the octane booster (we've called it TXR+) on the dyno on the weekend

15 liters of additive to 85 liters of Shell V-Power

Tag on the photo should read 15% not 17%

No other changes other than the additive, no ignition advance etc.

Also a 50 deg C drop in exhaust gas temperature on average which gives a bit of a margin for increasing the ignition advance.

Something good is happening.
 

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#37 · (Edited)
So why has the power increased and the EGT (exhaust gas temperature) dropped ?

I did a quick analysis on the difference in EGT and at 3,000 rpm we have an 8.9% drop in EGT and an 12.7% increase in torque (3,100rpm 83.5 ft lbs to 94 ft lbs), energy in the fuel is being converted to power rather than heat due to more complete combustion in an inverse proportion of 1.4 times the percentage EGT drop. Interesting !

Viewed on this pie chart what was waste heat going into the exhaust is now being converted into engine power due to more complete combustion / fuel burning

OIL RUNNING COOLER - DROPPED FROM 99 to 100 deg C to 89 - 90 deg C

Taffy's BMW M5 registered a 10 deg C oil temp drop using TXR+, assuming that the M5's combustion EGTs are similar to these and he normally reads 99 deg C oil temp a reduction in EGT should give a similar reduction in oil temp.

99 deg C oil temp divide by 653 deg C EGT = 15.1%

594.8 deg C EGT (after octane booster) x 15.1% = 90.17 deg C predicted oil temperature

The actual oil temp reading after TXR+ was 89 deg C

Lower EGT means less heat in the engine oil and cooling system.
 

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