has anyone used

[superchargedmorph]

Nitrous Formula octaine boost, puts optimax to 102 ron, possibility of 30% power increase.

put ordinary fuel to 100 ron.Normaly only from OZ but I can get hold of it here, my look into being a distributer.

[Steve]

I need some

[Edited on 16-4-2002 by Administrator]

[andyhart21]

There is also another product available made by NOS (Nitrous Oxide Systems) which is available in the UK. It claims to boost the octane rating of 97RON fuel to over 100RON. It costs £11.50 for 355ml which does about 100 litres of fuel. If it can offer those sort of power boosts I think it is worth the cost.

[superchargedmorph]

the stuff I am on about costs £13 and will do six tank fulls, I have ordered 2 bottles will last me a year at least 6 months. will do some 0-60 runs when I get it .

[GCHQAgent]

the stuff I am on about costs £13 and will do six tank fulls, I have ordered 2 bottles will last me a year at least 6 months. will do some 0-60 runs when I get it .

I'm gonna ask a daft question... would you need to tell those evil crooks... erm.. insurance companies :smilegrin: about this ?

If not I want some!!!

[andyhart21]

Let us know on the 0-60 runs. If it is any good then I am definately interested. I wouldn't have thought you would have to tell your insurers though, because it is just a fuel additive.

[Zee007]

Agree with Andy,

Would love to know the times and kind of improvement. Would be interested - although would probably need a crate of the stuff with the millage I do!!! :o

[NotoriousREV]

higher octane fuel is only useful if you intend to make full use of it's properties.

Octane is a fuels anti-knock resistance, which means you can advance the igniton further before detonation occurs, or increase the compression ration or for you supercharged dudes, increase the boost.

Putting higher octane fuel in without making further changes to the motor will not increase power, in fact your car may run lean as higher octane fuel is harder to ignite.

For example, we used to put AvGas (about 110 octane, I think) into our TZ250 race bike and ran a diesel-like 16:1 c/r, TZ's running unleaded (for National racing) run something like 12:1. The extra power comes from the C/R, not the fuel.

This is why these products are sold by Nitrous companies, it's a bit of safety in the fuel, to reduce the chance of detonation while on the N2O, or allow larger amounts of N2O to be injected without destroying the motor.

[Edited on 16-4-2002 by NotoriousREV]

[andyhart21]

Thats my hopes of a cheap power increase shot down in flames:mad::mad:

[superchargedmorph]

the stuff I am on about was officially tested by Australian Government and in some cases has increased power by 33%. It is also used in USA.

The main point is it will put 96RON fuel to 100 RON and optimax to 102 Ron.

Octane boosters are popular in the performance scene because they often regain power last through detonation. Sold for around $25 in a handy bottle, they’re a convenient fuel additive and horsepower helper. But with so much brands on the market, you may be fooled into thinking they’re all as effective as each other. Which they’re not! Differing chemical compounds, additives and even volumes, mixed in with a good percentage of advertising, ‘independent" testing and testimonials all conspire to confuse the consumer away from the single most important paint: does it improve the octane rating?

Let’s see what’s worth it in octane boosters.

DO I NEED AN OCTANE BOOSTER?

The boys at "The Macquarie Library" describe detonation as: "Excessively rapid burning of the fuel mixture, often caused by auto-ignition due to excessive temperatures in the combustion chamber, incorrect ignition timing, lean mixtures, too high a compression ratio or unsuitable fuel," – as in too-low an octane rating.

Heard as a faint, metallic rattle, detonation is accompanied by a loss of power and can cause serious damage to piston crowns.

The significance of detonation is such that many companies produce fuel additives designed to increase the inherent octane rating of a given fuel. The proliferation of octane boosters has in part come about in recent times thanks to low quality Australian fuels. White or "Super" leaded fuel has been reduced from 98 to 95-96 octane, Premium Unleaded has also dropped to a minimum of 95 octane. And this presents a problem for high-performance cars designed to run on higher octane European or 100 octane Japanese fuel. Japanese import performance cars, Subaru’s STI WRX for example, runs an ECU program for 100 octane, but sometimes detonates on our Australian PULP.

All engines are different though and with Honda’s S2000 2.0-litre engine running a high 11.0:1 compression ratio, it relies on advanced engine management as much as quality fuel. But it can sustain its power on PULP. And of course any turbo owner who has experimented with boost will know if you run too much, it will detonate, so improving the octane is vital for maximum performance.

We must state that unless an engine is detonation through low RON fuel, octane boosters have little use. However, in a turbo or high compression application, the inclusion of a better grade of fuel allows the engine management system to optimize ignition timing and fueling.

THE CONTESTANTS

For this test we tracked down nine different makes and models of octane boosters, two fuel "additive," a straight race fuel and a drum of Toluene. Where there were several different "levels" of octane boosters in the one brand, we chose the strongest version.

The biggest claims the bottles have is the amount of "points" they claim to increase. This is ambiguous as a "point" can relate to either 1.0 RON (Research Octane Number) octane points, or 0.1RON octane points.

The list of entrants in our octane Olympics included:

STP Octane Booster

Wynns Octane 10+ Power Booster,

Amsoil Series 2000 Octane Boost,

Super 104+ Octane Booster,

VP C5 Fuel Additive,

ELF HTX 330 Racing Fuel Stabilizer,

Nulon Pro Strength Octane Booster,

PowerFuel Super Street Nitro Based,

PowerFuel Max Race Nitro Based,

NF Octane Booster Racing Formula,

NOS Octane Booster Racing Formula,

Toluene,

VP Motorsport 103 Unleaded Racing Fuel

THE TEST

To conduct these tests we contracted independent laboratory Intertek Testing Services, who would test our products on a knock engine.

We had to also find a base fuel to add our boosters to so we went to the closest public petrol station, a Shell on the outward-bound side of the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne.

Being a performance-based test, we chose premium unleaded fuel as this represents the most common high performance fuel (ie: if you start with regular unleaded, you’re wasting money!). We should add that "some" boosters would have improved the octane rating of regular unleaded proportionately more than our tests with PULP.

With a RON rating at a minimum of 95, we first established the exact octane of the PULP. The biggest surprise was our randomly select Shell resulted in a quite high 96-8 RON.

We precisely measured and mixed each additive to the PULP, according to each manufacturer’s recommendations and specs and poured each into the knock engine’s tank. The compression ratio was then slowly increased until it started to knock, gaining a threshold of detonation and subsequently a maximum RON rating.

Of less importance but still worth mentioning is the design of the bottles: since most people will be pouring it straight into a tank, the design of a bottle is important to prevent any spillage on paintwork causing damage.

So let’s look at the results!

THE RESULTS

BASELINE OCTANE 96.8

Octane points

It’s very easy to confuse octane ratings as there are a number of separate international standards. MON (Motor Octane Number) is the number derived from a fuel when it’s applied to a test engine run at 3000rpm rather than 600rpm and higher inlet temps and ignition advance. The Australian importer of 104+, Andrew Holdsworth, suggested MON is seen as a more real-world test.

Though none of the fuel companies promote the MON figure which is normally between 7 and 10 numbers less than RON (Research Octane Number).

Intertek’s Graeme Marks believes RON provides the general public with an idea of which additive works more effectively. And being the most commonly-used reference, we’ve used RON for all our tests.

11th

PowerFuel Super Street Nitro Based

946ml treats 35 litres RRP: $35

Right from the start, we were told PowerFuel’s additives weren’t necessarily octane boosters, but horsepower helpers. We kept this in mind when testing both the products, but of the two only the Super Street claimed it was specifically designed to increase the octane rating of PULP. With a 20-percent nitro mix, Super Street Nitro-Based still improved octane ever so slightly (0.2RON) but the real test for these two would come on the dyno runs.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 97.0 (+0.2 RON)

10th

PowerFuel MaxRace Nitro Based

946ml treats 35 litres RRP: $45

Containing another 15 percent more nitromethane than the SuperStreet formula, MaxRace doesn’t claim to increase octane, but the verbal recommendation was the same, ie: its main characteristic is to boost horsepower, not octane. For a fair comparison of these two additives, you need to look at the power they produce. As for octane, it proved very similar toe the SuperStreet formula bumping up octane ever so slightly.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 97.0 (+0.2 RON)

9th

STP Octane Booster

350ml treats 57 litres RRP: $10.95

One of the cheapest of the group, the STP was also one of the hardest to find. Auto stores either didn’t stock it, or had simply run out! Claiming to increase the octane 2-5 points, in a well-designed-for-pouring bottle, the STP – used in the ratio determined by the label - improved the octane marginally by just over half a point. A little disappointing unless you interpret STP’s claim actually meant 0.2-0.5 points. Then it’s a good result!

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 97.4 (+0.6 RON)

8th

Wynns Octane 10+ Power Booster

325ml treats 60 litres RRP: $10

The Wynns was the cheapest of the lot and claimed an increase between two and five points, again not actually listing what a "point" related to. Strangely though the 10+ could indicate 1RON and if this is the case going by our tests it almost lived up to its name. It didn’t quite live up to its claims however, increasing the octane rating by 0.8RON.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 97.6 (+0.8 RON)

7th

Super 104+ Octane Boost

473ml treats 83 litres RRP: $25.95

The acknowledged winner of all previous testing in this country, Super 104+’s bottle stated we should expect an increase between four and seven point. With a new formula introduced about 12 months ago, identified by an "Eagle" logo on the back of the bottle, the Super 104+ seems to have lost its edge with a marginal gain of just less than 1.0RON.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 97.5 (+0.9 RON)

6th

VP Racing C5

355ml treats 75 litres RRP: $19.95

VP has a strong reputation with fuels and its high octane formulas are very popular (VP?) with drag racers. VP Racing’s C5 Fuel Additive lacked any indication of contents nor claims, but the C5 additive still provided a reasonable increase of 1.3RON.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 98.1 (+1.3 RON)

5th

NOS Octane Booster Racing Formula

355ml treats 60 litres RRP: $28

NOS, a relatively new octane booster, comes in "1/10th" scale bottles designed to emulate the actual nitrous bottles of its successful NOS systems. The Racing Formula is the strongest of three concentrates and containing Hydrotreated Aliphatics and Methylcyclopentadienyl Manganese Tricarbonyl (try saying that 10 times in a row), it contains a lead replacement which NOS claims increases the octane rating by as much as seven points. Obviously not recommended for street use, it also included with a handy pouring spout. In testing, it proved a good result improving the octane rating by almost 2RON.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 98.6 (+1.8 RON) as much as 7 points

4th

ELF 330 Fuel Stabilizer

1000ml treats 50 litres RRP: $45

"If you spill it on your paintwork, don’t rub it off – rinse it with water" were our works of warning. We were also told to "pre-mix" the ELF before adding it in a fuel tank (which with this test we were doing anyway) as the ELF has a tendency to settle to the bottom of fuel if it’s either not mixed properly or left to sit. This was made somewhat more difficult by the design of the bottle, which tends to drip when pouring. With some nasty stuff known as Aniline, the ELF doesn’t claim any numbers, and provided a decent 1.8 RON point improvement.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 98.6 (+1.8 RON)

3rd

Amsoil Series 2000 Octane Boost

354ml treats 57 litres RRP: $23

Recommended for off-road and racing use, the Amsoil Series 2000 claimed to increase the octane rating by up to seven points. It came up a little short, but still proved surprisingly good with a full 2.0RON improvement. And good enough for the bronze medal in our Octane Booster Olympics.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 98.8 (+2.0 RON)

2nd

Toluene (Toluol)

20 litres treats 100 litres RRP: $48

Since toluene (pronounced toll-you-een – also known as methyl benzine) isn’t a commercially advertised octane booster. We were unsure of exactly what ratio to mix the clear Toluene to the fuel, with recommendations between 10 and 30 percent. From personal experience, we have seen high percentages increase octane even further, though 30 percent is considered the maximum. Available only from various fuel distributors (it is a special order through services stations), under advice we ran a 20 percent mix (quite a lot more than the others) and saw an impressive improvement of 2.5 RON, for the silver medal.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 99.3 (+2.5 RON)

1st

NF Octane Booster Racing Formula

250 ml treats 80 litres RRP: $29.95

Time for an Aussie-made product. From Perth, the NF Octane Booster Racing Formula was the smallest bottle in the field, but looking at the mixing ratio, also the strongest NF relies on an incredibly small dose – a mere 3 percent! Claiming to increase octane as much as 6.0 RON, NF took the gold medal in a surprising tie. If it were a split decision based on concentration though, it would be the clear winner.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 99.6 (+2.8 RON)

1st

Nulon Pro Strength Octane Booster

500 ml treats 60 litres RRP: $20.95

Note: Also available in four-litre container for $110

The Australian-made Nulon Pro Strength Octane Booster is the top of the range Nulon fuel product, claiming to boost octane "up to seven number". The Pro Strength gained a test-winning, gold-medal-gaining and Nf-equalling 2.8RON increase. And at $21, it’s good value too!

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 99.6 (+2.8 RON)

VP Motorsport 103 fuel

Used straight fuel (20-litre minimum) RRP: $70

Purely for interest, we decided to also test a straight racing fuel. While there are a number available (such as ELF) for no particular reason we chose VP. The highest octane VP fuel which was still totally street-legal was the Motorsport 103. Working out at $3.50 per litre and "designed for maximum power and throttle response", the VP was very impressive with an octane rating of 107RON – more than 10RON points more than PULP. Obviously more expensive than the boosters, if octane is problem, racing fuel like VP may be the answer.

OCTANE IMPROVEMENT: 107 (+10.2RON)

As the name suggests, a knock engine is designed to test the detonation or anti-knock rating of fuels and fuel additives. It’s a slow revving engine capable of running most fossil fuels through an adjustable compression ratio. As the comp ratio increases, it accurately measures the intensity of the knock and determines the fuel’s octane rating.

The world standard is a one-cylinder two-valve four-stroke engine with exposed valve gear. Archaic in appearance, a carby is fed from any one of three fuel bowls to allow three different fuels to be run back to back. The mixture is actually controlled via gravity feed and by raising or lowering the float level of each bowl!

Run under load via a belt-drive linking the flywheel and load system, it ensures a real world situation and ensuring minimal variation between tests, oil temperature, intake air density and air temperature are all monitored and controlled.

The engine is somewhat agricultural, however its unique ability to vary the compression ratio while running between 5.0:1 and 15.0:1 is quite amazing. The operator simply winds a handle and the entire head and cylinder assembly moves up and down relative to the crankshaft.

A knock sensor measures both the frequency and intensity of the ping (as displayed on a knock metre). Figures are then cross-referenced on a chart using the information provided by the knock meter, plus the height of the head and barrel.

Finally, knock intensity is figured in and the fuel’s octane rating determined.

Taking two hours to warm, this $200,000 engine is super robust and rarely needs rebuilding. Individual tests can then proceed at approximately $120 per test sample.

Being subjected to so much detonation, you can only imagine how much maintenance an engine of this nature must need. Interestingly, this isn’t the case as the piston and rod assembly are rejects from a monstrous ship engine (just kidding)! They’re frigging huge with the incredibly thick piston crown contributing to a combined gudgeon pin and piston weight of 1794 grams! Likewise, the rod weighs an astonishing 1929 grams. The bottom line is these engines which have replacement value of over $200,000 and almost never require rebuilding.

DYNO BOOSTERS

Ultimately, the role of an octane booster, is to regain horsepower lost through detonation or retarded ignition timing due to detonation. But two of our products, the nitro additives, weren’t specifically designed to increase octane. Instead, they contain a mix of nitromethane (the petrol Top Fuellers run) in a "percentage" concentrate. Power Fuel’s Super Street and Max Race additives has 20-percent and 35-percent nitro respectively, and the Australian importer specifically claimed they would increase power, not necessarily octane.

So, we took those two products, and the two best-performing octane boosters to MRT Performance for some Dyno Dynamics dyno testing. Interestingly, we were going to use MRT’s rally Civic, which normally runs on avgas. On PULP – even with the booster – it was pinging too much, so a Jap-spec EF Honda Civic was used with a 1.6-litre VTEC and about 10.0:1 comp ratio.

The graphs tell the story though, and to be fair to the products, with variables such as heat soak, the results weren’t as conclusive as could be gained from an engine dyno. But that is not to say the products don’t work. As our test prove, they do, but it’s not as easily measured on a chassis dyno. Plus the Civic had no detonation problems on PULP, further hampering the "apparent" effectiveness of the boosters.

With changes too small to accurately measure, we would suggest if your engine is sensitive to octane, a booster is for you. If not, try the nitro or racing fuels.

CONCLUSION

Both the Nulon Pro Strength and the NF Racing Formula rated the best octane boosters in our test. And considering that less NF was needed than Nulon, it evens out a little with a slightly higher cost. Still, both proved extremely effective at increasing octane, even outranking Toluene, which needs much higher levels of concentration. The VP Motorsport 103 fuel was an interesting exercise, and if a little more effort (ie: buying it from the selected outlets) is worth the octane, it’s a good representative of what to expect from straight racing fuel. As for the nitro additives, if you’re not experiencing any type of detonation, they’re definitely worth a try. So whether you detonate or not, we’ve found a fuel additive for you!

Material courtesy of Fast Fours Magazine

This will give acceleration improvements and fuel economy.

I spoke to supplier and have seen other reviews from states. I will have some tomorrow and will post results on performance.

[superchargedmorph]

The boost will give your petrol a better combustion, that is it in a nutshell.

[NotoriousREV]

because they often regain power last through detonation.

Do you have a detonation problem?

I'm sure they DO increase the octane of the fuel they are added to, but higher octane fuel alone will not increase your performance.

OK, I don't know how much boost you run, but if you increase boost until you start to experience detonation, then back it off a tad, then you're using as much boost as possible. With a higher octane fuel, the point of detonation will be at a higher level of boost. More boost = more power.

If you're running a level of boost that is nowhere near the detonation level, and you're not planning to incrase boost, the additive will not increase power.

Remember, octane is not a power rating, it is a fuels resistance to ignition.

For a boosted motor running high boost, an intercooler would be the first port of call before adding additives. An intercooler will uniformly lower the temperature of the intake charge, thus decreasing the chances of detonation.

An additive introduced to your fuel via the fuel tank will not be uniformly distributed, therefore each combustion stroke could have a different octane rating each time, causing untold problems when you suddenly get 94 instead of the 105 your were pushing for ;)

This rant brought to you by the Society for the Prevention of Money Loss. :D

[andyhart21]

So for all of us idiots out there, will adding octane booster to an standard IS200/300 make it go faster or give any other benefits??

[NotoriousREV]

no.

I proved this by running Optimax instead of normal unleaded for a while and it made no difference whatsoever.

[Monster-Mat]

i agree with what you say N-Rev,however for the superchaarged cars a higher octane fuel was strongley recomended.

me by TTE,and tony by TDI.........

i would say that on a normally aspirated engine octane boosters and optimax will have very negligable effect and optimax would be just to expensive and gains to minute to justify its purchase

mat

[alangeering]

This has been an interesting read... the question everyone wants to know...

Will octane increase give you a performance increase?

Answer, as given on this page by "NotoriousREV" is:

Yes, but you will need to modify engine settings to make use of it.

This is true for bikes, and cars. However with newer technology cars you do not usually have to go under the bonnet to make all the tweeks. Cars with post 1998 engine management systems will make most of the adjustments for you. (more detail at end of post).

So, higher octane and give higher compression ratios, and therefore higher performance.

Promised technical detail follows:

I've worked now for almost 2 years for Shell Global Solutions, the people who designed Optimax, the people who make fuel for all sorts of motorsport teams. Shell set out to study the relationship between octane and power.

Most cars will run with no knock (also known as "plink" by some people) at 95 RON. Under some conditions , combinations of temperature, load on the engine and fuel, they will knock. Some cars, designed with higher compression ratios and performance in mind require a higher octane rating.

New cars have knock sensors. The engine management system will change the spark timing to avoid knock. So, upon sensing knoch the spark will be shifted a few degress (crank angle). (Away from the most efficient and powerful position). When the car is running more smothly the enginemangement will shift the spark back until it again encounters knock. A higher octane fuel allows the engine management to push the spark a few more degrees of crank angle and stay knockless. In this new configuration you will feel power and smothness.

This is all based on a lot of research, many trials, all repeated under the most rigorous conditions.

Good luck, I too would be glad to hear of peoples times 0-60 with and without the extra octane. Our studies were mostly in the range of 90 to 104 RON, moving higher is an interesting idea.

Thanks to anyone who stuck with this post and read to the end. I'm willing to accept questions via e-mail, I probably will not be able to spend too much time on any one forum.

Thanks again,

[Monster-Mat]

:wow:

thanks,just what the doc ordered