I just bought a bike that requires 101+ octane so my plan is to buy 94 pump fuel (non-ethanol) and blend it 50/50 with 110 pump fuel - available at the Sunoco station close to the track I race at. My question is, IN A PINCH, if I had to use it as I couldn't get access to my planned fuel and just 92 or 94 pump gas, would adding a store bought octane booster actually make the engine happier? I read online that NOS brand claims 6 octane points (60 basis points) of a jump so 94 pump gas would then be theoretically 100 octane fuel. Sorry if this is possibly the dumbest question asked on the Beeb, call me Metalhead Jr if need be, I'm okay with it!
"To my knowledge" everything that is labled as an "octane booster" is NOT. Yes, they are lying on the front of the bottle. Turn it around and the fine print on the back pretty much reads "By using our product, you will clear away harmful carbon deposits on piston crowns/combustion chamber roofs/intake valves, etc, thereby lowering the compression ratio, allowing lower octane fuel to be used w/o worrying about detonation" type deal... YEARS ago you could purchase a lead additive "104+ Octane", as I recall. Nowadays it's all advertising/lies when it comes to "Octane Booster"
Klotz is the only octane booster I've ever seen that works, none of the stuff you buy at the auto parts store boosts octane.
It's a SS built engine that's got 2 maps, 1 for MR12, and one for the infinity more affordable 101+ octane - or, AV gas map. I'm sure it would run with sub-101 octane fuel, however for longevity and all the rest of the techno-babble my tuner said - I'll take his word and use 101+ fuel. Thanks to the rest of you for your input, I imagined it to be snake oil, just thought it would be handy to have a bottle in the tool kit for times when the proper mixed gas was unavailable.
Octane has more to do with the compression ratio of the engine then the fuel map. Higher octane is harder to ignite the lower octane fuel. That is why it is resistant to predetination then low octane fuels. You make more horsepower with the lowest octane fuel you can run without ping. Maybe I am wrong, but the fuel map will only control the amount of fuel on each intake stroke. Now with that said, toluene that you can buy at the hardware store can be added to fuel to raise the octane level.
This is a good read on fuel. The chart is good too for showing compression ratio to octane. http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp-country/en_au/media/fuel-news/fuel-octane-power.pdf
Agreed, and my engine has a higher comp ratio which is happier when scarfing down 101+. Tuner said the high octane fuel is costing 2-3 ponies over 92 pump, (172hp versus 175hp - '05 Gix 1000) and the MR12 map is 183hp.
You do realize that MR12 has lower octane than the 'AV gas', right? If it runs on the MR12, it is not likely to detonate with 93. I don't know everything about your two maps, but it seems the 'techno babble' might be exactly that.
Obviously you would know a hell of a lot more about it than most, me included. All I know for sure is that I picked up the bike, had my tuner give it a tune, and when I picked up the bike he said " It has a Bazazz engine mgmt unit and a 2 map switch that WAS mapped for MR12 (Map 1) and a pump blend (map 2) and since I know you aren't going to run the race gas, I made both maps the same - just in case you mistakenly hit the switch or forget which is which..." " You can safely run 106 AV gas but preferably not the 100 AV gas, but for longevity and economy, I'd recommend you run a 50/50 blend of 92 or 94 pump gas with 110 octane pump fuel that you can buy at the Sunoco, 10 miles from the track." The tuner I use is a very honest guy and very knowledgeable - he's tuned for Jake Holden, the Texter's in flat track, and many many other folks and I fully trust what he says. Heck, at under $4/gallon for a 101 pump fuel blend I would much rather err on the side of safety. It's just a bit of a pain as I don't have the ability to buy it in large quantities and carry it with me, just my two VP fuel 5 gallon gas cans at the moment.
Sunoco 110 is all over the place at the pump. At non Sunoco stations it is branded Turbo Blue or Cam 2. Go to the link below and put in your address and I bet you will find 3 or 4 places to get it in your area. If you have a drag strip nearby there is sure to be a station with it at the pump not far away.
I've used the Lucas Oil stuff with great results. Not sure it's sold in auto parts stores though, labeled off road use only
I think I've found a solution, at least for this year - or most of it. A fellow racer has 30ish gallons of R110 that he wants to unload so I'll buy that from him and then mix it 50/50 with pump 94 ethanol free from my local Chevron station. I live in BC, Canada but race/win track days in WA State so my issue is that I'm not allowed to return to Canada with open fuel containers (I take a ferry to and from WA) so carrying a 55 gallon drum of fuel all the time isn't practical. At least with this R110 I'll have roughly 230L of mixed gas which hopefully gives me 13 or so full tanks of gas, or roughly 11-12 days use.
As far as i know MR12 is less than 90 octane rating (it says on VP website) So if it doesnt have knock problems with it you should be fine with 94. If makes you feel better get it tuned for pump gas, im sure 3hp wont change much.
