How available is it? How many of you see 100 octane at the pump on a regular basis? And what does it cost?

 

http://www.racegas.com/gt100locals/g...alsmainASP.asp

I think I saw it for sale at a track once for around $5.99 / Gallon

 

$5.99? Yeowch.

I just read another now-closed thread about the hp you could get in ... a certain other car ... when using 100 octane gas. That makes no sense if all you're going to do is street race.

 

Most 'race gas' is just cheapo gas with tetra-ethyl lead additive. Catalyst, O2 sensors, and warranty go bye-bye.
Strictly for cars that need it, if you still need the closed-loop feedback system, stay away!

S

 

That's usually the higher octane stuff in my experience. The 100 octance I always see is unleaded. It's usually available at gas stations near racetracks and dragstrips as well as at dragstrips. There are a lot of VW 1.8T guys that have race gas maps for their "chips" and run it fairly often. But mostly it's stuff like "if I had my race gas I would have beat this guy". With most other cars it only seems common on heavily tuned cars or dedicated track/strip cars where there is a map you can switch to on a piggyback tuning device such as a Utec or Accessport.

 

A cheaper alternative to race gas is adding Toluene to your gas. Toluene also has more energy stored per unit than gasoline, that means more to someone with a turbocharged engine (i.e. earlier spool-up, marginally) than an NA, but every little bit helps.

The best part? You can buy this stuff at paint supply stores and industrial chem supply stores, sans DOT taxation. Plus, it's cheaper in bulk (55 gallon drums).

 

What's the burn rate of Toulene? The higher the octane the less the available energy at combustion but the higher the burn rate temperature is, or so I thought.

 

Hmmm,

I wish I had my computer back home hooked up. I have a huge library of info links on that computer about Toluene, I'm sure I could find something along the lines of what you're looking for.

Just a sec....

WRXFanatics Link for Toluene

Here's a link to a discussion on another Website I frequent...

Here's one to a discussion on Xylene


Xylene discussion

This same site has seen many various discussions about this topic: here's a link to a search using the word "toluene"

Toluene search

I don't know if it'll answer any questions, but it's the closest I can come to pointing you in the right direction while I'm at work.

This stuff seems like it's too good to be true, but it just acts like any other additive... very effective.

 

In our area we have one chain that regularly carries 100 Octane - http://www.speedway.com. I haven't checked lately but it's probably $4-5 p/g. I used to put a tank in my sportbikes once in a while, let it idle and just smell the exhaust. The stuff smells amazing.

 

I like what happens on acceleration when you go with this kind of fuel mix......

 

Hey $4/gallon is not bad. It's almost the price of regular 91 octane here in Los Angeles :D . Race gas is like $5-$6 out here. Unless you are running boost or something higher than the stock map I'm not very sure it would be very effective for us, especially at about $90 for a fillup.