Crispy Beef

Hi Guys,

Due to recent panic buying in the UK the places that I normally fuel up on premium unleaded (98 Octane) have run out, as a result I've had to fill up on normal unleaded which has a rating of 95. I'm not too happy about running any fuel below 97 so I decided to add an octane booster additive to the full tank...specifically Octane Booster from NOS. I was wondering if anybody else has used this and if it actually does what it says on the tin?

The can says it *can* increase the octane level by 3, but due to that being printed on the tin I'll probably put it down to advertising and say that it might increase the rating by 2 (pure guessing there).

I noted that the FAQ says that an FD should not be running on anything below 91, so in theory 95 should be ok. Should I take it easy and try not to boost as much while I'm on this tank of fuel?

Cheers.

FallenCho

iTrader: (1)

You know I've never understood what the gas stations have ever meant by their octane levels as advertised. In reality the 91 at any gas station here in the states is really 87 and thus and 87 at the pump is an 83 or so. If the 98 in the UK is equivalent to 98 here in the states then that's damn near close to racing gas ocatane level. 101 is pretty much racing gas. So if your 95 is on the same scale that we use for the gas stations then you have nothing to worry about. That's better then what most anyone else can get here in the states. If I don't make sense blame it on the insane amount of Sparks I've just had.

Crispy Beef

Nope, you're making sense...however that's probably due to me inhaling too much fuel additive.

Not sure if the levels quoted at stations are accurate, but a guy I talked to a few weeks ago did some testing and found that the actual octane level on the same fuel from different filling stations differed a bit but was pretty much as advertised. As far as I'm aware Shell who produce Optimax (98) are pretty good with the quality of their fuel. Am hearing that Shell have a new fuel in Germany that has a rating of 100 at the pumps...am praying to the rotary gods that it makes it over here.

Is there a quick and dirty way to check the rating of the fuel do you need expensive equipment?

Here's the link to the German article on the Shell site translated through Google.

V-Power 100 Octane

FallenCho

iTrader: (1)

I didn't explain myself clearly enough about what I meant about the octane levels of the gas stations differing from a true octane level. Really I don't understand it myself but some guy that works at the 76 near my house was telling me about it and didn't explain it to me clearly enough but I still nodded my head. Haha. He's just one of those old guys that know to much for their own good about cars just like this good friend of mine that I use to work with, an older fellow but his dad actually worked with Felix Wankel in designing the Rotary engine. The rotary wasn't suppose to be nothing to evolutionize cars in any way at all. It was only meant to be a different way to do car engines. They knew of all the problems that Rotaries had but couldn't do anything about it.

Back to the octane in fuel. Yeah Shell always has had the highest octane levels but where I live they are the same as everyone else. Just to clarify about the octane boosters since you might not know due to false advertising. The octane boosters will boost up to 15 points max from what I've seen. That means that if you fill up with 91 and put the octane booster in you will have 92.5 octane fuel in your car. each point is only .1 octane points. I usually use the Prestone octane booster that comes in the orange bottle. Just like the other day in my Camaro I put some octane/fuel treatment in it and when I hit the gas it no longer sound hollow. Was a deep throaty V8 sound like how it's suppose to be.
*gonna shut up now and stop drinking*

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

Check your owners manual. The 91 octane written in the FAQ is the US-standard octane rating of RON+MON/2. (The FAQ needs edited to clarify that). Most other countries don't use this average, rather they use the higher number which is RON.

Someone recently posted a great article on octane boosters and their actual performance. It seems 1-2 full octane points are attainable. That may help you to choose one.

Dave

Crispy Beef

Slight problem with my owners manual is that it's in Japanese, haha, guess that's what you get for importing a car.

Over here the octane rating they use as far as I know is the RON figure.

That's the stuff I got so in theory the 95 I have filled up with *might* be up at 97. Top posting, cheers for the link. It's good to know I'm not doing my engine any damage by using the normal unleaded stuff though, still the 98 makes it purr.

Crispy Beef

Yeah, running on the higher octane stuff results in a nice rumble that brings a smile to your face.

FallenCho

iTrader: (1)

The RON rating is what that guy at the 76 station was talking about. I just couldn't think of it in my past posts. So apparently the 91 out here is a 87 in RON. Not sure what this means as I can't think right now but yeah that just makes it seem ever worse that I spend 3.35 a gallon on gas lmfao!

FallenCho

iTrader: (1)

Yeah that and the fact that my mom always uses 87 in the Camaro knowing that it's not meant for that cheap ****. Haha! That's one thing the rotary can never compar with though is the V8 roar. Oh well least I got both.

Crispy Beef

I know there's economies of scale and all that but we're paying 99.9p a litre over here at the moment, that's why there's fuel protests and people panic buying. Working that out into US measures...

1 gallon [US, liquid] = 3.7854118 litres, therefore 0.999*3.79 = £3.79, which works out at $6.91 per US gallon. Damn that's some depressing reading.

FallenCho

iTrader: (1)

Holy crap man! 7 bucks a gallon man I swear the oil factories would all be bombed out here in the US! Serious ****. I can't see it getting higher then 3.50 a gallon without something terrible happening to the oil factories. Personally it doesn't affect me much since my work is real close to home but I can definetely fell everyone cause I love to just cruise in my FD...it's almost just worht it to buy racing gas and scrwe pump gas!

Crispy Beef

That's why we have protests at the moment, with threats to blockade the refineries. Thing is it just makes it worse people panic as fuel deliveries are blocked, they go and buy up all the fuel they can which means there's none left for the rest of us, plain stupidity. If they only went on as normal most filling stations would have supplies to last it all out.

Even though it's expensive, I still end up paying as I love driving my FD, wouldn't give that up for the world.

sonix7

no offense crispy, but I only can get 91 octane (which is really 87 ron) and that is it. I would be thrilled to get 95 octane and especially 98!! I think you are fine and probably going to be able to find race gas there a lot easier than where I am at. At the price you are paying it sounds like you could benefit from ordering some race fuel in a 55gl drum and going that route. consider yourself lucky to get the octane you get, good luck. BTW - have you heard of toulene? Do a search and you will see what I am talking about.

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

Sonix7, you have it backwards. 95 RON is 91 PON (US Octane).

Take for example the chart at the bottom of this page:
http://www.btinternet.com/~madmole/R...RONMONPON.html

Dave

sonix7

ah ha! Thanx Dave for correcting me, I am not up on the conversion from the states. so now we have the same problem. BTW, thanx for the link, I have not come across this piece of info yet.

Crispy Beef

Yeah I have heard of toluene, and I know it can be used to boost octane levels too, but I didn't have any handy when I filled up last night. If I had some I can get a good rating, have done a bit of research and got these results:

Using Optimax @ 98 RON...13 Gallons (UK gallons that is)
Toulene @ 114....3.21 Gallons

That should end with a net result of approx. 101.17 RON.

The main thing I was worrying about is that my FD was imported from Japan and as a result was running on 100 RON fuel, 98 is close and with an additive it runs nicely, this time I had no choice but to put the 95 RON fuel in and things just feel wrong (if you know what I mean) although it's better with the octane booster in there now.

Until I can get a new ECU and have it remapped I'm stuck with whatever mapping it had for the Japanese market.

Crispy Beef

Good article, so by those conversions running the Optimax with 98 RON in US terms I should be having 94 PON, handy when posting here to avoid confusion.

Crispy Beef

Just to add to an old thread, for the last few months the UK has been lucky and had Shell's new fuel V-Power, not as potent as the version they had in Germany which had a rating of 100 RON but the version we have is 99 RON, so that's put a smile on my face.