Octane Booster Comparison

[deucer]

I'm off to buy some Octane Booster in the morning as I'm going to need some in the car for a country holiday this month. I don't expect I'll be able to get 98RON fuel out Kalbarri way... maybe 95RON if I'm lucky. So I figure it's not going to hurt to have some back-up in the car in case I've got to settle for 95 (or 91 worst case).

This led me to wondering which products worked, which didn't, what options there were for making your own, and ultimately which solution gives the best 'bang-for-your-buck' (no pun intended ofcourse).

Good old Google research turned up the following interesting reading. Some of you guys may be familiar with this subject already... if so, I'd welcome your comments and experience.

Octane Booster Comparison (1999 Fast Fours Mag) (Reproduced with permisison apparently)
http://members.rennlist.org/951_racerx/OctaneBoosterComparison.html

Homemade Octane
http://www.clubwrx.net/forums/showthread.php?t=44006&highlight=homemade+octane


Cheers,
Decuer.

[brendans225]

i normally just use the nulon stuff - seems to be the most readily available

[deucer]

Yep... that's what I ended up getting. Good thing about Nulon is that it's other products a better than average in my exerience, and they're readily available. Got the Pro Strength Octane Booster for the trip and giving a bottle of the TOTAL Fuel System Cleaner a go at the moment.

Has anyone tried Toluene? Or a concoction of their own for regular use?

Cheers,
Deucer.

[jACE]

So would you only use the Octane Booster IF there is no 98 RON available or can you use it regardless to get a bit more hp, etc??

jACE

[brendans225]

So would you only use the Octane Booster IF there is no 98 RON available or can you use it regardless to get a bit more hp, etc??

jACE

u can still use it if it has 98 in there, i did............i normally pop some in when i haven't driven the car for a while as the fuel goes abit stale sitting in your tank for a long time and will usually drop a few rons from what i have been told.

[deucer]

So would you only use the Octane Booster IF there is no 98 RON available or can you use it regardless to get a bit more hp, etc??

jACE

Both!

[Arith]

Err, I would probably use the Octane Booster sparingly if you have a MY04-MY06 (not sure about the MY07+).

After adding various bottles (STP, Nulon, etc) to the MY05 GT, probably about 3 - 4 times within a 6 month period, my O2 sensor failed, and my car was running rich with a good amount of black smoke.

Luckily the car was still under warranty and Subaru replaced it without question, but I did a bit of research and found a number of Liberty owners who encountered the same problem after adding octane boosters to their Liberty's.

It's been said that toluene is probably the safest additive.

[Spec B Wgn]

Nulon is on the money..

[SUM12C]

How much booster are you guys adding to the fuels (for 98ron engines) ? from the nulon site it looks like you need to use the full bottle with both 91 and 95 ron fuels.

[deucer]

I've not added any octane booster as yet. It's really for back-up in the event I can't find 98 and have to get 95 (borderline) but definitely for use if I can only get 91!

From memory, Nulon has two products. It's the 'Pro Strength' product (in the larger 500ml bottle) that Nulon recommends can be used in half or full dosages. The 'normal' Nulon octane booster is a full bottle affair (it's also a smaller bottle at 300ml I think).

In the comparison, its the Nulon Pro-Strength product that ranks equal best with the NF Octane Booster Racing Formula product (a West Australian product)!

Cheers,
Deucer.

[sooobi]

DONT USE OCTANE BOOSTER!!!
It'll EAT your pistons!!

[Q]

DONT USE OCTANE BOOSTER!!!
It'll EAT your pistons!!

This from experience or was it heard on the grapevine?

[sooobi]

a guy on fozliberty said his mechanic saw pitting after just 2 bottles.. for more examples of it destroying cats and plugs and pistonez look here

[jACE]

My trip computer immediately started jumping from 11.2 L/100km up to 15L/100km and then all over the place after using a bottle of Nulon Pro Strength Octane Booster. Im not going to use this stuff again! I think after this tank, I'll fill it up with just BP Ultimate and see the difference. The only thing i recommend is the injector cleaner that you add to your tank. I used this stuff on my old 1987 Skyline and noticed the difference after only 20 kays. Your better off just tuning your car to get better fuel consumption rather than using what I think is imitation shit that can possibly screw your engine.

[ChrisGT]

When the V5/6 Stis landed Subaru would only recommend methyl benzene as a booster, 3-5 litres per tank of petrol would give 100+ RON. Anymore than a 10% mix you were facing the law of diminishing returns. This was before the likes of 98 RON fuels were around.
Like most chemicals it needs to be handled with care-use gloves.
There was a place in Granville(Sydney) that sold it-Green Goanna?