Anyone Experiment With Adding Toluene To their Fuel?

~JM~

Wrinkled Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
It appears that Toluene is the main ingrediant of most octane boosters on the market. Anyone try just buying a gallon from the paint supply store & refill the small store bought octane booster bottle? How does Toluene effect the components of the fuel system, etc?

Thanks
~JM~
 
I did try using some xylene, but not toluene, mixed to the rate of 3-1. It didn't really do any difference preformance-wise, but I guess it prevented knock....but I didn't have any knock problem to begin with, so I cannot say if adding xylene helped or not...:redface:

Claude. :wink:
 
I used xylene before i found a local supplier for 110 octane. Not sure how much toulene is but xylene is $18 a gallon, i can buy 2 1/2 gallons of 110 for that and get much more of a boost. 2 Gallons 110 + 8 gallons 91 = 94.8 octane and about the same price as people charge for 93 around oklahoma city :cool:
 
Also the amount in the octane boosters at auto stores isnt enough to do anything...the biggest rip off of the auto industry IMO. Refilling them with 10-12 oz pure toluene or ANYTHING wont be enough to do squat.

math for 1 gallon xylene (116 octane) to 9 gallons 91:
116 + (9 X 91)......
116 + 819 = 935
/ 10 = 93.5 octane.

128 oz raised it to 93.5 just to give you an idea of how little 12 oz will accomplish.
 
I used to use xylene before I went to alky, you could by 5 gal. cans from Sherwin-Williams, but its been a few yrs since I bought it
Don't waste your money on that Octane Boost crap; it increases octane by "XX points" which are % of 1 point
By the time you add up how much you will spend on toluene/xylene, you may find alky a better deal in the on run.
HTH!
D :)
 
octane boosters

I used to use xylene before I went to alky, you could by 5 gal. cans from Sherwin-Williams, but its been a few yrs since I bought it
Don't waste your money on that Octane Boost crap; it increases octane by "XX points" which are % of 1 point
By the time you add up how much you will spend on toluene/xylene, you may find alky a better deal in the on run.
HTH!
D :)


++ every octane booster at auto parts is pure junk! Years ago, the only booster I found to be of any value was Moroso. Bought in gallon cans and it had the appearance of jell. Difficult to mix but it worked.

My local Sherwin Williams sells me 5 gallon cans of Xylene for $53.00. I mix it 3-1 or 4-1 and I definitely notice an increase in power.
 
I ran toluene back in the mid 90's when it wasnt convenient to get leaded fuel. Dollar for dollar the leaded fuel was better bang for the buck. I probably ran 80-90% toluene with 25-30psi boost back then (which was unheard of back then since everyone thought youd blow up if you ran over 22psi :rolleyes:). I remember it being in the $6/gal range. Now id bet its at least double that. I remember pumping in 110 leaded at 3.899/gal at the waterbury BP at the Colonial Ave exit. Now 87 octane is that price. If i had a pump within 5 miles of me id gladly pay $8/gal and run 110 or better all the time. There is no substitute for high octane fuel.
 
I ran toluene back in the mid 90's when it wasnt convenient to get leaded fuel. Dollar for dollar the leaded fuel was better bang for the buck. I probably ran 80-90% toluene with 25-30psi boost back then (which was unheard of back then since everyone thought youd blow up if you ran over 22psi :rolleyes:). I remember it being in the $6/gal range. Now id bet its at least double that. I remember pumping in 110 leaded at 3.899/gal at the waterbury BP at the Colonial Ave exit. Now 87 octane is that price. If i had a pump within 5 miles of me id gladly pay $8/gal and run 110 or better all the time. There is no substitute for high octane fuel.

Man i should ship you out some methanol..its $3/gallon here, and E85 is $3.40/gallon. You can get 55 gallon drums too.

Hell I could grab a 55gall drum, fill it with whatever you want, and ship it off on a pallet from work.
 
Its a waste I tried it way back and no difference still had knock get alky or race fuel there is no other substitute
 
Years ago before alky i used xylene and if mixed right i could run 19/20 boost. It was cheap and a good FI cleaner now its expensive.
 
My $.02

Injector cleaner??? Keep in mind that the "in tank" miracle cleaners also clean the crap out of the rest of the system, too. Unless that crap is totally dissolved, it ends up in the inj filter baskets....
The attached pic shows what can happen with injs that are subjected to crap in the filters..
I pulled all the filters, and reflowed.. NO other changes. All injs were dead on equal. Inspecting the filters w/ a magnifier indicated no apparent contamination. The contamination was held in the media in the filters so well it couldn't be seen.:eek:
The second pic is of a set of turbo Supra injs... Same deal. 3rd pic shows the actual spray patterns of the Supra injs prior to pulling the baskets. [And, this guy wondered why his engine was in the oil pan.]:confused:
Last pic: The Supra injs with no other work done, except pulling the baskets...SCARY, ain' it??:D
BTW, this caused repeated piston failures B4 the owner decided to look at the injs.....:rolleyes:

Talk about a tuning nitemare!!
 

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