Octane Booster

[Dukeofchippewa]

I bought a case of octane booster from Land & Sea about 20 years ago, is there a shelf life on it?

[Raceman]

I don't know, I'd guess it depends on what's in it. Some octane boosters aren't compatible with some 2 stroke oils. You ought to try a sample mix in a glass jar so you can see if anything seperates before you run it.

[heath brinkley]

I think shelf life is something referred to in days, weeks, months, and sometimes years. I'm finding that even I have a shelf life when referring to decades. :D

[Dukeofchippewa]

Thanks for the reply. Booster was designed for outboards, maybe I should try it?

[chris_lacey]

The Land and Sea stuff was MTBE. No problem with compatability, but sorry, don't know about shelf life in a sealed container.
Many oil companies used (use) MTBE, so maybe a call to one of them might get you an answer.
Marcus used to have a link on his links page about octane boosters. Don't know if it's still there or not.

[Dukeofchippewa]

Thanks Chris, I'l see if I can find Marcus.

[B.Leonard]

If you want a good booster run the 104 race in the black bottle. Good stuff. It just plain works. used it for years in big block auto applications where we needed to boost street gas when running nitrous. It stopped the ping without moving the timing way back. great stuff. It does leave a tan residue on th eplugs though and seems to have an oily base that others do not. Not sure what all is in it.

On crossflows I run the stuff when I got a motor that has the compression up around 135-145 and the timing over 25 just for insurance. Especially if I know the motor is going to be run long and hard or if the motor is leaned out for power. Over 145 and I start mixing 110 race gas in.

-BL

[B.Mac]

If ya need ta' boost 'yer octane mix racegas with 93 octane.
BL loves that booster stuff but I think it's all snakeoil. The booster lables generally say (misleadingly) that it raises octane by one to two octane points but they present it in a way that would lead you to believe that it will raise your octane from 93 to 95 you actually get a boost from 93 to 93.2......

Cam2 racegas is 110 and one gallon on ten gallons of 93 oughtta be plenty for most recreational performance rigs @145 lbs comp. I look at it like detonation insurance, I can pay $8 a tank for a little racegas or I can pay 3k to fix a detonated piston and rebuild. :eek:

Ya gotta watch them crossflow guys :rolleyes:
By the way is that Sterling retired since the Gorilla Looper was birthed or what?
B.MAC:D

[78Vector]

104+ in the black bottle is mostly Xylene and Toluene mixed together with a little MMT (lead substitute that boosts octane).
It is MUCH cheaper to buy a gallon of Xylene (118.6 octane) or Toluene (116 octane) at the paint store (sherwin williams is where I get it) for around 8 bucks a gallon. Locally we have a paint store here in Michigan that sells either for 4 bucks a gallon If you provide the container. If you put a quart of this in 10 gallons of fuel it will raise the octane about 1.5 to 2 full numbers (not .1 octane points) For example, 1 quart in 10 gals of 93 octane would be about 95 octane. I used to use this to boost octane all the time, but it is much cheaper to use plain old 100 octane leaded Aviation fuel to boost octane. Around here Aviation 100 octane sells for about $2.65 gal at the local airport. 100 octane Av gas is actually 115 octane when rated by the (R+M)/2 method cars use. Av gas is 100 octane motor number, 130 octane research number. Being that it has lead, it disproportionately raises the octane number of the regular car fuel. If you use 1 gallon Aviation fuel to every 10 gals of premium 93 octane unleaded it will boost the octane to around 99 or 100 provided the fuel you use has no ethanol in it.

[B.Leonard]

I http://bleonard1.tripod.com/Webpics/love-smiley-009.gif Booster!

The Sterl is resting right now.... http://bleonard1.tripod.com/Webpics/DSCN0012.JPG

The powerhead is coming off this week or next for complete teardown and inpsection after a long successful race winning season ;)

I'll be installing a customer's powerhead real soon to test and tune. It has an even fire crank, finger ports, 490g lightweight pistons, CCC heads, dry exhaust, short mid, 1.55 carbs and more :cool: Better clip that rev limiter wire soon B.Mac! :eek:

-BL

[B.Mac]

104+ does not contain lead, alcohol, aniline, toluene or MTBE.
Nor do they publish any type of quantifiable octane rating increases anywhere in thier advertising or technical literature.
If there were any substantial octane # increases,
I assure you it would be printed on the label :D
Respectfully
B.MAC:D

Check out this site:http://www.idavette.net/hib/fuel/
"The Idaho Corvette Page acquired octane booster test data from an independent research laboratory. The first test was straight 92-octane unleaded gas from a Chevron station in southern California. It tested at 96.3 RON and 88.3 MON for an R+M/2 rating of 92.3, 0.3-oct. higher than the rating on the pump. To a second sample of Chevron 92 from the same station, the lab added "104 Octane Boost". The octane of the gasoline modified with this booster was unchanged. The lab tested a third sample of Chevron 92 and NOS brand "Street Formula", a MMT octane booster, mixed 1:170 (12-oz. bottle in 16 gal. of gas). The results were: 96.8 RON, 88.4 MON and 92.6 R+M/2, a measurable change but, clearly, as the MON went up only 0.1-oct, not a practical improvement. NOS’ most potent booster, "Racing Formula", another MMT-based product, in Chevron 92, tested at 98.5 RON, 90.4 MON and 94.5 R+M/2, a credible but modest improvement."

[WharfRat]

Bruce, go yank his plug wires, after all you've done, the "grasshopper" is disrespecting you :p

[B.Mac]

Wouldn't dis BL......
But that is an idea now.....pulling a couple plug wires ta' detune the Gorillalooper for a crossflow snack :p
B.MAC:D

[Dukeofchippewa]

Thanks for the help. B. Leonard, how do get pic to associate with signature? Wharfrat, have you got that video posted? I would like to see it up close.
Thanks
Duke

[B.Leonard]

I http://bleonard1.tripod.com/Webpics/medHeart.gif BOOSTER!

:D

Don't ask me how the stuff works or what's in it. All I know is that it works. I always seemed to think it was related to the oily base of the 104 because all of the other boosters that were clear and smelled like toulene or paint thinner seemed to do nothing. You could always tell by the plugs you were running the 104 which leads me to believe it was working in some other way other than octane. It did have it's limits.

I doubt it raises octane at all (which is why I don't use it with serious compression). I think it has something to do with lowering combustion temps with whatever is in it and therefore has a cooling effect or a richening effect to a degree. Either way there is no doubt in my mind that it works and I have tried several brands back when I used to play with the automotive stuff.

I remember when the stuff first came out (or when we got wind of it). I bought a friend of mine who was the best man in my wedding a whole case. We used that stuff in Ford 429s 427s 390s 377 SBC, modded 350SBCs, sleeper V8 Vegas and even a sleeper '75 Torino with a stock Winsdor and a very big bottle in the trunk! :D That's only half what I can remember. We always used it smart though and when we were running real serious compression we used race gas, but that 104 sure worked like a champ when we didn't have it.

-BL

PS - About the pics in the sig and embedded in the text... get a web page (hosting service) that allows remote access and you can embed pics in the text anywhere using an address (url) of a pic that is stored on your web page. This produces a lot of traffic for your web page (remote file requests from anonymous sources) but most non free web hosting services allow it. It really makes them work for their $9.95 a month if you ask me, especially if you post on S&F a lot! LOL!! :) Mine is on www.tripod.com (Lycos, Carnegie Mellon Univ.) and they seem to have fairly good hardware to keep up although I'm considering moving it to Yahoo.

[Dukeofchippewa]

Thanks for the info.
Duke