Does octane booster work?

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After mistakenly filling up approximately 30 gallons of the wrong grade in an effort to save money it got me thinking why not buy octane booster instead. I noticed one day that gas prices went down a substantial amount, so I decided to make a run and fill up all my cans for my lawn equipment since I have a lawn care business. Usually I put 87 in the mowers and 89 in my smaller one gallons for the handheld equipment, but for some reason I filled all the cans with 89 somewhat defeating the purpose of what I was trying to do and ended up paying an extra $.25/gal. This got me thinking, why not just buy all 87 and go spend $3.00 on a bottle of octane booster?

I haven't ever looked to see how many gallons it treats but I figured, hey I have to mix the 2 stroke oil why not just add a drop of octane booster while I'm at it too.

Opinions?
 
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I tried using several types of octane boosters back in the 1990's as I needed 98-100 Octane for my '68 GTX. The alternative was filling up cans of aviation/racing fuel and bring it home every few weeks. While it was easy to boost Sunoco 94 up to 98-100 by mixing in 104....none of the Octane boosters did anything for me. They all pinged under hard acceleration. If there is a boost, it's negligible imo. These were the boosters you find at most local retail outlet in 12-16 oz bottles.

If you're running a high % of octane boost in your small equipment it may work. But that would seem more costly than just buying gallons of 100-102 Octane gas.
 
If you have 87 octane fuel and use a product that says this bottle with "X amount of fuel will raise octane 4 points".......You get 87.4 octane. I use 93 octane for all my home use OPE, in your case I would keep using the 89 octane fuel. Maybe in the full heat of summer mix premium 50/50 with the 89 fuel for your small engines.
 
Do the math and see if using super is cheaper. Around here, super is 93 octane so to get 89, you'd mix 1 gallon of super with 2 gallons of regular. Usually there's some extra premium with 89. For instance 89 might be 25 cents more, but super is just 40 cents more so it's cheaper to make your own mix. That's all they're doing to get the 89 mix anyway. Even if you just have 91, then it's just 1 for 1, but if the premium is less than 50 cents between regular and super, it's cheaper to make your own mix. Just takes a little longer and just depends how much time you want to spend to save 10 or 20 cents a gallon.
 
Originally Posted By: oldhp
If you have 87 octane fuel and use a product that says this bottle with "X amount of fuel will raise octane 4 points".......You get 87.4 octane. I use 93 octane for all my home use OPE, in your case I would keep using the 89 octane fuel. Maybe in the full heat of summer mix premium 50/50 with the 89 fuel for your small engines.


This ^

You have to understand what they mean by "points"

I seriously doubt it is going to be cheaper to "roll your own" here as the station get their fuel in bulk and the bottles of octane boost, not so much.

But here you go: http://www.hotrod.com/articles/fuel-octane-rating-comparison/

So with 87 octane fuel and 1oz/gallon of 104 octane boost, they saw under 2hp performance increase on a ~400hp engine. Probably in the margin of error.

Certainly not equivalent to what they got with straight 91 octane. Closer to the results with 87 octane.

(And I realize that what we really have here in the US is not an octane rating, but a anti-knock index (AKI) which is the average of the Motor and Research octane ratings of the fuel.)

I think you and your wallet are better off buying the 89 or higher fuel than trying to roll your own.
 
Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman

Usually I put 87 in the mowers and 89 in my smaller one gallons for the handheld equipment, but for some reason I filled all the cans with 89 somewhat defeating the purpose of what I was trying to do and ended up paying an extra $.25/gal.

Wow, 25 cents per gallon difference between 87 and 89 octane? It's typically 10 cents difference everywhere I buy gas.

Seems 87 would work fine in all small low performance engines used in lawn care type of equipment. I've used 87 obtain in a 180 HP 4 cly motorcycle with no problems.
 
Using octane boosters in the past always left my spark plugs fouled and there's a copper colored coating on the tips. I wouldn't suggest using octane boosters at all. They help prevent knock for the time being. If you really want to raise the octane rating I would recommend adding some race fuel such as Sunoco 260GT.
 
Read the information on the can carefully. If it says it will raise the octane 10 points, that means it will increase the octane one tenth so 89 becomes 89.10 Ed
 
The most effective commonly available octane booster is probably MMT, but it leaves unwanted deposits and is only legal for off-road use, so should typically be avoided.
The most cost effective octane booster is a few gallons of E85 in the tank.
 
Originally Posted By: Eddie
Read the information on the can carefully. If it says it will raise the octane 10 points, that means it will increase the octane one tenth so 89 becomes 89.10 Ed


I never knew that. 10 pts to me would mean 89 to 99. Must be the new match....or using "basis" points as with interest rates. LOL. No wonder that stuff never did squat for me. I'd have had to have added a few gallons of that stuff...not a 16 oz. bottle.
 
Originally Posted By: ZeeOSix

Wow, 25 cents per gallon difference between 87 and 89 octane? It's typically 10 cents difference everywhere I buy gas.


Yes, Texas is like that - "MID-grade" is always a HUGE rip-off

I hate the "single-hose" gas pumps -
I pump about 2-2.5 gallons of 93 into my Harley
and then "flush the hose" with .5 gallon of 87
 
Does anyone know what the shelf life of the MMT additives like Lucas is? I can't find anything on their site.

I personally wouldn't run it all the time however I have used a bottle of it on half a tank of fuel when I was at the race track for a little extra insurance when driving it hard. E85 is great but not everyone can get it and it also requires adjustments in the tune or you'll run lean.
 
I'm not sure about the US economy or Markets but the cheapest way to increase octane in the UK is to buy acetone/toluene/benzene etc from eBay in 10/20/50 litre drums and mix it in accordingly.

It works out cheaper to buy 95 and mix it up rather than buying 99 straight from the pump.
 
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