Anyone use it where high octane isn't available? Works to stop pinging? Or snake oil?
Hearing conflicting reports of its effectiveness on 4T engines.
Hearing conflicting reports of its effectiveness on 4T engines.
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Octane Booster: Snake oil or not?
- Thread starter Lightcycle
- Start date
Link? Can't find it.
Here’s another link. It’s a scientific review
Edit: pretty interesting actually!
With today’s technology in automotive, most of inefficiency in fuel can be made up with the onboard technology of the vehicle. Things like variable timing spark advance, variable valve timing
Choose the right one, many are crap. "Boosts octane by 10 points" in big letters. In really really tiny letters, there are 10 points per number so it boosts from 87 to 88. Many coat plugs (and lots of other places) with red powder. Personally, I'd rather pull some timing than to use one regularly but I would run one if I thought it was going to blow (eg needing some power to make it through mountains with crap gas).
Follow-up question - which motorcycles have knock detection? S1000RR, K1600GT, V-Rods, other Harleys (Twin Cam 103s? IDK much about them and Google ain't helping)
My old R1200GS had a knock sensor and is supposed to retard the ignition, but the engine still pinged when I filled up with low octane gas in Latin America. Granted, it was up in the mountains going uphill. Had to downshift to a lower gear to prevent the pinging.
Heading back there again with my enduro (12.8:1 compression ratio) which doesn't have a knock sensor and it's calling for 95 RON, which I believe is 91 Octane in Canada. Some places down south all they have is 85...
Best to check the packaging or manufacturer's website of the one(s) you're interested in.
You can always look them up on the paper above to see if they work.
Some are sensitive to light, which might be a storage/usage problem.
Are they flammable?
Would local aviation fuel do the same job?
You can always look them up on the paper above to see if they work.
Some are sensitive to light, which might be a storage/usage problem.
Are they flammable?
Would local aviation fuel do the same job?
The paper was interesting. Basically looking at how lower octane fuel can be converted into higher octane fuel for greater efficiency in modern engines for less CO2 emissions. From what I read it seemed to suggest that yes this can be done and there are various additives that can do it. I guess there’s some involved calculations to see whether it’s economically worth it on a large scale though.
Many additives I’ve seen are naphtha based and I don’t know what volume of them you’d need realistically (what actually works to boost an octane rating may be different to the “just add x drops to see a gazillion HP boost” claims on the bottle) but let’s say you need a lot, then the fuel bladders used for regular gas should be fine for transport. They will likely be flammable, none of the bladders are opaque so light isn’t an issue.
My KTM ADV bike has a plug that gets shoved into somewhere and then you can run lower octane gas. Does the enduro have anything like that?
Many additives I’ve seen are naphtha based and I don’t know what volume of them you’d need realistically (what actually works to boost an octane rating may be different to the “just add x drops to see a gazillion HP boost” claims on the bottle) but let’s say you need a lot, then the fuel bladders used for regular gas should be fine for transport. They will likely be flammable, none of the bladders are opaque so light isn’t an issue.
My KTM ADV bike has a plug that gets shoved into somewhere and then you can run lower octane gas. Does the enduro have anything like that?
guzzirider
Well-known member
I used an octane booster in my 1973 Yamaha AT1 125cc 2 stroke that ran Nitous Oxide.
It was made using a aditive that is now banned in most of the world.
It also left deposits on O2 sensors and plugs.
I had to instal an Air/Fuel Ratio Gauge because you could no longer "read the plug"
Most additives for boosting octane are not good for your health.
You can use what all the refining companies use to boost octane, ETHENAL!!!
What people call pinging or pre-ignition is most likely detonation which is an irregular burn of fuel in the cumbustion chamber.
This is caused by too low octane rated gas, old gas, improper timing or just plain bad design of the squish band of the cumbustion chamber.
Europe's regular gas is at least 91 octane so in North America ignore your BMW, Moto Guzzi owners manual saying your bike only need regular gas.
It was made using a aditive that is now banned in most of the world.
It also left deposits on O2 sensors and plugs.
I had to instal an Air/Fuel Ratio Gauge because you could no longer "read the plug"
Most additives for boosting octane are not good for your health.
You can use what all the refining companies use to boost octane, ETHENAL!!!
What people call pinging or pre-ignition is most likely detonation which is an irregular burn of fuel in the cumbustion chamber.
This is caused by too low octane rated gas, old gas, improper timing or just plain bad design of the squish band of the cumbustion chamber.
Europe's regular gas is at least 91 octane so in North America ignore your BMW, Moto Guzzi owners manual saying your bike only need regular gas.
Yes, we could bring some with us on our trip and mix it in with whatever gas we fill up with, but that would probably be all used up in a day or two. Nothing but low-octane poured from semi-open containers in some of the parts of the world we are traveling through.
Sock and in-line fuel filter a necessity.
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Ended up getting a bottle of this from CT:
Some of the guys on Thumpertalk said it worked well on 4T thumpers. One bottle does 45L of gas, so it should last us a few tankfuls.
Some of the guys on Thumpertalk said it worked well on 4T thumpers. One bottle does 45L of gas, so it should last us a few tankfuls.
Tell me more about that last bit about being able to run regular gas in a KTM adv bike.....
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KTM Offroad/Bad Fuel Dongle 690-1290 14-19
KTM Offroad/Bad Fuel Dongle 690-1290 14-19 KTM Offroad/Bad Fuel Dongle 690/1190/1290 Duke/Enduro R/SMC/Adv/R 14-19 Indispensable PowerPart for frequent offroad use and travelling though countries with unstable fuel quality. The offroad/bad fuel dongle al
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There’s a power parts or Rottweiler (I forget which, maybe both) bad fuel dongle. Plug it in and it changes the ignition/timing settings somehow.
Edit: can’t find if there’s any disadvantages in running that dongle permanently.
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100%. The big lettering is horribly and intentionally misleading, but when you read the fine print, some are even worse than that......I've seen stuff on the shelf at Canadian Tire that says "treats 100L and adds 10 points!" so people think they're going from 87 to 97 on a 100L tank of gas, but when you start reading the fine print you see that you might only get to 87.5 Octone, and getting up to 91 on a 100L fill up would need literally 5-7 bottles of the stuff.
Anyhow, I bought a bottle of the VP Octanium as well 2 years ago on the original James Bay Road planning days as my bike needs at least 90 octane, and it's still sitting on the shelf in my garage. One bottle will raise 38L of gas (basically 2 fill ups on my bike if not running on fumes) from 87 to 94 (7 full octane points), so I should be able to use a half dose to go from 87 to 90, so each bottle should do about 4 fill ups, or about 1000km.
Having done the math now I can see I'm going to need another bottle for the JBR trip as I'm pretty sure I've read that the Relais381 doesn't have premium anymore, and I have my doubts about finding it at Chisasibi or Radisson either.
AFJ
Well-known member
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Yes, 10 points should equal 1 octane number over a set amount of quantity.
But as recent as a few years ago some of the cheap crap you could find at some discount retailers were playing funny games with those numbers and "10 points" was only 0.5 octane in the end, or the quantity of fuel it treated (compared to higher quality 10 points = 1 octane number products) was tiny. So in reality you were paying for weak-sauce octane booster that was priced just slightly cheaper vs the good stuff to attract price conscious consumers but in reality yielded far worse results..
It's basically unregulated and relies on the consumer reading the fine print vs just the big label with big claims in big letters.
TK4
Well-known member
Go buy a bucket of VP or Sunoco race fuel, put your kit on the dyno and see if it really makes any difference. I'm willing to bet for the average street bike the answer is no. Anything with EFI will compensate automatically and you'll get slightly higher numbers, but I doubt it would be appreciable. Seat of the pants comparisons are meaningless.
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