Fuel additives and Octane Boosters

[04QuattroTurbo]

Anyone use them? Waste of money? Any articles that say either way? Fuel

Injector cleaners- Do they work? Which ones to buy?
Octane Boosters - Work? Which ones?
Gas Treatments - Work? Which ones?


TIA...

My experience with other cars and some of the products on the shelf is similar to that of the snake oil panacea. I'm open to hear your experiences.

[AudiA4Turbo22]

injector cleaners:

Seafoam(works), AutoRX(works)

Octane boosters:

in reality they wont boost ur octane by 1!

[n7plus1]

dont forget amsoil engine flush

[sean1.8t]

im currently testing out a new gas additive that was just released to the for public sale(been commercially sold for 20 years). it claims to increase fuel economy, clean fuel system, and improve emmisions.

im through one tank so far with no luck. go figure

[n7plus1]

mind telling us what it is?

[04QuattroTurbo]

Checkout his article in Volvospeed.com:

Click


According to this, Lucas Octane booster has raised 10 gallons of Pump 93 Octane to 96.6 with one bottle. 3.6 AKI Octane numbers or 36 points.

I've tried this once on my car and the engine got deafly quiet on AKI (R+M/2) 91 V-Power California formulated gas. Which is the whole goal of using higher octane is it not? To reduce pinging and knocking. Not that I get pinging or knocking at AKI 91, but it was noticeably quieter. As if you turned on some noise canceling device. Weird.

Remember higher octane per se, doesn't not produce more horsepower, but reduces the energy required to complete combustion and lower EGT. Which subsequently allows the engine to advance the timing a bit to produce more HP. Not too mention the added fuel economy using higher octane gas.

[3ohAvant]

seafoam is good stuff.
so is liqui moly jectron.
redline si-1 is good.

oct boost. I have heard good stuff about lucas but have no first hand experience.

i use torco accelerator. in a 1.8t, we bump timing and boost, when using torco, it pings and retards when we don't have torco. torco says on the bottle. mix X oz with X gallons, et X octane out. none of that 1 point garbage!

[RLB6]

The only octane booster that's been proven to work is the NOS octane boost, race formula only.

[demea]

Chevron fuel additive (purchased @ Walmart, Pepboys, etc.) was reccomended by my Audi service advisor. He is a motor head as well.
I've always used STP Super Concentrated Fuel injector cleaner (black bottle) @ every oil change in a 1/2 tank of Premium fuel for the past 18 years or so and coincidently NEVER had a fuel system issue in any of my 20 or so new or used cars since then. Except once, I bought a 93 Ford F150 (in 1994) and the fule pump died...but that was my only and last Ford!

Octane booster has never shown me any advantage or difference in E.T or trap speed @ the track, BUT, Sunoco 100 octane certainly did. As well as 116 leaded race gas, but I was Cat & O2 sensor delete on my GN.

[UGwagen]

put good fuel in the first place will help greatly. VW/Audi recommends buying fuel from www.toptiergas.com -- good high detergent fuel will minimize deposits in the first place.

Supposedly BP/Amoco with Invigorate has even more detergents than the Top Tier Gas places.

So what fuel system cleaner? I recommend BG 44K. It has done wonders in my previous (gasoline) cars when removing engine deposits. www.bgprod.com

[audinaut]

put good fuel in the first place will help greatly. VW/Audi recommends buying fuel from www.toptiergas.com -- good high detergent fuel will minimize deposits in the first place.

Supposedly BP/Amoco with Invigorate has even more detergents than the Top Tier Gas places.

So what fuel system cleaner? I recommend BG 44K. It has done wonders in my previous (gasoline) cars when removing engine deposits. www.bgprod.com

Had BGProduct InjectaClean service done to my fuel system by the top-notch -Audi indy shop I use at times. They inject massive quantity of CF5 cleaner right at the intake mani under compressed air while car is running -- takes 1/2 hour or so to do the treatment.

Also picked up the BGProduct K6500 kit from them for approx $25, which includes their MOA for the engine oil and the CF5 for the fuel system (add to tank during fill-up). I was looking for an oil treatment I could use, but wanted something that was not as fast acting as AutoRX. They said the MOA is good to add at each oil change to help eliminate oil tarnish and sludge particles slowly over time to keep the system top notch -- they also are not a big fan of the faster acting additives. They have a lot of customers that have it added at each oil change.

On a side note......was talking to the owner about best brand of gases to use and he said that (in his opinion) Chevron's and Shell's premium gas was the best to run and keep the fuel system cleaner than other brands. He also said that Costco premium was pretty good -- I'm in Seattle, so this may not apply to other parts of the country.

[gtimart]

Good information, thanks for sharing. For people like me that don't have access to more than 91 (canadian reading), these little bottles could let me run a 93 program sometimes.

[AudiA4_20T]

theres some kind of octane booster that when mixed with 91 will give you 100 with a small $20 amount

[UGwagen]

theres some kind of octane booster that when mixed with 91 will give you 100 with a small $20 amount

There are homemade octane boosters also....

http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/misc/octanebooster.html

[jdogg]

I swear by, and use Lucas Fuel injector cleaner and lubricator, i have had no problems at all. Gas mileage was really good. My mechanic said that the injectors were mint and i had a 93 civic 400k. I did use it almost every other full tank, i also used 91 octane. I love all of the Lucas products, seeing that i also had a VR6 and had some issue, i used the synthetic oil, synthetic oil stabilizer additive which kept car running about 5-10 degrees cooler, gear oil you name it i tried it.
Now i have an A4 3L and was wondering if anybody uses Lucas in there car.
I just found out the hardway that audi is very sensitive to change and am unsure if i should go all out with Lucas?

[Dakine17]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2KNbbdQv3E

[frankwizzle]

There are homemade octane boosters also....

http://www.gnttype.org/techarea/misc/octanebooster.html

Yikes! I remember this chick adding either rubbing alcohol or toluene to her e30 bimmer and it shot sparks out the tailpipe for a week..

[texasboy21]

Yikes! I remember this chick adding either rubbing alcohol or toluene to her e30 bimmer and it shot sparks out the tailpipe for a week..

I have successfully used both xylene and toluene as an octane booster. Their percentage concentration is usually the only difference between 87,89, and 93 octane. Kept within the proper gas/additive ratio it works just fine.

[OldmanRacer]

Apparently Marvel Mystery Oil (MMO) is some good stuff. Tried and tested since WWII era they say. I've got it in my fuel and will be in the crankcase at next oil change.

[ronjovi001]

theres some kind of octane booster that when mixed with 91 will give you 100 with a small $20 amount

Fellow Audi enthusiast and Brother... noted your avatar... Perge!

[UroTuning]

Fuel injector cleaner
Seafoam
bg44k

Octance booster
maybe race-gas but i never used it. Saw it on horespower tv. - http://race-gas.com/

[ZimbutheMonkey]

For boosted applications, I found VP Fuel M5 mixed 4:1 with 94 Octane worked incredibly well. Unlike regular M1 Methanol, the M5 has Nitroparaffins which bring their own Oxygen into the combustion reaction.

Here's a before and after dyno. Car was a 1.8T Passat tiptronic with a GTRS elim (2860) at 19 PSI. Yes I know the numbers are low. Pulls were done at, 3500ft with a choked off semi stock exhaust and a SMIC as well. What's important are the relative gains.

Also, pay no attention to the AFR's. It was a tailpipe mounted sensor, so it's reading about a full point lean.

Note, I added the M5 after about 5-6 pulls. So at this point, the car is totally heat soaked.

I literally poured the M5 into the tank, let it idle for 5 minutes or so and did another 2 pulls. **NOTE: there was absolutely no re-tuning or adjusting parameters at all**

Best run of the 5 on E10was 225WHP on E10 94 Oct

Worst of the 2 pulls with the M was 232WHP with the M5. The best of the 2 was 236 WHP. However I didn't want anyone thinking I was cherry picking results.

So a 7-11 WHP gain (or 3-5%). Not bad for just dumping some different fuel in.

E10 94 Oct




E10 94Oct and M5




As well, RSR-Ranup improved my mileage by about 5% in my 3.0 V6 (I compared my before and after milage in the same spot of flat highway over a number of days).