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How to get 100+ Octane Fuel?


Shawn

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In continuing to troubleshoot the knock detection happening in my car, I want to run some high octane fuel to do some further testing. I can see that when running Husky 94 versus Shell 91 I see less knock detection so I want to try 100 octane or higher. Is there any place to get unleaded race fuel anywhere? If not what are my options? I have heard that using an additive will leave orange/red deposits on everything which I am not too keen on if I can avoid it.

This is for my daily driver that has all the factory emission equipment on and functioning and I would like to keep it that way. I really don't want to start replacing cats and O2 sensors.

Shawn

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Chudd's sell VP110 by the liter and it works out to $4 a liter. Pretty pricey but will help me get some more data points for testing. Unfortunately they are currently out of VP110 but they should have more Saturday. Figures, my brother will be out there Friday, I will be out there Sunday (but they are closed). Might have to sweet-talk someone into going on Saturday to get me 10-20 L in a jerry can if I can't get out there myself.

Thanks @Ianfromduff for pointing me in the right direction.

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Buy some 100 or 110 LL right from St. Andrews.

Edit: It is only 100 LL now and should be ok for testing purposes ...

100LL (blue)[edit]

 

100LL (pronounced "one hundred low lead") may contain a maximum of one-half the TEL allowed in 100/130 (green) avgas and pre-1975 premium leaded automotive gasoline.[14][27]

Many Continental and Lycoming light airplane engines designed for 80/87 remain in production. Engines designed for 80/87 and not for 100LL might have lead buildup and lead fouling of the spark plugs if 100LL is used.[citation needed]

Some of the lower-powered (100–150 horsepower or 75–112 kilowatts) aviation engines that were developed in the late 1990s are designed to run on unleaded fuel and on 100LL, an example being the Rotax 912.[16]

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The following are the contact details for the local suppliers of 110 octane race fuel that I know of and they may sell unleaded or low leaded:

Chudd’s Powersports
Hwy 8 PR 231 Gimli, MB R0C 1B0
(888) 642-8555 or (204) 642-8555
http://www.chuddsarcticcat.com/s/search/products/query/fuel
 
J.M.S. Motorsports
19076 St. Joseph Road
Springfield, Manitoba
Office: (218) 478-2720
Mobil: (218) 280-0168
http://www.jmsmotorsports.com/

POWER PLAY INC.
215 Cessna Way
St. Andrews, Manitoba
R1A 3N6
p. 204.334.0855
http://www.powerplayinc.ca/store.htm
 

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BOOSTane seems like it would be something to try since I don't want to risk anything with lead even if it is just a test. Buying direct from BOOSTane's website they are currently offing a 20% discount on a case of 8 bottles until May 29.

Anyone want to go in and split up a case? Shipped to Pembina it would work out to about 21 CAD per bottle (before taxes and duty).

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BTW, is a fuel additive considered a power adder? I had a look through the rules and could not find any allowance for octane boosters or fuel additives of any kind. I may have missed it and probably did but if not, does the adage "if it's not allowed in the rules, it's not allowed" pertain?

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14 hours ago, Jim Eh. said:

Don't forget to add the xylene and benzene.

For extra carcinogens! ;) Yeah, don't be washing your hands in any of this stuff. Treat it like gasoline. I trust Shawn to read up on it before diving in. 

There are rules (proposed?) for max octane for anything under Mod class. I think the max is 95 octane. But this is just testing. 

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I remember power tobbogan grass drag sled guys mixing concoctions that would set off alarms around the world. But then motors were cheap back then.

On the bright side if it doesn't work in your engine the next paint removal job you have will be easy peasy! 

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This is just a test to see if I can get the knock to go away, not for running to compete. I wouldn't have it in the tank for an event, or if I did I would make sure everyone in my class was cool with it. On stock tuning, it's not going to really do anything...apart from the hope of reducing the timing pull. If I had to, I would exclude myself from the event or jump up a class.

I'll read some more about toluene etc. but I am a little hesitant to start making my own home brew for the test.

Regarding the points for octane boosters, this is the case for most of the products. BOOSTane and RACE-GAS both seem to be a lot more concentrated. Their websites have calculators/tables that tell you what you will get when mixing with a certain amount of fuel. For example, mixing just 8oz of BOOSTane to a tank of 94 should get me to 98 and a whole 16oz bottle should be good for 100. The stuff form Canadian Tire and those places are much less and I don't think you can add 10 bottles to the fuel to get really high octane either.

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IIRC you can use any gas that's legal for highway use in autocross, legally. That includes E85 in the USA. I don't know anywhere you can buy E85 around here, but in some states it's more common and I'm pretty sure SCCA allows it. In stock class it doesn't really help you, ST maybe you'll see some gains with increased ignition timing, but in Street Prepared and above it really helps anyone with forced induction as there is usually a lot of gains to be had by turning up the boost, with the major limiting factor being knock. So more octane = higher boost and more power in SP+. Below that, it's not going to be much help, but it can't hurt either.

I guess if you were to see any timing pull due to knock even on a stock car, a higher octane would help a tiny bit. But it's not like you're going to see +10 hp. Only stickers can give you that much!

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Re: Toluene; good stuff. fun fact; F1 Turbo era cars used 98% Toluene and 2% Methyl Alcohol for fuel. you will need to mix in 10-15% to see anything...

Re: Shell vs Husky: 94 Husky is still Methanol blended. methanol is hygroscopic and 94 Octane fuel does not sell as often, it will have water in it. Shell is better but i have noticed different results from shell stations. the best Shell Premium i have used is from Best street/Portage ave (westwood shell). there could be others but this is my experience regarding consistency of the fuel.

Unleaded race fuel can be had at Autoparts Center on Notre Dame, bring your own jerry can. call ahead. failing that Walls Performance used to carry it as well but i haven't spoken with them in a while.

how are the injectors? i used to run an duty cycle meter on mine (Haltech), that was good but not good for detecting a bad injector - EGT is useful for that as well. Can you monitor fuel pressure at WOT/Load? how far does it drop? whats the FP over boost - could be the regulator? always a good idea to start with a "known". Weak fuel system components can sometimes be fixed with better fuel, but fuel is not always the problem. Hope you get this fixed!

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Interesting that you have knock issues on an S4. Maybe I missed it mentioned somewhere, but are you running an APR tune or similar? I used to have slight knock at WOT on my '09 GT-R with a Cobb stage 1 tune so I switched from Shell 91 to Husky 94 and it went away completely. I use Petro Ultra94 on the TTRS now, likely unnecessary, but I like to be safe.

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On 6/1/2018 at 12:38 PM, mcorrie said:

Re: Toluene; good stuff. fun fact; F1 Turbo era cars used 98% Toluene and 2% Methyl Alcohol for fuel. you will need to mix in 10-15% to see anything...

Re: Shell vs Husky: 94 Husky is still Methanol blended. methanol is hygroscopic and 94 Octane fuel does not sell as often, it will have water in it. Shell is better but i have noticed different results from shell stations. the best Shell Premium i have used is from Best street/Portage ave (westwood shell). there could be others but this is my experience regarding consistency of the fuel.

Unleaded race fuel can be had at Autoparts Center on Notre Dame, bring your own jerry can. call ahead. failing that Walls Performance used to carry it as well but i haven't spoken with them in a while.

how are the injectors? i used to run an duty cycle meter on mine (Haltech), that was good but not good for detecting a bad injector - EGT is useful for that as well. Can you monitor fuel pressure at WOT/Load? how far does it drop? whats the FP over boost - could be the regulator? always a good idea to start with a "known". Weak fuel system components can sometimes be fixed with better fuel, but fuel is not always the problem. Hope you get this fixed!

Thanks for the heads up about the race fuel, I will have to check it out. The Husky 94 still out performs the 91 on every test from different stations. 

I have to do more logging but my knowledge of what to log and what the numbers mean is where I am lacking. 

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16 hours ago, nishanna said:

Interesting that you have knock issues on an S4. Maybe I missed it mentioned somewhere, but are you running an APR tune or similar? I used to have slight knock at WOT on my '09 GT-R with a Cobb stage 1 tune so I switched from Shell 91 to Husky 94 and it went away completely. I use Petro Ultra94 on the TTRS now, likely unnecessary, but I like to be safe.

I honestly wouldn't say that the car is knocking at least not in any human detectable sense. I can see it in logging but in just driving the car there is no indication that anything is going on. No codes, no CEL. I got this on the stock tune and on the Stage 2 tune. Back on stock tune now. 94 Husky is better than 91 shell in the car but still have the knock detection. Hopefully soon I can throw a mix of race gas in for some higher octan and seem where it gets me. 

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If you were getting knock sensor tripping even at a stock tune, do you think perhaps you might just have a trigger happy knock sensor? Especially if you can't hear any audible detonation?

Sounds to me like it might be just an overly sensitive sensor if it's tripping knocks even at stock. Might be a wild goose chase for nothing.

 

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24 minutes ago, Brian_Earl_Spilner said:

If you were getting knock sensor tripping even at a stock tune, do you think perhaps you might just have a trigger happy knock sensor? Especially if you can't hear any audible detonation?

Sounds to me like it might be just an overly sensitive sensor if it's tripping knocks even at stock. Might be a wild goose chase for nothing.

 

It might be so you are right it might be a wild goose chase. All I know is if I slowly take the car to redline there is no knock detection. If I run 94 octane I get less knock detection. There seems to be no difference between running either 91 or 94 when it's -20 C or +20 C. When I put the stage 2 tune on, the knock detection was way worse as was the corresponding timing pull. 

The knock sensors are in the valley of the V under the supercharge, and a few other compenents so not easy to swap out. 

I don't want to just throw parts at it either so that's why the octanw test is an easy one. 

Also need to do some logging of injectors, fuel pressures, afr, and other stuff. But it all takes time that I seem to not have to get done in a timely manner. 

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I think you are exactly right, meant to ask yesterday if you had datalogged fuel pressures (rail and injectors) I have seen some issues caused by both high pressure fuel pumps getting weak at high load situations. Also if the system has a low pressure or lift pump that supplies the HPFP, if it's going (or none functional) the HPFP isnt seeing a steady supply. 

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On 6/2/2018 at 11:07 AM, Brian_Earl_Spilner said:

Does Petro Ultra94 have part-ethanol like Husky 94 does? Or is it ethanol-free?

Looks like it's part-ethanol. They don't state exactly how much.

Does Ultra 94 contain ethanol? Does Petro-Canada still offer an ethanol-free gasoline?
Ultra 94 contains ethanol. Due to the fact that various fuel grades are blended at the point of sale, most grades of Petro-Canada fuel may now contain up to 10% ethanol. This represents a change from the previous state, where premium fuel was ethanol-free at Petro-Canada.

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It used to be that the grades were blended at the point of sale. Now it is blended at time of loading at the fuel depot(what used to be the refineries). In the case of Winnipeg it is either Shell or Esso. Husky/Mowhawk have a blending station behind their location on Marion St.to add their ethenol but not too sure it they still use it.

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