I found this from the Triumph folks. It's an Octane Booster\'s Cookbook. Can anyone refute or concur with these ideas? I know that anhydrous isopropyl alcohol is used as a fuel dryer, but the others. I'm unsure.

Waste of time and money, and possibly a warranty. Higher octane doesn't offer much benefit to the VG33E engine in the Xterra.

Maybe those with supercharged engines could try it, but do you really want a meth lab in your garage ?

How do you think I pay for mods and repairs?

If your going to try it, I would suggest the

Methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether (MTBE)

as it is the ingredient listed on the gas pumps in california

"contains Methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether (MTBE)"

really the "meth-lab" analogy is a bit much, you simply mix the main ingredient with a bit of mineral spirits and tranny fluid... so no cooking and no greater risk of accidental combustion than pumping gas at the station.

Sounds like moth balls octane booster from years ago

Why not do the old 70's trick of water injection? Or would that really f@ck with the computer and injection?

guys, whats so hard to understand?
Methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether (MTBE) Is THE ingredient put in gasoline at manufacturing to boost octane. What that site is is mearly a price list and demonstration of the value of doing it yourself.

It does work, a lot of the guys on TUNFS use it...

I followed the link to the water inject system from TUNFS. It looks like a viable system for extremely high boost pressures. I'm just uncertain of the longevity of my aluminum supercharger housing and the steel cam lobes. As the supercharger dumps right into the intake manifold, I don't see how we can avoid running water vapor/steam into the supercharger. The inherent incompatibilities of steam and aluminum will eventually cause havoc, I fear. I know I'm being a chicken about it, but I think I'll wait to see how those vehicles are doing in a year or so.

i would bother with it there are way to many thing that can go wrong and mess you motor up so why even bother??

MTBE is not an octane booster it is a fuel oxygenate, it helps reducing CO and NO emissions. It is used as a gasoline additive in urban areas mainly Southern California and New York areas during the "smog" season. MTBE also highly carcinogenic, so do not come in direct contact with it....

Magyar is exactly right about the MTBE, it is meant only to reduce emissions and actually reduces the energy content of a gallon of fuel.

The toluene and xylene mentioned in the link must be avoided at all costs. They are nasty and aggressive organic solvents and will f*ck up every plastic and rubber part in the fuel system.

Lacquer thinner is a mixture of toluene and xylene and some other stuff. Toss a windshield wiper insert into some and see what happens.

Windshield wiper inserts are isoprene and some high-end ones are polyurethane. It's not fair to compare isoprene with the aromatic resistent properties of compounds chiefly comprised of butadiene acrylonitrile and hydrogenated acrylonitriles...such as those found in seals and linings associated with our X's fuel systems.

After lead alkyls were eliminated in our fuels (some of you remember the old "regular" gasoline) alkenes or aromatics (of which benzene and toluene are members) were increased to nearly 40% to recover the loss of octane. Presently they are being reduced to ~20% with the addition of Ethanol in many states and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) to make up the shortfall.

In short, Toluene, which is already present in your gasoline, does not attack the butadiene acrylonitrile rubber present in your fuel system.

For those of you interested in a report dealing with fuel in our country click on the following links. It is extremely well written, very comprehensive, and worth reading to dispell some of the commonly held myths.

P.S. Magyar, it's good to hear of someone else from the old country.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Part 4

Ken and Magyar are right. The last two years I raced RC cars. I would use xylene to soften the rubber tires. Too much would make them like "slime blob thing" we played with as a kid. I would think over time the o-rings in the fuel system would leak.
Gator

I'll run a 100 hour cross compound absorption analysis using xylene and toluene and post the data here. I'll reference EPDM, VQ, NBR, HNBR, NR, CR, & CSM. I hope this might open some eyes to the drastically varying properties of what mass culture groups into the common term, "rubber".

I know that toluene will not noticeably affect the NBR or HNBR, but now I'm interested in the effect of xylene. I've got no data on it at all in our research library. I guess no customer ever tried to wash our products with xylene before.

afterthought...Toluene samples are the control in this test, as modern gasoline from the pump contains toluene in significant quantities.

I didn't know there were so many aromatics in gasoline. I guess the complex mixture has fooled my sense of smell all these years.

Is the xylene found in gasoline primarily o-, m-, or p-xylene? A mixture of all three? I would not expect them to act the same.

All three; meta, para, and ortho xylene are found in gasoline. Though It appears higher concentrations of benzene and toluene remain present in modern fuels.

I'm making a big assumption that the auto industry understands the effects of modern fuel on seals and gaskets. I question this because the VMQ (silicone) sealant used to seal my head to my block has no resistance to aromatics. For illustration, I've included a VMQ sample in my 100 hour analysis.

Understandably the VMQ is not immersed in any of these aromatics, however the temperatures involved with its limited exposure are quite elevated. Oh well, if they didn't hold up we'd be blowing head gaskets like crazy.