plurco

iTrader: (1)

anyone ever noticed a negligable difference from using octane booster? and pros or cons to this?

NmexMAX

iTrader: (22)

Just buy it and see what it dpes for you, it's not like it costs thousands of dollars, nor will it cost thousands of dollars to fix, if anything goes wrong, which nothing should b/c I've done it a few times, no difference IMO.

Joeycurl

Just give it a try. Some people will say not too...I haven't done it, but if you want to try it...just do it.

nadir_s

yeah i saw NOS sells em... 10 bucks

95SEking

I used it on another car not the maxima. I really didn't notice that much of a difference. Basically it makes the entire tank of gas 94 or 95 octane instead of the 91 you get at the pump.

plurco

iTrader: (1)

yeah I don't much believe the 25HP claimed on the bottle :-)
did not figure it would hurt. I did add a bottle to half a tank though. also claims to clean injectors, Mainly I was just making sure that there was no "maxima specific" reason not to use it.

bgod

using too much octane booster will also leave a residue on your plugs.

really isn't worth it to use on a regular basis unless it's for an emergency. such as getting a bad tank of gas or putting in regular/plus.

Street Reeper

The 350z gained about 10hp when comparing 91 to 110 octane in SCC, their was no change except in the upper RPM range.

I put 104 octane booster in when I got the Y-pipe and intake on. I would only use additives once a year for somthing like a track run or race, if at all.

kratz74

Food for thought. SOme engine make LESS power with higher octane fuel. ANy mega motorhead chemical engineers want to address this. Higher Octane actually burns slower.

plurco

iTrader: (1)

i used it last night at the track.
Results

'96 SE fully loaded, 5 speed
only mods are popcharger and homemade midpipe

R/T .668
60' 2.270
330' 6.254
1/8 9.551
MPH 74.60
1/4 14.817
MPH 92.66

whatda ya think?

kratz74

Look like good times to me for your car.

chris j vurnis

Hello all:

I would somewhat disagree with the statement from "Kratz74" but it's on the right track.

I'm no chemical engineering PhD, but I've taken in a lot of info about this type of thing. A lot of the following is from what I have read.

High octane does NOT necessarily burn slower than lower octane.
Yes, the ambient temperature required to auto-ignite the higher octane gas is higher. But once ignited, 87 octane and 92 octane would burn at very nearly the same rate.

The auto-ignition (or pre-detonation) point does not necessarily change the combustion rate.

A good spark plug is plenty capable of igniting higher octane gas just as instantly as lower octane gas.

Now some more food for thought, all the above is based on straight petroleum based fuel (no alcohol or MTBE based additives).

Ethanol, Methanol, and MTBE do have octane enhancing properties. But ethanol and methanol have lower energy content than "pure" gasoline. So if the higher octane is acheived by using a higher proportion of these additives, then it could be quite possible that power could actually be reduced or at least no gains made in power. Fuel economy on the other hand may likely change. Octane is not a measure of energy capability, only a measure of pre-detonation capability. HOW the octane is increased determines the energy capability.

Another problem is that the above mentioned additives effectively lean out the combustion process by releasing more O2. The O2 sensors in the exhaust detect the increased O2 and interpret that as a lean mixture so the ECU adds some more fuel (to certain extents) which adds just a little bit more O2 releasing additives that the fuel itself already contains. So after a few more passes of the ECU tweaking the mixture more "rich" things come to normal. So fuel mileage goes down which then partially if not completely defeats the purpose of adding alcohol based additives to reduce petroleum use. The higher the outside air temp, the worse it gets.

When MTBE was introduced as a "cleaner emissions, octane enhancing" additive in California in 1996, the state regulators were flooded with enormous complaints from auto owners about reduced mileage and power, despite the claims of CA EPA "scientists" whose test fleet of automobiles for MTBE evaluations was mainly 1970's era automobiles.

Aside from alcohols like ethanol or methanol, octane is increased in the refinery process by using other petroleum based chemicals.

HitManSE

iTrader: (1)

pros are increased horsepower (depends on compresion ratio, of it boosted, or n20'd) but if the car is basically ull se very little to no diff, like 1-2hp. boosted cars might see a good 10+hp though. cons are if u use too much ur gonna fry the O2 sensors. ive seen 1 split like a banana at work cuz some moron thought it would be a good idea to run 100+ octane in a stock minivan

SuperFishstick

i'd say waste of money. I used it before and saw no difference.

stephenlc

iTrader: (1)

I did it once without any mods, and I saw a little difference, but I don't think its worth it, unless you are using normal gas, or maybe using NOS, or high boost.