Anyone interested in some SERIOUS fuel additives?
Turbo Mini Forums

I have been rattling a cage oop north and reckon I have a source of Tetra Ethyl Lead, Ethylene Dibromide, methyl aniline and dicyclopentadiene.

My idea is to run 95 octane fuel (better lead response than 97/98) and basically boost this as much as possible.

95 octane isn't aviation alkylate but is pretty much as good as it gets.

Old avgas used to use about 4cc of TEL/EBD mix and 2cc of methyl aniline per litre. I'm guessing this will be overkill for 95 octane. Dicyclopentadiene has a MON of 172! and is the highest octane stuff you can throw in your tank.

Realistically, I will probably just run the lead/aniline mix. I need it for my car as I refuse to run 97 octane shit and more octane=more bananas.

I'll have a read and see what the dosing is. My catch is that I might have to buy in BIG bulk and so I'm sounding off here first.

Stu

Will update when I hear from this lot (innospec chemicals)

Bugger off, I'm getting there.

is it all legal to use and whats the dangers with it eg health hazards, thought you couldnt use more then 102 octane on the road or something, else everyone would be using racing fuel

"Can I legally marry people now that I am ordained in the Church of the SubGenius?" aka i know jack sh"t

i also make things

i love coming home to chrome

I don't think that there is any limit on what you can burn on the road, so long as you pay the tax. The only limiting fator is the emissions, but I wouldn't worry to much about that.

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

AlexF

your fuell additive is welcome if efficient, what does it have more than toluene?, (I used a mix of 20% paint thinner with 95, also tried pure toluene to see , sure I could have used a bag of boost but in fact it doesn't have enough burn energy, it was slug )
I'm very interested by way to increase effectively octane, as we just have95/98 octane in france, but don't have you 102 octane at pump?

I use avgas in some of my motors its 105 i belive and avalible from any good airfield!

Mix it 50/50 with optimax normaly, it is ~£1.50 a L tho!

Edited by slater on 10th Dec, 2006.

but avgas burning rate is too slow.

102 is only available in very few locations, certainly nothing near me (min drive is nearly 100 miles to fill up!!!) and I live right next to one of the countries busiest motorways!!!!

Best we have in the UK is Shell V-power at 99RON.

I am not sure if I have missed out some information but I have run my cars on the top Shell fuel since they have been available with no ill effects. In fact the last engine I pulled apart was one of the nicest, cleanest, mark few chamber / crown combinations I have seen. That engine was running timing on the edge via an aggressive retard on knock stratergy. It was a supercharged VW VR6 lump if anybody is interested, an engine that is usually a mess when you pull the head off.
I guess what I am saying is why are people against the high octain pump fuels?????

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

It's a load of crap.

When you crank the density up, the burn speed goes up...... So, leading makes it better.

No unleaded is going to share the same properties, you delay burning by having a stable hydrocarbon with the right C:H ratio. Ie Benzene, toluene, xylene (thinners).

Also, the stuff making high octane unleaded is as nasty/more nasty than good old TEL. But lead is a heavy metal and melts babies.

I'll write something more anti super-unleaded when I can be bothered. It is rubbish.

Bugger off, I'm getting there.

Hedgemonkey,

I shared your dislike for unleaded when the change first came in, I even payed over the odds for 4 star for one of the special "classic only" pumps that just happened to be in my home town at the time.

After a while though it came down to the fact that I was spending too much time fetching fuel rather than driving the car for fun so I bit the bullet, did another head with smaller valves so I could fit seat inserts and live with the approx 1.5% drop in power.

I still have a car that "needs" the lead replacement and can't be convereted but since I can get Castrol valve master plus from the motor factors between my house and the main road I can just about tollerate the bother of getting out and buying a bottle every 1200 litres or so (roughtly 8000 miles or 2 years plus running).

Can you even use those sort of additives in racing? Thought most classes were pump fuel only now?? Might be wrong on that though .....

All power to you mate for putting the effort in and I agree in an ideal world leaded fuel would be the best bet but then again to my mind in an ideal world anybody voting labour would be shot as they left the polling station.
Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world ...

Don't know how that turned into such a rant ..... ooopppsss ... no offense meant

Edited by RogerM on 10th Dec, 2006.

Every day is a school day ...........

How fast and how expensive ...... the same question...

Is it worth the effort?

Unless the additives also help burn more fuel, than the only gain will be the increase in efficiency due to higher compression.

The efficiency is equal to the one minus one above compression ratio to the power of gamma minus one. Gamma is about 1.4.

You get about 60% for 10:1 and 63% for 12:1.

So, purely theotectically, you will get abot a 5% power increase in a N/A engine from going up from 10:1 to 12:1.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

They used it in spitfires and running methyl tertiary butyl ether with TEL and methyl aniline hit 160 MON which is fucking impressive.

I'd say that 130 MON should allow you to make more boost. Bearing in mind the CR, capacity and boost of a normal engine.

I'm aware that certain chaps here are running really low CR's and huge boost. My idea is running huge capacities, low boost, high CR's and HIGH OCTANE. I reckon that's a better thing, anyway, that's my opinion and with it the low compression boys can run 3 bar.

Still no feedback, but maybe tomorrow.

Bugger off, I'm getting there.

1/3 avgas + 1/3 toluene + 1/3 methanol

shake well , pour & go

www.miniman.com.au

"""LazyGoodForNothingSmartArseKnowItAllBackYardMiniMechanic"""

I was using 50% gun wash thinnners and 50% petrol in my last imp. 10.5:1 compression with a little boost, there was no detonation but then again i didnt push the limits.

I would put a word in against methanol, its pretty nasty toxic stuff, ethanol or grain alcohol works just as well as is far less dangerous. Methanol contents over 5% will also bust your fuel pump, fuel lines, all of the aluminium in the carb and manifold. Ethanol wont do anwhere near as much harm, orings will have to be suitable and if a high percentage is used then the fuel lines will have to be changed.

I think there is a substance called something like tripeptane, its around 240 octane and was also developed for the merlin / griffon engine program. Apparently so much boost could be used that no detonation was seen even when the heads blew off the blocks!!!

Most of the F1 and group B rally cars in the 80's were running toulene for the mega boost turbo engines. But a chap qualified as a fuel engineer was at qualifying when the BMW's were running 90psi boost, and he said that the smell from the exhaust of the BMW wasnt toulene, but something even more potent, possibly this tripeptane.

Ill have a scout around and see if i can find it

J

heres some interesting stuff -

Octane=100, as we all know, so apperantly anything above 100 octane is a
--Performance Number-- or, PN. The PN scale was not introduced until 1943,
although a predecessor was in use by the British. The PN scale was
introduced after the US Army/Navy specified a fuel with a lean rating of
100 octane and a rich rating equal to octane plus 1 cc lead. This was
grade 100/125. The PN scale was developed because the military personnel
were confronted with the inability of making the brass understand that
you could not assign an octane number to isooctane plus 1cc lead. Service
personnel started to arbitrarily assigning octane numbers above 100, and
so marking fuel trucks. Chaos reigned, as different fields labeled fuel
as 108 octane or any other number, causing pilots to refuse the lower
octane stuff as unsiutable. SNAFU, anyone? Anyway, the army/navy and the
brits got together and decided on th PN system, where isooctane=100,
giving 100% power in a supercharged engine, 130 PN giving 130% power, and
so on. PN numbers below 100 were evolved later, but never were used in
fuel specs. An example of lower PN is: 76PN=91 Octane

An interesting fact is that a water-cooled engine is often described
as mild, compared to an air-cooled engine, which is regarded as severe
in its octane, or PN demands *these are highly supercharged, high output
engines, of course* Anyhow, grade 115/145 avgas would effectively
be 145/145 in a mild engine, allowing around 40-45 psig manilfold
pressure, with intercooling, before detonation. Then, of course, there
was 150 PN fuel, which the brits used inpreference to Nitrous. Couldnt
catch a V-1 with a Spitfire using 100/130 gas, but fill it with 150 grade...
no problem Further tinkering yielded 270PN fuel, which they never
were able to make detonate, although they busted lots of engines trying.
Allison used some of this stuff mixed with 100/130 to up the power on a
1710 from around 1500 HP to 2800 HP "for a short period" Bits were
coming out of engines, but not from detonation, they just werent strong
enough for the forces of normal combustion Merlins put out 2200 HP
on about 45 psig manifold pressure, so the 1710 was getting about *SWAG mode*
say 65-70 psig at the intake valve.

Hope there are some fuel specialist type out there. Anyone?

Lean and rich performance numbers are determined from KLIMEP* as follows:

(100 x klimep) / klimep0 lean

and

(100 x klimep) / klimep0 rich

*KLIMEP --> knock limited indicated mean effective pressure, obtained
by varying the inlet pressure at constant compression ratio and inlet
pressure.

klimep0 --> is klimep for isooctane

In other words, PN is derived from, and based on isooctane as a
standard for detonation resistance. It is an AN standard, with
data derived from the standard CFR knock engine. Some examples
of the relationship between octane/PN are;

100 octane = 100 PN
95 octane = 85 PN
90 octane = 75 PN
108 PN = isooctane plus .25cc TEL/gallon
115 PN = isooctane plus .5cc TEL/gallon
NOTE: TEL appears to change knock ratings a great deal with some
fuel types, and much less with other things, such as benzol.

Example: Toluene's
RON is 120 and MON is 109. Xylene's RON is 118 and MON is 115. Even
if an engine could normally run on toluene's MON of 109, xylene would be
a better fuel because it is less sensitive and thus less likely to knock.

In 1938, a quantity of triptane sufficient to test in a supercharged
engine *of laboratory type* was produced and tested by the ethyl corp.--
this gave the same answer as Lovell "from this time triptane was regarded as
the last word in high PN aviation fuel"

In 1941, an army test found triptane, without TEL to have a PN of 100/165, in
other words, equal to isooctane (lean) and much better rich. The view was that
it was "the best hydrocarbon for an aviation fuel that had been seen to that
date"

Later tests by Curtiss-Wright confirmed this test

Subsequent to this, GM (research laboratories div.) built and operated
a 150 gal. per day triptane plant from '43 to '45, this product going
to an army sponsored but NACA run program. "as a whole fuel, triptane
plus 4cc TEL was explored in single cylinders of various aircraft
engines but none had sufficient mechanical strength to produce knock on
this fuel without wrecking the cylinder. In fact, very few lab engines
used for fuel evaluation were strong enough to permit triptane plus 4cc
TEL to be appraised. NACA, however, carried out a very complete
evaluation of triptane in blends with 100/130....The NACA tests showed
triptane to have the highest effective PN of any then known possible
hydrocarbon component of aviation fuels."

I hope no one minds me posting all this stuff, i love it!

The triptane thread is very interesting. This jives with a conversation I
had with a chemist affiliated with BP. I asked him what was in the
Formula 1 "wundergas". He didn't know for sure but he suspected it to be
a mix of a heavy aromatic to get the heating value up, triptane and lots
of TEL to get the octane and flame propagation enhancers (proprietary
compounds) to make the stuff burn fast enough to let the engines turn
the RPM they do. He said he was positive, based on the smell, that a lot
of triptane was involved. Now to find a source...... JGD]

Formula #1 - Toluene
=============================
R+M/2.........114
Cost...........$2.50/gal

Mixtures with 92 Octane Premium
--------------------------------
10%...........94.2 Octane
20%...........96.4 Octane
30%...........98.6 Octane

Notes: Common ingredient in Octane Boosters in a can. 12-16 ounces will only
raise octane 2-3 *points*, i.e. from 92 to 92.3. Often costs $3-5 for 12-16
ounces, when it can be purchased for less than $3/gal at chemical supply houses
or paint stores.

Formula #2 - Xylene
=============================
R+M/2.........117
Cost...........$2.75/gal

Mixtures with 92 Octane Premium
--------------------------------
10%...........94.5 Octane
20%...........97.0 Octane
30%...........99.5 Octane

Notes: Similar to Toluene. 12-16 ounces will only raise octane 2-3 *points*,
i.e. from 92 to 92.3. Usually mixed with Toluene and advertised as *race
formula*.

Formula #3 - Methyl-tertiary-butyl-ether (MTBE)
=============================
R+M/2.........118
Cost...........$3.50/gal

Mixtures with 92 Octane Premium
--------------------------------
10%...........94.6 Octane
20%...........97.2 Octane
30%...........99.8 Octane

Notes: Oxygenate. Very common in octane booster products. Has lower BTU
content than toluene or xylene, but oxygenate effect makes the gasoline burn
better and produce more energy.

Formula #4 - Methanol or Ethanol
=============================
R+M/2.........101
Cost...........$0.60 - $1.75/gal

Mixtures with 92 Octane Premium
--------------------------------
10%...........94.3 Octane (Methanol)
10%...........94.7 Octane (Ethanol)
20%...........Not Recommended

Notes: Methanol is wood alcohol. Ethanol is grain alcohol and found in Gasohol
in 10% ratios. Both alcohols are mildly corrosive and will eat gas tank
linings, rubber and aluminum if used in excessive ratios. Main ingredient in
"Gas Dryers", combine with water.

Formula #5 - Isopropyl Alcohol and Tertiary Butyl Alcohol
=============================
R+M/2.........101
Cost...........$0.60-$1.50/gal

Mixtures with 92 Octane Premium
--------------------------------
10%...........94.5 Octane
20%...........Not Recommended
30%...........Not Recommended

Notes: Similar to Methanol/Ethanol. Isopropyl Alcohol is simply rubbing
alcohol.

2,2,3 trimethylbutane is what Triptane is. The snag is with that sort of stuff is you have to get chloromethane and react it with magnesium metal to give you methyl-magnesium chloride and then react that with 2,2,3 trichloro butane. Which is a nightmare to make. I'm not sure how they did it but it will have probably involved some serious catalysts/complicated stuff.

Another one is Methyl Tertiary butyl Ether Ch3-O-(CH3)3 which is good stuff. I think that was an alternative for high boost fuel.

All interesting stuff, one I was interested in was "thermolene" aka n proply nitrate, which is a mono propellant. ie:- fuel and oxidiser in one chemical. Consider it like turbo-nitrous oxide! That is quite easy to make.

What I was considering was having something I could throw into 95 octane fuel for the biggest possible boost.

Toluene/Xylene/celly thinners/benzene all have a negative lead response so if you mix them with avgas, the MON goes down a tad IIRC. If you add them to unleaded, the octane number goes up a tad. I can't remember the MON's of them off hand.

So, in light of this, the best fuel for leading is 95 which is good news for your wallets.

Still haven't heard back from the chem suppliers yet.

Thing is with that 2,3,3 trimethyl butane is that you'll need loads of it which demands a big plant.

I have access to 2 6th form classes which make what I tell them to, when I tell them to (within reason) and so I can always get medium scale knockups done quite quickly :)

Bugger off, I'm getting there.

no way! Thats so funny, getting your students to make your super boost fuel!! hahaha

Thermolene is what the used in the turbonique stuff wasnt it?

I just want to run my diesel on chip fat, and my supercharged imp on ethanol. Both a damn sight cheaper than rubbish pump fuel, and much mroe environmentally friendly.

J

Well, after some reflection and readings.

environnemental consideration is as important as the actone/boost stuff regarding me.
I've used toluene without knowing how detrimental it is for environnement, will not use anymore. as any of the overs chemical derivatives.
all of the chemicals you described are very polluent and highly toxic ,appart the ethanol one.
The only one I would consider then is ethanol .
have you seen the lotus 265E ,it's impressive, I hope e85 will be available soonly here, it will concilie my green mind and turbo love.
As mini is still in the build/rebuil time and full specs aren't fully determined, I'll then consider than it will be fuelled by e85 .

Make your own Fab, ethanol is dead easy, and there are many sites on how to makes stills etc.

You will need a non consumption alcohol production licence from the govenment though, dont seem like too much hassle to get hold of.

Ethanol is the only one that is really viable, if it al goes to plan, the citroen diesel will be running cooking oil, and the supercharged imp running grain alcohol. Perfect!

J

Ethanol is fin on most car parts, its methanol that the real bugger, as you say anodized parts is where its at

Nitromethane is actually lower in octane rating than most of the above fuels, it just makes more power becuase of the extra oxygen.

Im going to go for ethanol as soon as possible, make so much sence, less pollution more octane and more BOOOoOooOOooost

J