[Tigers] Octane Booster Question

[William Lau]

There is a very good chance that the reason for all of this is that higher
octane fuel is made by adding alcohol and since the alcohol has much less
BTU's per gallon the power is also less.  It will change your gas mileage
for the worse also. -- Bill --




From: tigers-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:tigers-bounces at autox.team.net]
On Behalf Of Steve Sage
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 1:48 PM
To: TIGERS at AUTOX.TEAM.NET
Subject: [Tigers] Octane Booster Question

I've advanced the timing a bit on my Tiger 289 engine. Using regular 87 
gas, under full load I can induce some pinging and knocking. I tried a 
tank of premium 92 octane at my local gas station and the car ran worse. 
Still pinged (maybe more) but the car also seemed noticeably slower. 
Nowhere near the torque as before. I ran that tank down and re filled 
with regular from the same station and it runs fine again, but with the 
same pinging under full load. I'm sure my local station does not sell 
very much premium, so it's probably old gas. I understand octane 
degrades the longer it's in those big tanks in the ground. For all I 
know the "premium" I bought had lower octane by this process than the 
usual regular I buy. Some other hot roders I've talked to have mentioned 
similar experiences on occasion.

Which brings up octane booster products. Has anyone done any 
studies/experimentation as to which brands work or don't work, and are 
worth the money (and maybe won't dissolve the sealers in our fuel tanks)?

Steve Sage