Toluene

[Joshie]

I came across this page which extol the virtues of adding toluene to significantly increase the octance rating of your fuel. It was touched on in another thread recently about which petrol to use but the performance benefits seem to be significant.

http://www.elektro.com/~audi/audi/toluene.html

Apparently Toluene is is pure hydrocarbon and is present in normal petrol anyhow. The questions I have are:

1. Will it harm the engine?
2. Where can it be bought?
3. How much is it in the UK?
4. What sort of performance hike can be expected?

I remember reading about on one of the American tuners sites about the specific power outputs from Audi turbo engines noting the the powere increased significantly according to the octane rating of the fuel.

Anybody have a view?

[Thorney]

It is very very dangerous stuff, massively carcinogenic and has to be handled with extreme care.

Not the sort of stuff you store in your garage [img]images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[johneroberts]

Didnt steve gibbons have a hit with it in the 70s [img]images/graemlins/tung2.gif[/img]

[Bushy]

showing your age there mate

have you got the 78? [img]images/graemlins/jump.gif[/img]

[quattropaul]

Toluene is nasty nasty <beep> [img]images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[Joshie]

It is very very dangerous stuff, massively carcinogenic and has to be handled with extreme care.

Not the sort of stuff you store in your garage [img]images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

But is was used extensively in F1 and apparently in the States and Oz it is freely available and in widespread use [img]images/graemlins/boots.gif[/img]

[Simon]

It has a flash point of 4 degrees and has a 'funny' effect on female hormones apparently........

Simon

[Dippy]

Excellent one Ian!

I await your next post about needing to replace heads, cylinders, cats and yet more turbos, after putting in too much toluene. [img]images/graemlins/flamethrower.gif[/img]

Don't forget that Millers, and any other commercially available octane booster is dangerous too: Don't get it on your hands and avoid breathing in any fumes.

[Joshie]

So you're saying that it damages the engine. [img]images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] OK, fine, but have you had first had expeience of this happening or are there any articles supporting what you are suggesting?

The link I posted does argue that toluene is a major constituent of petrol anyway. If you add sufficient to take the octane up from 98 to say 100 why should that do any damage? [img]images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[toasty]

Think it's fair to say that any petrol additives are nasty substances.

Anything like Benzene, Xylene, Napthas, Toluene (less commonly known as the 'aromatic hydrocarbons') would do you serious damage if ingested or even inhaled, but I'm pretty sure no one here would be silly enough to do this.

I'll ask my mate, he's a chemistry Phd, see what he says about their affect on RON [img]images/graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

[Joshie]

I was thinking about adding it to my petrol, not sniffing it [img]images/graemlins/spineyes.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/icon_lol.gif[/img]

Loking forward to what your pal has to say about this stuff.

[Dippy]

So you're saying that it damages the engine. [img]images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img] OK, fine, but have you had first had expeience of this happening or are there any articles supporting what you are suggesting?

The link I posted does argue that toluene is a major constituent of petrol anyway. If you add sufficient to take the octane up from 98 to say 100 why should that do any damage? [img]images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Hang on - there was supposed to be a sense of humour there.

I wrote "too much". The point is that you can use Millers as they have blended it so that 1 bottle in 50l is what you need. If you just buy a bottle of toluene, how do you know how much to add?

As far as damage is concerned, yes it can damage the engine. As you pointed out, petrol is composed of a blend of hydrocarbons including toluene. Refineries make petrol through a combination of distillation and blending to make a petrol which will provide an appropriate octane for the engines in today's markets. The 95/97/98 RON measurement is a standard based on actual testing using an engine test-bed. Thus the car makers and oil companies make sure that the petrol is appropriate for the engines.

Now you want to increase your engine's performance by increasing the octane. Fine, but Audi tested the engine with 98 and 95 RON fuel. 100 RON fuel will be more explosive and probably burn hotter. How will the engine react to that? Who knows?

Basically if you want to squeeze more power out of your engine you are increasing stress on the components and reducing their average lifetime. The art is to increase the parameters by a carefully balanced amount.

This is the case with boost pressure. The S4 ships with 0.8bar. A stage 1 chip gets to around 1.1 bar steady state, and this appears to be relatively safe. I'm sure you agree that taking the boost to 1.4 bar is going to shorten the life of the engine.

It's the same with octane rating. Increase it by all means but you're going to stress the engine more. I am happy to use Millers as I believe (hope?) that they have tested it.

Pure toluene on the other hand...

[Paul-RS]

Simon Elman uses this stuff on his MTM S3

its used as paint thinners, i believe. and you have to be carful of the tax aspect if you use it as fuel and get caught.

[ChrisG]

I seem to remember reading in Hot Rod Magazine many years ago that in is highly toxic and must not get on the skin, as it permeates the skin into the blood stream, can easily cause death !
Dippy gave us all a lecture ( in a nice way ) about additives and their effects some time last year. I keep thinking I should use plastic gloves with the Millers, or is that OTT ??

[Joshie]

Hang on - there was supposed to be a sense of humour there.

And who's saying I wasn't laughing? [img]images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/graemlins/biggrin2.gif[/img]

Didn't mean to come across in a kinda adversarial way Dave. [img]images/graemlins/stormTrooper.gif[/img]

I just wanted to see if we could get this subject explored more fully than just dismissing it as an apparently hairbrained idea.

Aparently, in the USA the octane of the fuel is higher than in the UK. US fuel is 92 Octane but I'm not sure how this relates to RON because I'm not sure of the relationship between RON and Octane. In France Super is 98 RON - here Superplus is 97 RON - so basically Uk fuel is not particularly high quality. So what are the benefits of using say 100 RON fuel versus the real risks? On the face of it I would have thought that better quality fuel would have a beneficial effect and the engine would run smoother.

Anyone know for sure?