Octane Boosters and opther Addatives

[David Lisle]

Eric,

I’m investiagting whether or not to use an octane booster or other “proformance” addatives on my Tiburon. Have you done a ETCG1 video explaining the benefits and risks of using Addatives such as Octane boosters and other fuel addatives such as SeaFoam and Lucas brand products.

-Dave

Topic

[dave]

there is no benefit to boosting your octane. it’s all garbage. but people buy into the hype making it a multi-billion dollar industry.

[Coty Miller]

Yes and no… Lucas brand fuel injector cleaner and seafoam are the only thing keeping my dad’s 2001 cherokee on the road, see in 1999 when chrysler re-designed the head in the 4.0 the put the injectors a little to close the the exhaust manifold…

Now see this becomes a problem because when you shut the engine off without letting it cool the heat from the exhaust will crystallize the fuel within the injectors, about once a year my dads jeep gets a random misfire on some random cylinder, with a little lucas fuel treatment, the problem goes away…

The problem of course is that this can break sentiment from the bottom of the tank that will get gunked up in the fuel filter, but this is still the best “fix” for his problem…

Also as stated on jay leno’s garage using the exact Lucas brand injector cleaner can help save old cars that were intended to run with leaded fuel as it also acts a lubricant, my uncle uses it about every other tank or so in his classic cars…

Other than for these 2 problems, as pointed out on fifth gear, fuel additives are useless..

[EricTheCarGuy]

I’ve been asked about this topic extensively. The fact is I don’t have any automotive experience with sea foam or many of the other additives you mentioned. I used it in my lawn mower and it worked pretty good. I never tried it in an automobile however. I normally use the set up you saw in my latest video with the Nissan to clean fuel injectors. I’m not a fan of in tank additives as I really haven’t seen the benefit to offset the cost. I’d like to do some ‘real world’ testing to confirm this before I would make a video about it. Just having an opinion isn’t enough for me. I’d like to have some data to back me up. As for octane, I did make this video that you might find helpful.

Nissan video

[dan]

Octane rating, basically just a number that stands for that fuels ability too resist spark knock, or pree ignition, the thing is the higher the octane rating, typically the slower the fuel burns. example 87 octane which is typical burns faster more volatile… and is less resistant too being ignited buy compression than something as a extreme example 150 Octane AV Gasoline which burns very slowly and has a very high resistance too being ignited buy compression. (as well as being full of lead which WWII fighters had issues with fouling spark plugs with.)

your ignition system is timed too fire at a certain point before top dead center so the fuel air mixture explodes and expands some time just after the piston reaches TDC pushing it down, if you put a higher octane gasoline in your engine, the air fuel mixture may ignite and attempt too press down the piston too far after the piston reaches TDC this is why “increasing” your octane level is silly with these additives… you can also get spark knock with too low of a octane beacuse the engine is tuned for the higher octane, once ignited the fuel may ignite too quickly and try too push the piston down before the piston even reaches TDC causing spark knock. so i never use “Octane Boosters” beacuse they do not work, neither do i use some advertised fuel additives that are supposed too increase how quickly the fuel burns beacuse it can cause spark knock.

i do however use Seafoam and Lucas treatments as well as Marvel Mistery Oils with every oil change, these clean and or lubricate the fuel system as well as helping lubricate valve seats and clean out combustion chambers… otherwise i would not use Seafoam or Lucas fuel system cleaners beacuse otherwise i would see no benefits from it at all…

[David Lisle]

Eric,

I would be willing to have my Tiburon be used as a test vehicle for showing if Seafoam is a benefit or not. I have seen a gas mileage increase of about 3-4 MPG after using Seafoam for about 3 to 4 tanks of gas.

[Its me]

[quote=”dblisle” post=94647]Eric,

I would be willing to have my Tiburon be used as a test vehicle for showing if Seafoam is a benefit or not. I have seen a gas mileage increase of about 3-4 MPG after using Seafoam for about 3 to 4 tanks of gas.[/quote]

Just out of curiosity, when (calendar datewise) did you start using seafoam, and where are you located?

The reason I ask this is that summer blends of gas start coming out in March/April and summer blends get better gas mileage… I can tell when winter blend hits after one fillup at the station…. I lose 3-4 MPG….

-Karl

[David Lisle]

I have used it in both Winter and summer, most recent was about a month ago.

[Lorrin Barth]

I talked to the people who know about octane booster. They explained it in detail. Bottom line – octane booster is worthless.

[Author]

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