fnbrowning

I live in the midwest and the g/f and I drove from Missouri to California.

Everything went fine until we stopped for gas at a Chevron station in Kingman, AZ. I fueled up with premium as usual. We had hardly entered the freeway when the car begain to detonate - BAD!
The ba$tards must be selling regular as premium, or the gas was contaminated!

I managed the throttle enough to avoid pinging, and we limped into Needles CA. There I found a NAPA parts store. I wanted to buy an octane booster. I've not bought octance boost before, because my car was tuned properly to get the best power & avoid detonation.

My delimma was, “Which product actually helps, and what products are just expensive gimmicks?”

I looked at the NOS brand Octane Booster. Expensive! It contained a main ingredient called Methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl. There was a NAPA octane boost with the same ingredient that was ½ the price, so I bought that and put 2 bottles in the tank.

The detonation is considerably reduced, but not totally gone.

Questions:

Was this the best additive I could get for another bad gas incident?
I want to keep a couple of bottles of some octane boost in the car in case I run into this problem again.
How much octane boost can I pour in the tank at one time? {More may not = better}

Any suggestions?

red beast

torco does really well I have used it many times.....one quart of it to 5 gallons of 93 equals 108, buy some and keep it in your trunk.....look for booster that increases octane points.....

Billy177

http://www.kemcooil.com/product_info.php?pId=61 if you dont have cats, torco if you do. the napa crap does very little

davered00ss

iTrader: (4)

Good heads up. I should get some too.

fnbrowning

Thanks Billy and Red.

I have to add a couple of things.

I have cats, so no TETRAETHYL LEAD.

I need a suggestion of an octane booster I can easily buy retail, because I'm on vacation here in L.A. and I need to get something easy to find.

Billy177

unless you find a place that sells torco you may be out of luck aside from buying a 5gal jug of race fuel. I would strongly consider a 160 thermostat for your car.

supersickss

wow ive stopped at at both places you mentioned on my trip from oklahoma to california in 13 hours. and if i remember correctly that Napa store is one Redneck store! or i was realy realy tired

Zger

iTrader: (18)

Go to a hardware store and get a couple gallons of Xylene. It's normally used as a paint thinner, but it has a high octane rating and people have been using it for years as a cheap homemade race gas. It needs to be diluted with gas though. 1 gallon of Xylene + 3 gallons of 93 octane pump gas = 4 gallons of 100 octance gas. I think it's 116 or 117 octane. I used to use this stuff when I raced a Buick GN. Dump in the 100 octane mix and turn the boost up.

Zger

iTrader: (18)

No lead in Xylene either.