spiralsmurf

i did some quick arithmetic and found that buying toluene is just not very economical.

If it put in 10 gallons of 91, and 3 gallons of 100 octane, i get 13 gallons of just over 93 octane. The 100 octane goes for $4.50/gal at Union 76.

Toluene goes for about $12.50 with tax for one gal and will also raise the octane to 93 when mixed with 10 gallons of 91, but in the end i have 11 gallons of 93, not 13 when using race gas.

Unless you're shooting for octane higher than 93, i dont see it as being economical if race gas is available in your area.

Stage-3-Emre

Where's the question?

4Driver4

And toluene is available for $10/gal if you look around.

And while I understand the gist of your calculations, your toluene solution is closer to 93.5 octane and the race mix is closer to 93 even.

To do some not-so-quick math:
To make equal solutions, you would only need .98 gallons of toluene...of course, then you would only have 10.98 gallons of fuel (but you would save a whopping $.29 of toluene.

Not that you are wrong - another factor is the ease of mixing.

The Librarian

you can bring your costs down by buying the toluene in a 5 US gal can. Buying 1 gal at a time is VERY expensive.

Dave F.

spiralsmurf

Tom,

thats how much the 100 octane goes here in socal at 76 stations. I dont know if they have stations on the east coast, but check www.76.com and they have a list of the stations that sell race gas. This isn't like 110 octane race gas, that stuff is way more expensive.

It just seems more economical to use this route in my particular case. I still want to try toluene but when i do, i'll be going for 100 final octane

spiralsmurf

question is whether there is any particular advantage to toluene over race gas

spiralsmurf

from sherwin williams with a contractors account its $10.30/gallon no tax. I think the price of toluene went up heavily.

kday

I called a few places, and that's about the best I found also. Although after my second trip to the local Sherwin Williams in two days, the clerk gave me 10% off my second trip just by pushing a button on the register

I am not planning on doing this long term, although it is interesting to figure out how much toluene you could buy for the price of an FMIC or water injection kit.

quattro20v

It depends on the highest octane you can get at the pump (outside of race fuel) and what octane you are shooting for and how readily available race fuel is.

Here in Vancouver, we can get 94 octane at the pump (Chevron). I found I needed 96 to stop my car from pinging with the "370 BP" software.

I found using toluene to raise 94 to 96 was cheaper than buying 100 octane and diluting it with 94 to get 96 because race fuel is not readily available here and is sold only through a few specialized dealers in 5 gal cans (read expensive).

In your example, its clearly cheaper to mix 100 race with 91 pump gas, but in my case it was not.

This is a moot point now, since I changed to Dahlback SW and it does not ping with 94.

spiralsmurf

what if something clogs the water injection jet, or the pump dies. i know a lot of people who run it, but i'd rather reduce performance than take the risk on daily driving. I know the chances of a pump dying are very slim and systems like aquamist are heavily engineered, but **** happens and i dont want to be there when it does