Octane Additives?

[Wayne Maybury]

I have made a couple of posts regarding my opinions on Toluene, gasoline, etc. Both Jack Z and I have looked up data and tried to report our findings to the best of our ability. However, I wanted an expert opinion on what is actually in gasoline today so I contacted a freind who put me in contact with a recently retired petroleum engineer who is also a car nut. Here are some of his comments. To my American friends, I have to admit that all of his comments are based on Canadian gasoline but I think that our gas and US gas is just about the same with the exception of some additives.

Typical pump "super" gasoline contains about 30% toluene and xylene. "Regular" contains somewhat less.

Refiners have reduced the amount of benzene in gasoline to less than 1% quite a few years ago.

There are hundreds of componds in pump gasoline.

In his opinion, toluene is less dangerous than gasoline but obviously both are highly flammable.

He has no experience with nitromethane but he confirmed that it is a very dangerous product to handle and great care must be exercised when doing so. He said that he would never try to use it without knowing a lot more about it. It is for the pros.

He also confirmed that he would never put lacquer thinner in his car since he would have no idea what was blended to make the thinner. The thinner may, or may not, contain toluene. He did say that adding toluene to your gas will increase the octane with no side effects since it is already present in the gas. We did not discuss volumes, percentages, etc.

He worked on a project a few yeras ago involving evaluating the effects of adding 10% ethanol to normal gas. He stated that he went into the project with a negative attitude but that quickly changed when they ran dyno tests on a modern Corvette. The Vette produced more HP and torque with the 10% ethanol blend and it also had better 1/4 mile times. The down side is that it burned more fuel. He said he was quite impressed with their findings. He also said that adding ethanol to gas will increase the octane about the same amount as if an equal volume of toluene was added.

He was talking ethanol, not methanol. He said to never add methanol to your gas. He was involved in another project where they ran a fleet of Luminas on a methanol/gasoline blend. Even though the cars were specially modified to be able to use the methanol, they had all kinds of problems. Much of the difficulties related to corrosion. He said the methanol attacked just about everything in the fuel delivery system.

I hope this clears up some of the points we have been discussing. Again, I would like to say that this has been a most interesting topic to discuss.

Regards,
Wayne