intouch1

Thinking of using toluene in my turbo to raise my octane rating. mixing 20% tluene to our 95 RON should give me approx. 98 RON the engine requires.....

any thoughts ?

its better than octane boosters as it does not contain any lead and therefore does not harm O2 sensores.

furthermore, i believe that gasoline contains toluene anyway and is used by petrol companies to raise octane of their fuels....

Bob Rouleau

Why do you want to raise the octane of your fuel? The car runs fine on premium unleaded.

BC

Its energy content is a bit more. So you would have to run less of it, percentage wise, depending on how much is in the regular gas. But it is 118 octane, so if you are changing things, and need a slower flame front, then this would be your ticket.

BC

But it is also quite nasty:

http://rais.ornl.gov/tox/profiles/toluene_c_V1.shtml

BC

A very good read:

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

Land Jet

Keep a close eye on this if you have kids. Toluene is the active ingredient in airplane glue that kids sniff to get high.

gradyex

Unfortunately, if you live in California, you only have access to 91 octane gas. The turbos engine management system is the same for the entire US. It is optimised for 93 octane fuel. Anything over that is a waste of money but I often go to Infinion Raceway and use 100 octane fuel (about 7-8 gallons per tankful) to bring the octane up to 93 or 94. After 10 minutes I can "feel" the difference. The car is more responsive, goes to redline quicker, pulls harder. My dealership says that the turbo gets a 10% increase in power/torque raising the Octane 2 points. It may not be that much but I can really feel the car get its "pep" back and its almost addicting making my run to Infinion when i can. Right now 100 octane is $6.45 per gallon vs about $4.00 for 91. 7 gallons of 100 is all you need to get to 93. California gas =

BC

E85 is less.