Will an Octane Booster help?
08-20-2018, 09:43 PM
#16
Race Director
Well, one person's snake oil is another person's miracle cure. Additives that go both in the oil and fuel have been around for a long time. (At one time the recommendation was to add ATF oil to the engine and fuel tank. To the oil for its high detergent level and to the fuel for its lubricity as a "top end" lubricant; kind of a tastes great and is less filling kind of thing...). I have an inherent distrust that something that is claimed to be suitable for use in the engine oil is also suitable for use in gasoline or vice versa. The two situations are quite dissimilar.
Techron is a fuel only additive. It works based on my experience, provided there are any deposits to be dealt with. As I think I mentioned -- too busy to reread the thread -- a switch from Shell V-Power to Chevron Supreme (after a couple of years of pretty much Shell only) had my Boxster engine running better in just a tank's worth of Chevron. OTOH, my Turbo when switched from Shell to Chevron (with likewise a couple of years of pretty much Shell only) didn't manifest any change one way or the other. I attribute this to 1) The Turbo engine is a more precisely fueled engine with a bonus of a better AOS thus the engine has less opportunity to develop engine deposits; 2) The Boxster had around 300K miles on it while the Turbo less than half that number. My thinking was that while the Boxster engine didn't manifest any real issues from the higher miles blow by was likely higher and with the lousy AOS to add insult to injury the Boxster engine developed more deposits as a result. In short Techron had something to clean in the Boxster engine but not the Turbo engine.
With the Boxster (and other cars but I can't recall with the Turbo so maybe not) the engine perked up some after a longish drive of around 50 highway miles though often when I ventured out on the road I'd drive more like 200 miles. Regardless, the Boxster after 50 (or more miles) and other cars with most often 100 to 200 miles of highway driving under their belt were running noticeably better afterwards. The engine ran better after a long run at just highway speeds because of the extended run time gave gasoline -- not always Chevron -- time for its detergents to work.
There is the caution that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. While I have run Chevron gasoline with Techron for hundreds of thousands of miles I have not seen any issues with this regular and heavy usage. And certainly there are millions of other cars running this fuel and there is no problem with the level of Techron in the gasoline.
However, I would not use the Techron additive very often. Techs have advised me that using it every 5K miles (which for me is when I change the oil) is sufficient. However, the techs that I talked to told me while they often run another brand of gasoline -- Shell was the favorite -- every so often they'd run a tank or two of Chevron for its cleansing benefit. This is really preferred to using the additive though if Chevron is not available then the bottle is the only option.
But when used properly and in moderation the additive can deliver a real benefit, too. Shortly after I bought the Turbo (used) I ran at least one bottle of Techron through the engine and maybe two just to ensure the fuel system and engine were free of deposits that might have accumulated from the 1st owner and his infrequent use (1666 miles per year average) of the car in its first 6 years of service. I noticed no change in the Turbo engine, but I felt better having treated it to some Techron. Since then I recall using a bottle of Techron in the Turbo but that was just once after the initial time shortly after I bought the car with 10K miles on it to before I sold it with 161K miles on it.
But more frequent use could result -- so I've been told -- in injector tip erosion which could affect the spray pattern of the injectors. Maybe. Maybe not. But I'm not about to risk it with my engines.So my usage of Techron beyond any in the gasoline I buy is very very infrequent.
The sulfur in diesel fuel was not an injector (or high pressure fuel pump) lubricant. (Primarily sulfur results in more particulate matter in the exhaust and as a major contributor to acid formation in the oil from combustion blow by so removing it was mainly to reduce diesel particulate emissions.) But its removal in some way chemically altered diesel fuel (besides the obvious reduction in sulfur content) and some were of the opinion this resulted in diesel injector and high pressure fuel pump problems.
I owned a 2002 VW Golf TDI from March 2002 to sometime in early 2007 and put almost 150K miles on the car. Early in my ownership the "advice" I received was to use some diesel fuel additive -- the name escapes me -- every fill up and in fact when changing the fuel filter to dump a bottle of this stuff into the fuel filter housing to act in concentrated form to clean the fuel pump and injectors. I resisted adding the stuff to the fuel filter housing but I tried a bottle or two in the fuel tank as per directions with no real change in how the engine ran, even in real cold weather. Because I'm not a fan of regularly -- like every fill up -- using fuel additives I stopped using the stuff. I just tried to buy a name brand diesel fuel sold by a busy station. Truck stops were my favorite as they had the best prices and the fuel was super fresh.
Oh, I stopped using the diesel fuel additive but not before I added nearly a bottle of it to the car's fuel tank and out of curiosity looked into the bottle to ensure I had put it all in the tank when I spotted a marble size ball of nasty water/rust muck stuff at the bottom of the bottle. Had I dumped this into the fuel filter that ball of muck would have gone directly to and right through the high pressure fuel pump and through one or more injectors. I hate to think of what that would have done to the hardware. All those VW TDi owners that followed the advice I was given were probably doing more harm than good.
(The VW TDi had a water trap as part of the fuel filter so if any of that muck made its way into the fuel tank it would be removed by the water trap and excellent fuel filter.)
My experience over the years of running ethanol treated gasoline is the engine and injectors were apparently unaffected by the presence of ethanol. I never had a cylinder/ring/bore or valve issues nor injector issues in any of my cars that received ethanol treated gasoline. This includes not only my Boxster and Turbo but also my 2006 GTO. Collectivelly these engines covered nearly 525K miles with 99% of those miles with ethanol treated gasoline in the gas tank and 91 octane too boot.
Ethanol comes in for a lot of negativity, and it certainly deserves them, but cylinder/ring/piston or injector wear doesn't appear to be a negative side effect of ethanol treated gasoline, at least in my experience.
A leaking injector due to a failure of some kind of perhaps a piece of dirt or fuel system scale which causes the injector leak can certainly result in a scored cylinder, ring/piston assembly. If a leaking injector happens if not caught and addressed in time can damage the engine. But this damage can/will occur even if the fuel is ethanol free.
Techron is a fuel only additive. It works based on my experience, provided there are any deposits to be dealt with. As I think I mentioned -- too busy to reread the thread -- a switch from Shell V-Power to Chevron Supreme (after a couple of years of pretty much Shell only) had my Boxster engine running better in just a tank's worth of Chevron. OTOH, my Turbo when switched from Shell to Chevron (with likewise a couple of years of pretty much Shell only) didn't manifest any change one way or the other. I attribute this to 1) The Turbo engine is a more precisely fueled engine with a bonus of a better AOS thus the engine has less opportunity to develop engine deposits; 2) The Boxster had around 300K miles on it while the Turbo less than half that number. My thinking was that while the Boxster engine didn't manifest any real issues from the higher miles blow by was likely higher and with the lousy AOS to add insult to injury the Boxster engine developed more deposits as a result. In short Techron had something to clean in the Boxster engine but not the Turbo engine.
With the Boxster (and other cars but I can't recall with the Turbo so maybe not) the engine perked up some after a longish drive of around 50 highway miles though often when I ventured out on the road I'd drive more like 200 miles. Regardless, the Boxster after 50 (or more miles) and other cars with most often 100 to 200 miles of highway driving under their belt were running noticeably better afterwards. The engine ran better after a long run at just highway speeds because of the extended run time gave gasoline -- not always Chevron -- time for its detergents to work.
There is the caution that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. While I have run Chevron gasoline with Techron for hundreds of thousands of miles I have not seen any issues with this regular and heavy usage. And certainly there are millions of other cars running this fuel and there is no problem with the level of Techron in the gasoline.
However, I would not use the Techron additive very often. Techs have advised me that using it every 5K miles (which for me is when I change the oil) is sufficient. However, the techs that I talked to told me while they often run another brand of gasoline -- Shell was the favorite -- every so often they'd run a tank or two of Chevron for its cleansing benefit. This is really preferred to using the additive though if Chevron is not available then the bottle is the only option.
But when used properly and in moderation the additive can deliver a real benefit, too. Shortly after I bought the Turbo (used) I ran at least one bottle of Techron through the engine and maybe two just to ensure the fuel system and engine were free of deposits that might have accumulated from the 1st owner and his infrequent use (1666 miles per year average) of the car in its first 6 years of service. I noticed no change in the Turbo engine, but I felt better having treated it to some Techron. Since then I recall using a bottle of Techron in the Turbo but that was just once after the initial time shortly after I bought the car with 10K miles on it to before I sold it with 161K miles on it.
But more frequent use could result -- so I've been told -- in injector tip erosion which could affect the spray pattern of the injectors. Maybe. Maybe not. But I'm not about to risk it with my engines.So my usage of Techron beyond any in the gasoline I buy is very very infrequent.
The sulfur in diesel fuel was not an injector (or high pressure fuel pump) lubricant. (Primarily sulfur results in more particulate matter in the exhaust and as a major contributor to acid formation in the oil from combustion blow by so removing it was mainly to reduce diesel particulate emissions.) But its removal in some way chemically altered diesel fuel (besides the obvious reduction in sulfur content) and some were of the opinion this resulted in diesel injector and high pressure fuel pump problems.
I owned a 2002 VW Golf TDI from March 2002 to sometime in early 2007 and put almost 150K miles on the car. Early in my ownership the "advice" I received was to use some diesel fuel additive -- the name escapes me -- every fill up and in fact when changing the fuel filter to dump a bottle of this stuff into the fuel filter housing to act in concentrated form to clean the fuel pump and injectors. I resisted adding the stuff to the fuel filter housing but I tried a bottle or two in the fuel tank as per directions with no real change in how the engine ran, even in real cold weather. Because I'm not a fan of regularly -- like every fill up -- using fuel additives I stopped using the stuff. I just tried to buy a name brand diesel fuel sold by a busy station. Truck stops were my favorite as they had the best prices and the fuel was super fresh.
Oh, I stopped using the diesel fuel additive but not before I added nearly a bottle of it to the car's fuel tank and out of curiosity looked into the bottle to ensure I had put it all in the tank when I spotted a marble size ball of nasty water/rust muck stuff at the bottom of the bottle. Had I dumped this into the fuel filter that ball of muck would have gone directly to and right through the high pressure fuel pump and through one or more injectors. I hate to think of what that would have done to the hardware. All those VW TDi owners that followed the advice I was given were probably doing more harm than good.
(The VW TDi had a water trap as part of the fuel filter so if any of that muck made its way into the fuel tank it would be removed by the water trap and excellent fuel filter.)
My experience over the years of running ethanol treated gasoline is the engine and injectors were apparently unaffected by the presence of ethanol. I never had a cylinder/ring/bore or valve issues nor injector issues in any of my cars that received ethanol treated gasoline. This includes not only my Boxster and Turbo but also my 2006 GTO. Collectivelly these engines covered nearly 525K miles with 99% of those miles with ethanol treated gasoline in the gas tank and 91 octane too boot.
Ethanol comes in for a lot of negativity, and it certainly deserves them, but cylinder/ring/piston or injector wear doesn't appear to be a negative side effect of ethanol treated gasoline, at least in my experience.
A leaking injector due to a failure of some kind of perhaps a piece of dirt or fuel system scale which causes the injector leak can certainly result in a scored cylinder, ring/piston assembly. If a leaking injector happens if not caught and addressed in time can damage the engine. But this damage can/will occur even if the fuel is ethanol free.
08-21-2018, 02:44 PM
#17
Well, one person's snake oil is another person's miracle cure. Additives that go both in the oil and fuel have been around for a long time. (At one time the recommendation was to add ATF oil to the engine and fuel tank. To the oil for its high detergent level and to the fuel for its lubricity as a "top end" lubricant; kind of a tastes great and is less filling kind of thing...). I have an inherent distrust that something that is claimed to be suitable for use in the engine oil is also suitable for use in gasoline or vice versa. The two situations are quite dissimilar.
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Oil and gasoline are so much better than when I started driving back in the late 60's tho. Even basic oil is vastly superior to what was available then. My dad's cars (he drove about 50K a year) were leased company cars and were turned in every year or less. He had a 68 Lemans with a 2 spd automatic that made it about 7 months before the leasing company took it back--just a totally bad automatic trans. He wasn't tough on cars, (I was) they just didn't last as long as cars do now. (I got that poor Lemans 3 ft. or so offf the ground at 70 mph.)