Good fuel or lack of it

[SuperPete]

Help guys.
I have friend in Portland Oregon who started tuning his 2015 Explorer Sport.
His OAR was horrible and dives down every time he does the pull, I come to find out that their gas is horrible comparing to east coast.
His best octane is 91, few stations around town are 92 (hard to find) and they only have ONE e85 station for the whole million and half size city, LOL, WHAT? Lancaster County PA has 15 for kids sake.
Anyway asking you for help or alternatives of what he should do or how can he bump his fuel up.
OCTANE booster from the store? Any other ideas, he would like to mix to 93-95 if possible in any way

Thank you all

 

[Ecoboost_xsport]

Help guys.
I have friend in Portland Oregon who started tuning his 2015 Explorer Sport.
His OAR was horrible and dives down every time he does the pull, I come to find out that their gas is horrible comparing to east coast.
His best octane is 91, few stations around town are 92 (hard to find) and they only have ONE e85 station for the whole million and half size city, LOL, WHAT? Lancaster County PA has 15 for kids sake.
Anyway asking you for help or alternatives of what he should do or how can he bump his fuel up.
OCTANE booster from the store? Any other ideas, he would like to mix to 93-95 if possible in any way

Thank you all

I am tuned for 100 oct in cali, where we have only 91. But we have a station that has the Sunoco 100 at the pump. Granted it's expensive and my car is not a daily. But if that does not exist, and he wants to tune for higher octane, then he will have to do the mixing. He will have to likely purchase fuels at whatever local race shop you have near you. Depending on how active he wants to be with this, you can order this stuff in bulk. It all depends on how much time/effort/money he wants to devote to this.

Note on octane boosters: I've always felt this stuff was snake oil, but I could be wrong. I'm open to anyone who has some experience and/or hard data on these.

 

[High on Ethanol]

A few of them work. Ive used torco and octanium. But the best way is probably buy some vp fuel and mix it in.

 

[skyshadow07]

Torco is the only Octane booster I have used that worked. I tried maybe 4 before deciding to do a E10-12 blend instead. The royal purple booster was the worst, KR got all the way up to 5. If you have access to E100, I would buy in bulk (like a 10gal jerry) and mix. I only need 2ish gallons of E100 each time I fill up.

 

[SuperPete]

Thank you guys for the feedback.
That is his daly driver, so he will be looking and trying few different things.
Where do you guys buy your VP fuel or E85 or what ever you mix it with.
Say he gets 5 gal of VP fuel, how much does he need to mix per tank?

thank you again, very helpful!

 

[Ecoboost_xsport]

Thank you guys for the feedback.
That is his daly driver, so he will be looking and trying few different things.
Where do you guys buy your VP fuel or E85 or what ever you mix it with.
Say he gets 5 gal of VP fuel, how much does he need to mix per tank?

thank you again, very helpful!

Gonna require a bit of math. You're gonna need to know how much is in the tank, what octane it is and what your target octane is.

16 gallon tank capacity with 8gallons of 91. Add 8 gallons of 100 and you'll get 95.5 octane (this is using math, but you'll likely not get it nailed down that tight unless you premixed with known quantities.if you ballpark it, it's better to make sure your octane mixture ends up slightly higher rather than lower.

 

[SuperPete]

Dang, Breaking Bad style, LOL

Got it, eat he will be in pain no matter what.
Ill have him try that Torco Octane Booster first, I need to stabilize his knock, it's pretty bad now, 3-5, crazy.
Keep them coming guy, if you have easy solution post up.
thank you again!

 

[FiveLeeter918]

VP Octanium is available at AutoZone and works well.

 

[RonPorter]

It's bad enough that California only has 91 octane, but they also run RFG fuel, which has more additives, knocking down the BTU content even more. Wouldn't surprise me if Oregon and Washington use the same swill. When I lived in the Chicago area, and Louisville back in the 90s, both were under EPA mandates, and had to run RFG. Dunno if they still do today.

If it were me, and I had a DD in those areas, I would just get a tune that runs on 91, and make life easy.

FWIW, buddy has a 68 Z28 he's had forever. Previous engine was a high compression 350. He messed with octane boosters, and occasionally a dose of race fuel. Finally just gave up and had a 383 built, and tuned for 93 (available everywhere here).

 

[76FoMoCo]

Local airport 100ll 2 gallons to a tank. Fill up 2x 5 gallon cans per trip.

 

[RonPorter]

Local airport 100ll 2 gallons to a tank. Fill up 2x 5 gallon cans per trip.

Hope that's not Av Gas. I forget the details, but not good for automotive use, apart from being leaded.

There is good gas, with no alky, at marinas, but it will cost you!

 

[76FoMoCo]

Hope that's not Av Gas. I forget the details, but not good for automotive use, apart from being leaded.

There is good gas, with no alky, at marinas, but it will cost you!

Bit ******* the cats, but in low mix perfectly acceptable. Plane motors are under the same principle. LL is low lead. Race 110 to 116c is high in led.

 

[High on Ethanol]

find a dirt track or people who race at one. They got vp gas

 

[skyshadow07]

Why spend $7-9 a gallon on 100 octane race fuel when you can spend $2 a gal on E100 that is north of 108 octane. This means a smaller blend creates a higher octane.

 

[FiveLeeter918]

Why spend $7-9 a gallon on 100 octane race fuel when you can spend $2 a gal on E100 that is north of 108 octane. This means a smaller blend creates a higher octane.

truth. a drum of E100 will be cheaper than a couple 5 gallon pails of race fuel

 

[High on Ethanol]

Why spend $7-9 a gallon on 100 octane race fuel when you can spend $2 a gal on E100 that is north of 108 octane. This means a smaller blend creates a higher octane.

E100 is race fuel.

On that note....why spend tons of money on a 4door rental car when the good ol F-one-fiddy does everything it does better...including hold market value.

What race fuel were you talking about? E100 or methanol is all I ever get from race fuel companies.

 

[High on Ethanol]

https://vpracingfuels.com/product/x98/?c=219

 

[skyshadow07]

E100 is race fuel.

On that note....why spend tons of money on a 4door rental car when the good ol F-one-fiddy does everything it does better...including hold market value.

What race fuel were you talking about? E100 or methanol is all I ever get from race fuel companies.

What are you babbling about? E100 is not sold as a race fuel. Let's say it is, it is still $2.00 a gallon while 100 octane RACE FUEL gasoline is $7.00+

 

[skyshadow07]

https://vpracingfuels.com/product/x98/?c=219

Is that a E98 ethanol blend or something? $47 for 5 gallons!?! holy crap, that's a rip off. You can buy 100% ethanol at regular gas stations in my state. The going price at the pump is about $2.00. You're paying the big bucks on 100 octane pure gasoline because it still has all the BTUs of energy that gas has. When you blend with ethanol you are losing 20-25% of that energy (recoverable with timing and such). So you either blend light (under 20% ethanol) or you tune for ethanol and pump more fuel to make up for the lost energy.

 

[High on Ethanol]

What are you babbling about? E100 is not sold as a race fuel. Let's say it is, it is still $2.00 a gallon while 100 octane RACE FUEL gasoline is $7.00+

All my raceway friends use e100 or e98...and its always in a race gas drum. It isn't very common to see e85 in most of the country so I don't know if you take the horses in the back or what but ya better check yourself.