Thread: Toluene as an Octain Booster

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Has anyone ever used toluene in their small block chevy and if so what did u thin about using it?

No, but the stuff will kill your brain cells asap if you inhale it! Be carefull!

used it in my 548 bbc 14to8 cr did think much it work but i just run race fuel

There was a thread on here a while back with tons of info... I've never tried it myself:

Here is the thread:
http://www.clubhotrod.com/forums/sho...hlight=toluene

Here is a link posted by rumrumm in that thread with all you ever wanted to know about toluene:
www.elektro.com/~audi/audi/toluene.html

-Chris

I ran it in my small block a while back but I got tired of adding the stuff in. But i did get a very noticeable hp gain after adding it little bit at a time. Ive got a sorta pinging noise i my engine after a couple plug wires got burned because they touched the headers and filed down my dist. cap so a changed the wires and cap but i still have a pinging noise on the passenger side valve cover. I guess when this happened I lost oil pressure while i was driving and thats what caused the knock. I was wondering would the toluene get rid of this a little. What do u guys think?

First off make sure your timing is good. Second off what is you CR? I have run a SBCat 11.3:1 with premium and no det if I indexed the plugs. If you do have det water injection may be an alternative. It could easily pay for itself and be more convenient than race gas.

There is really no known benefit of it or acetone,although I have many reliable sources that beg to differ. In my '68 BBC Vette I ran a 50.50 mixture of 104 leaded race gas and unleaded premium.

My advice: Put some heads on that don't need this crapola if possible.

Kitz

Funny (to me) story: Years ago when I started out as a lowly Asst. Prof. they gave me all night classes and a night lab course so one night I went out to find my 1500 cc VW dune buggy was out of gas. I went back to the lab stockroom and found a big can of heptane which is a C7 hydrocarbon and which will knock really bad but nearby I also found a smaller jug of toluene so I remembered that toluene has an octane rating of about 110 while heptane must be down around 80 or so. So I mixed a quart of each into a jug and took it out to the parking lot. This mixture should have had an octane number of about (80 + 110)/2 = 95 and I used the cap of the jug to pour a capfull down the carb throat and put the rest in the tank and it started right up and ran great for the two blocks over to an all-night gas station. I know toluene is a great fuel but I do not know how to compare it to racing fuel although it should have an octane number close to 110.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

don't know much about water injection. Can u tell me how that works

Actually the octane rating is 114