Octane boosters, do they do more harm then help you? im not talking about like a stock motor, like, when i turbo my car and well im not going to have te cat either, are they a good idea to use or bad?

 

i put some in my go-cart and it was fine, but that was a go cart. it had a honda motor on it though

 

I think if your need it, you've got problems. Basically, higher octane fuel is simply more resistant to detonation or knock. You get this beause something the engine runs so hot that something is igniting the air/fuel mixture, besides the spark plug, before it's ready (like when the piston is still coming up). This is highly damaging to an engine because it's simply not designed to handle stresses like that. If your daily driving a car and having knock issue that could be helped with something like an octane booster, your just bandaiding the problem rather than cutting back the boost, backing off the timing or simply running the engine a little richer (assuming you have a way to do that).

That said, there are some modern cars that might benefit from that, especially if the highest octane you can buy from the pump is 91 (I can get 94 here in PA). A car with an adaptive engine managment that's watching the O2 sensor and knock sensor results might dial in a little more timing if the fuel will support it, giving you a little more power. Also, a lot of high speed, high tempurature driving might benefit from the additional knock protection, but again, it's probably better to address those issue rather than trying a magic juice to solve them.

Long story short, probably no major downside, aside from cost, for some additional protection, but not a solution or alternative to proper tuning. I've actually always wondered how those work? I'm assuming they can't sell simply high octane race fuel in a parts store bottle to dilute and raise the octane in your tank a little. A modern fuel pump has all the chemicals and addatives your engine needs so it may just be snake oil?

 

My main point of this question is, gas here sucks, and we cant buy 94 or 97. I think i might be able to buy 97 at the air port near my house, but i cant confrim this untill i go look my self. I would like to run 94 with my turbo installed once i install it, that is.
I am buying a new manifold for my turbo, and once i do that, then im going to be installing it.
Just asking if help or harm the gas or engine being that 91 is the highst i can get here.

 

Octane booster does nothing...it says up to 10 POINTS on the bottle. Read the fine print, 10 points= roughly 1 octane point so you're going from shit 87 octane to shit 88 octane. Just go get some race gas at your local track if you want higher octane. Airplane gas is NOT THE SAME as gasoline, it burns much much slower and is not explosive, i wouldn't run it in a honda.

 

There's a 76 that sell 100 Octane here in Pasadena. For like $3.75 /gal.