So, I dug up a buried idea that I'm surprised isn't used most often; toluene/pump fuel mix. I have a datalogger from Mirage Corp using a Palm PDA, so I'm going to be doing some heavy data logging comparing pump fuel with pump fuel/toluene mix. If the results are truly promising, I might be raising the boost. :-) -From what I understand, the toyota supra guys are pretty common users of toluene, so I may have to seek their opinions and experiences for more information.
I'll provide a more thorough write-up of toluene later, but I will lay down a quick synopsis of what this stuff is all about. Toluene is known an aromatic hydrocarbon and, believe it or not, is actually already a component of gasoline. Toluene has incredible properties as a fuel for internal combustion engines, namely for those that have high compression and/or are force induced. Toluene has a very high flash point, which helps deter the onset of detonation and pre-ignition. In addition to this, its effective U.S. octane rating is 117 (U.S. octane rating is the average of Research Octane Number and Motor Octane Number - (RON+MON)/2 - you should see this exact formula on most pumps at your local gas station). This rating is actually higher than most all out leaded racing fuels, such as 110 octane cam2 and 116 octane c16. This, of course, does not contain lead, it is purely a hydrocarbon and nothing more. One more good quality about toluene is its density. Toluene is somewhat denser than gasoline, therefore contains more BTU's per unit volume. This could equate to more power once the air/fuel ratio has been adjusted accordingly. At this point you're probably wondering why someone wouldn't just run toluene straight up without mixing (which is entirely possible by the way). Well, let's go into a bit of history.
Toluene was actually proven as a fuel by the most prestigious and cutting edge form of racing that exists: Formula One. In the 80's, they used an 86% toluene mix as their racing fuel. This fuel mix allowed them to do a number of things: Run higher compression, reach absurd levels of boost from their turbochargers, and make incredible levels of power from very small displacement engines. To give you an idea; Formula One used 1.5 liter engines that would run upwards of 70 pounds of boost on sustained circuit raceways, producing almost 1,500 horsepower, or about 1,000 horsepower per liter of displacement, which is an unheard of ratio. The drawback was that because of the much higher flash point spoken about earlier, the fuel has to be preheated in the fuel lines before it reaches the engine to be able to combust properly (small price to pay). Fast forward to today.
Because of the preheating requirement, the most aggressive mix anybody should need to run on a street car is no more than a 50% mix. Even at this amount, cold start issues will start presenting itself, even on warm days. I am going to shoot for no more than a 33% mix, although I'll probably start with a 20% mix and go from there.
Expense: Depends on your locale.
From what I understand, toluene can be had for about US $6.00 /gallon at a decently priced paint/hardware store. at a 25% mix, this should be high enough octane to run fairly aggressive boost (23-25 pounds) on my particular turbochargers. Having said that, I can stick about 12 gallons of treated fuel in my car for about:
3 gallons of toluene X $6.00 = $18.00
9 gallons of 93 octane X $3.20 = ~$29.00
Total cost for homemade race gas brew: $47
Comparison: Cost of average leaded fuel of similar quality: $10.00/gallon
$10.00/gallon times 12 gallons: $120.00
So far all I've managed to find around Annapolis are two Home Depot's that both sell Xylene at $16.00/gallon. Xylene is an aromatic hydrocarbon of the same family, but has inferior qualities in comparison, although xylene makes an aggressive fuel mixture in its own right. However, at $16.00/gallon, economy is down the drain.
I'll be following up with this later on with a more thorough write up of what toluene is and how it affected my 3000gt's overall performance.
