So fella's what are any one's thoughts on octane boosters and products such as gum out? I see that there are more than a few of these types of things on the shelves of my local Autozone/wal-mart. Do any of these actually work? (injecter cleaners and other fuel additives) I'm looking for any fact based knowledge on how these products work, if they do, is one better than the other? I spose we could get into oil additives while we are on the subject. but really i've heard they are all just a waste of money while others swear by them. So can we seperate Truth from Myths? I've always been a big fan of the truth. can my truck get "hooked" on any of these products or will they cause any damage?

 

Well, i guess true, but lets understand what do you want to get.

If you have overbore engine, that needs hight otane fuel. The best way to increase octane ratio is to use Leaded fuel, but lead kills oxy sensors and not used now. 10 galon of leaded gas is enought.

MTBE is good octane booster, has oxygen, but decreses horsepower a bit and drops MPG for 5%. Engine runs smoothly, but to have the same effect just add alcohol. Mix of ethanol and low oct. fuel is very popular in mexico.

Ferrozen drammaticly increases oct ratio, engine runs well, but..... Fe2O3 deposits kill spark plugs for 5-10K miles and its deposits increase compression ratio and makes valves stuck.....

 

Leaded fuel istn't available in the US, we use other methods of increasing octane. Octane boosters do work, but higher octane is not good for a stock engine. High octane fuels are for supercharged applications or when the compression ratio has been increased.

As far as oil additives, stay as far away as possible. You can risk considerable damage to the engine through their use, and non that I have seen can prove that they live up to the claims. Even if they do something, they cannot prove their worth in monetary terms. As an alternative to oil additives, consider top end synthetics instead. Those can have real benefits and have proven themselves beyond any oil additive. By top end, I mean Amsoil, Royal Purple, or Redline. Mobil1 is pretty good too, though its not what it used to be.

 

For a fuel system cleaner, I recommend Redline SI-1
For an oil system cleaner, you can't beat Auto Rx

 

Most of the additives sold in auto stores aren't worth anything and just a waste of money.

 

AutoRX is great stuff. Not really an additive, you just use it once in a while to remove any deposits that might have formed.

For fuel system cleaners, I recommend Techron Concentrate.

 

i wanna prefere to do some calculations....

how many $$ is octane booster?
how many $$ is oct. 87 gas?
what is the price of 93 gas?

How many $$ you are to pay to make oct 93 gas of 87?

 

I use a can of outlaw fuel injector cleaner at every oil change. It was recomended that I do this by my ford tech. I have no proof that it works I just do it. As far as snake oil like slick 50, I used it for a while and all it did was lighten my wallet as far as I can tell. I switched to mobil 1 and don't need any oil slickener. There are some good products like sea foam and Bars rad treatment, water weter and there's also a lot of junk. If it sounds to good to be true, it probobly is.

 

Uncle Sam has taken most of the snake oil folks to court, to have them prove in court that their products do all they advertise & guess who won????!!!! Some big names in there too, Look through the list here.
http://neptune.spacebears.com/cars/legal/index.html

Seafoam Engine Tune has been around for a long time & was initially developed for decarboning 2cycle engines & has been used my Evinrude, Mercury Marine & others & is a good safe to use general engine internal tidy upper, if you have a sludged, or carboned up engine.

Chevron Techron Concentrate Plus, is a good product for cleaning up intake & combustion chamber carbon deposits & cleaning fuel injectors.
As for proof it works, well the Big Three, pay to have Chevron gas, shipped by barge, up the Miss & Ohio rivers, then tucked to Detroit, so they can use it in their emisions testing!!!!! Why all the shipping, well Chevron isn't marketed in the Mi area.

Octane boosters, or high test gas aren't neeed nor spcified in our computer controlled engines & if you'll read your owners manual, it'll tell you that using a high octane fuel could cause engine deposits & driveability problems.

High octane fuel is more difficult to ignite, has a slower flame front, so using it in an engine whos compression, valve & spark timing aren't designed to make use of it, is sorta like retarding the engines timing, as the slower igniting fuel is still burning when the exhaust valve opens, so the piston, exhaust valve, lube, exhaust manafold, cat converter all have to contend with the added heat load the engine just spit out & seeing as how this heat didn't help push the piston down, the engine didn't make good use of the heat from that more expensive high test fuel, so your likely to get lower mpg, along with cooking the heck out of everything else!!!!!

So there just isn't any advantage to using higher than specified octane for our stock engines.

Now there could be an advantage to using a "Top Tier" fuel though, as those fuels have a higher quality & level add pack, that can keep our intake, fuel injector & combsion chamber deposits down, so they are worth serious consideration imo.
You can read about top tier fuels & who markets them here. http://www.toptiergas.com/index.html

Oil additives aren't neeed if we use a lube that says on it's container, that it meets or exceeds Fords specifications.

Just a bunch of thoughts for pondering.

 

While Chevron & redline products are good- I use Marvel Mystry Oil in the fuel (ask for an MSDS from redline & marvel and you will find it's the same product- or incredibly close in composition).

i use 1 oz per gallon and have never had a fuel injector clog/fail and I use it for the 65 mustang to keep the fuel fresh.

 

I tried that "Startron" fuel conditioner. It proclaims to act as an enzyme and condition the fuel for better combustion etc. etc. I think it's a load of bunk. I ran it for 12 tanks of gas (approx. 2,100 miles) and did not notice any change in performance or MPG.

 

gvrangr98, why do you want an octane booster or an oil additive?

If you have detonation or pinging, you should solve the problem rather than using a bandaide to cover it up. If you don't, there is absolutely no value in increasing octane, and plenty of evidence that running octane higher than necessary will actually hurt your engine in the long run.

Oil additives as a general rule are a waste at best, and can cause damage the engine at worst. The reason is that each oil manufacturer puts a carefully blended unique mix of additives into their oil to make it perform. Screwing with that by arbitrarily adding some oil additive is like playing russian roulette - usually there is no explosion, but when there is, the consequence is huge. One of the reasons that it is good to pick a brand of oil and stick with it is that oil additives from various manufacturers don't always play nice together, so the safe thing is to pick a brand you like and stick with it.

There are some oil additives, like Auto RX that was mentioned, that are used on occasion for a specific period of time to clean up the engine, and that makes sense if your engine is sludged up. But realize that there is risk to doing this - if the crap comes off the block/head/etc. in larger chunks, it can plug oil galleys, and that is often fatal to the engine. The better solution is to use high quality oil and change it at recommended intervals to keep the engine clean. One of the reasons I continue to use Mobil 1 is that it is proven to do a much better job of keeping engines clean than most other oils.

The best 'injector cleaner' type thing that I have found is a little acetone in the gas (~5 oz per 15 gallons) for 3 straight tanks. I do this about every 60k miles. In my experience, this does a better job of cleaning up injectors than any 'injector cleaner' I have found on the store shelves. I also buy brand name gas, because I've found that brand name gas really does have better additives to keep the fuel system cleaner, and the octane levels are more consistent than the cheap gas.

 

Stay away from that Damn Lucas Oil Stabilizer. The stuff has no additives, no anti-foaming additives, and is just a worthless oil thickner.

Someone already mentioned a lot of what I recommend. MMO, Seafoam, Techron Concentrate, Redline SI-1, Gumout Regane, Water Wetter, Auto-rx.

There are a few worthwhile off shelf oil additives depending on application. If you need ZDDP the CD2 has the Street Legal Oil Boost (SLOB) that has a lot of ZDDP in it. Valvoline Synpower Oil Treatment (VSOT, gold bottle) has a lot of moly in it, for motor oils lacking moly. Not the moly that clumps up either

A good quality synthetic goes a long way though Even conventional oils can. I run the Mobil Clean 5000 10w30 in the gf's cavalier to 6000 miles, and used oil analysis results that look better than Mobil 1 results from another poster on the same engine (BITOG forums).

Leaded Gas is available in the US. IN fact every summer time you can buy it at the local Meijer (supermarket like Walmart) gas station. However it's marked for Off-Road Use.