100 Octane, Fuel System Cleaner, and a Tubi on a 355!

Jeffrey,
Congrats on the tubi... There's nothing like a 355 with a tubi-style exhaust! 100 octane, in OC? where? how much/gallon?

Btw, I replied to your email - hopefully, I'll get to meet you this sunday and hear that 355 scream!!

Byron

 

Any high hp/liter application that runs high compression is usualy tuned to the ragged edge for 91 octane which is often the minimum in owners manuals. Infact I wouldn't be surprised if your car was designed to run on 92 or 93 minimum. The timing curves set in the engine management is probably designed to make the maximum power possible for the rated octane. What this means is in certain conditions the car will very easy begin to detonate. Not to be confused with pre-ignition. Detonation is a violant high pressure uneven explosion in the cylinder caused by uneven flame propogation from the spark plug on. Pre-ignition is when the mixture in the cylinder catches fire before the spark plugs fires the mixture off. Both are caused by too much heat and too much cylinder pressure for the given octane rating. Most modern cars (I don't know about the 355 for certain) have knock sensors on board to retard the ignition timing when it detects knock in order to save the engine from low octane situations. You probably can't even hear the knock over the valve train and exhaust/engine noise but its definately there on 91 octane I'm sure. Even if the 355 doesn't have knock sensors to retard the ignition timing to compensate for the extra knock there is still power being lost because the flame front does not propgate in a way to effeciently push the piston down... so power will still be lost even if threre is nothing telling the engine mangement to back the timing off. The 355 runs 11:1 compression which is VERY high for 91 octane. Considering the factory EURO versions of the 355 don't make any more rated power than the US versions you can bet that the car was tuned to make rated horsepower using the maximum advantage of European octane. If the owners manual says "91 octane minimum" it probably means the engine can compensate for the lower octane (at the expense of power) without blowing its self up however rated horsepower probably isn't reached till you get 93-94 octane in the tank (which is what every Euro/Asian/Middle East owner pumps into their tank). All in all here in Cali we have the most expensive cars in the world and the worst gas possible. I gurantee you that your 355 was not making rated horsepower untill you exceeded the 93-94 octane range. Just remember that once you pass the ideal octane point of your engines design and tunning you will begin to lose power because higher octane gas has less energy in it per gram and also burns at a slower rate. I would experiment with mixing pump gas and 100 octane until you get to an octane around 94 and see how that feels. You can use a basic averaging equation to find the average octane. By the way this is why the 333hp M3's don't make anywhere near 333hp here in southern california. With a knock sensor positioned between every two cylinders the engine timing curves are dialed back considerably for 91 octane. Also I don't know about Ferrari EMS but on many vehicles the maximum allowable timing isn't reset until you reset the battery. When I had my Supra the trick was to fill it with 100 octane and then pull the ECU fuse to reset the computer and restore maximum timing.

By the way I have found in all my cars that the best way to keep the fuel system clean and keep the combustion chamber squeaky clean was to run the hell out of it. I don't know why but every car I have ever owned including my 5.7L V8 pushrod motor in the z06 seem to lose power when I drive them easy for extended period of times. When I start riding the motor hard through the canyons the car always feels quite a bit better at the end of the day. Maybe its psychological...go figure.

Kal

 

Jeffrey- Thanks for posting your experience with the new Tubi! I just saw your "avatar" and wanted to point out my username "Throttleman". For those who don't know, it takes two to drive a high power off-shore racing boat, a driver and a throttleman. You must be into power boats aswell? It should be interesting to hear your car with the Tubi exhaust next by Byron's 348C. Hope you can attend more of the GTGs as yours is the favorite make and model for a lot of people on the board. Keep us posted.

Byron- Do you know some brake upgrade options for Jeffrey? I spoke with a 360 Modena owner who spoke about upgrades he had on his previous 355.

 

Be sure to post pictures of your new rims when they become available. It's hard to improve on perfection. I have a shot of your 355 Berlinetta emblem on my desktop. It sure makes for a sweet shot!

If you ever need a throttleman to help absorb the cost of fuel on the offshore beast let me know. I have always had a love affair with a Scarab KV but have spent over eight years in school! I am just now starting to live. Cheers

-Jay.

 

I found it cheaper to buy some NOS Octane boost and a tank full of gas than the pre-mixed stuff.

 

Octane boost is the biggest gimick around. They only raise octane 5-7 POINTS. What that means is 91 becomes 91.5 - 91.7. They contain some Toluene or Xylene and some sort of lubricant in tiny quantities and they charge you 5-6 bucks. Unfortunately there is no chemical short of liquid lead (which is illegal) to pour into your fuel in such small quantaties and expect a change to occur to 15-16 gallons of fuel. The only way to make that change is quantity. People making their own octane boosters usualy run 20-30% Toulene or Xylene in order to make a notable change to the octane of the fuel. Save your money. Either buy real gas or don't bother. For some data on this and details how to make your own octane booster click here.

http://www.openminds.net/avalanche/octaneboost.htm

 

Actually, one of the octane booster products out there contains MMT, which is a very potent octane increaser. I know a bit about MMT, since I studied its toxicity as a post-doc. Very little MMT is needed to produced gains in Octane. (1/32 gram/gallon of gas is typically added- don't remember how much this raises the octane). MMT contains Manganese, which is another potent heavy metal, just like lead. In fact, the company that brings in MMT is Ethyl corp, the same company that introduced lead in gas. The big question out there is regarding the safety of MMT. Unlike Lead, Manganese is an essential element, and therefore, depending on blood levels, may actually be safe. Anyway, I won't bore you with more details.

I don't remember the brand of octane enhancer that contained MMT, nor do I know if they still sell it, but you may want to look at some of the labels.

Dom

 

I've used racing gas from Union 76 (La Paz in Laguna Hills) and noticed no difference in performance. In fact, I see more and more posts about people not noticing any kind of performance increase with 100 octane gas, and any perceived 'benefit' was psychological.

In regards to 'octane boost' I never noticed a performance increase either, but used it because I got a bad tank of gas (lots of pinging) and the Mondial t has an anti-syphon mechanism in the gas tank. So between pouring in lots of octane boost and carefully driving the car to burn the bad fuel, that's what I was left with.

 

The fuel in So. Cal. is not too good....... My F40 started to lay down after the 2nd tank of fuel here. When we ran it on the dyno with 76 premium it only made 345rwhp. We added 5 gallons of 100 unleaded 76 to the 20 gallons already in the tank and it ADDED 35RWHP. My car has a mixture problem and that is why it doesn't make more power. Anyways, 2 tanks later it was laying down again. 5 more gallons of 100 and it is back to normal. If you are running high compression, over 10.5 to 1, I would add some to every tank.......

Rick

 

jeremy,

do you think you might make it out to crystal cove not this saturday but the following? i would really love to hear your car in person with the tubi-style on it!

ernie