Xylene

[SuperSpud]

ok, so a buddy of mine with an eclipse GSX and some of his friends at his school have been putting Xylene in their cars to raise the octane... if you dont know what it is, its like, a REALLY strong paint thinner.... its supposed to be the eqivelent of 116 octane or some s*** like that.. his buddy has a turbo mr2 that he was getting dyno'd. he ran with, and without, and gained 13 hp.. no s***, I saw the print out..

so I guess what Im asking is, has anyone, or WOULD anyone who knows about it, put it in their car? he mixed in a gallon in his full tank..

 

[nocar]

yum

wouldnt that help you if you had advanced timing like the mp3

 

[Captain KRM P5]

no way in hell am i pouring paint thinner in my car.

 

[505zoom]

I highly doubt a 13whp gain from adding some crap in the tank. Increasing the octane does not by itself increase the power like that. It instead allows you to add more boost or have higher compression without detonating.

 

[mp5jeff]

ok, so a buddy of mine with an eclipse GSX and some of his friends at his school have been putting Xylene in their cars to raise the octane... if you dont know what it is, its like, a REALLY strong paint thinner.... its supposed to be the eqivelent of 116 octane or some s*** like that.. his buddy has a turbo mr2 that he was getting dyno'd. he ran with, and without, and gained 13 hp.. no s***, I saw the print out..

so I guess what Im asking is, has anyone, or WOULD anyone who knows about it, put it in their car? he mixed in a gallon in his full tank..

he must have increased the boost to gain any kind of power, adding a higher octane won't yield power, its strictly to run more boost without knock..so hes lying unless he wasnt at same boost levels

 

[Dexter]

i put 200 octane in my car and gained 50 WHP.

(jerkit)

please.

 

[mp5jeff]

i put 200 octane in my car and gained 50 WHP.

(jerkit)

please.

lol

 

[low_psi]

well he ran it tonight. no problems but we did notice the car drove smoother. is it worth paint thinner in your car? i don't think so. you won't see me adding it.

the dyno sheets are legit though. no boost levels were changed between runs; nothing. it was pull #1, add xylene, pull #2. maybe it was a fluke, but my friends still swear by it.

 

[Emode]

toulene,as another possibilty
(i might have spelled it wrong)

 

[ZiO]

It's funny since the octane rating in gasoline has NOTHING to do with horse power.... but whatever... I am not going to get started.. there has been lots of flamewars about it.

BUT, yes, both xylene and tolulene increase the octane rating of the gas.

 

[instylz]

and you can get high off of it at the same time!

 

[SmoothCriminal]

I highly doubt a 13whp gain from adding some crap in the tank. Increasing the octane does not by itself increase the power like that. It instead allows you to add more boost or have higher compression without detonating.

exactly, octane just retards detonation, letting you compress the gas more before it explodes, now maybe you or he left out that critical detail in your explaination, but I'd suggest findind the exact chemical formula of what you're adding to the car and then setting a combustion reaction on paper and see what the products are besides exhaust gases, you may be leaving some nasty perciptants and residues on your cylinder walls...

also, maybe you're wording it wrong, its possible that this xylene (the 'lene' on the end means its a hydrocarbon...like gaso-'line') just bonds with the gas and makes a hydrocarbon similar to funny car fuel that just has a higher entropy and releases more energy when it's exploded, providing less exhaust, and more boom.. which I'm not too sure about how that would effect a turbo car, since exhaust gases help drive it...

note: I'm probly missing some stuff, I failed chem101 this semester

 

[jred321]

his ecu was probably able to advance the timing further or in some other way take advantage of it not seeing knock, and thus it made more power. the higher octane alone didn't gain the power, the ecu taking advantage of the higher octane did.

people have been using toulene and xylene to raise octane for a while. i would use toulene before xylene, but still wouldn't run it every day

 

[vodapas77]

also, maybe you're wording it wrong, its possible that this xylene (the 'lene' on the end means its a hydrocarbon...like gaso-'line') just bonds with the gas and makes a hydrocarbon similar to funny car fuel that just has a higher entropy and releases more energy when it's exploded, providing less exhaust, and more boom.. which I'm not too sure about how that would effect a turbo car, since exhaust gases help drive it...

note: I'm probly missing some stuff, I failed chem101 this semester

Mabey you failed chem101, but you did use the word Entropy, so you're obviously learing.

As for the more boom and less exaust negatively effecting a Turbo car, good thinking and in more extreme examples it might very well hold true. But, given the relatively small amount of boost the T25 is capable of producing, I don't think it would be a problem in our case.

As for putting thinners in the gas to increase boost, I'm thinking I'd just go for some super high octane gasoline that can be purchased at a lot of tracks or gas stations near them. Given that the entire fuel system is designed to withstand gasoline and additives I'm sure it will hold up to any petrol based thinner, but all the same I don't think I would take that risk with a car that still has for years worth of loan payments left.

 

[igdrasil]

It's funny since the octane rating in gasoline has NOTHING to do with horse power.... but whatever... I am not going to get started.. there has been lots of flamewars about it.

BUT, yes, both xylene and tolulene increase the octane rating of the gas.

On the contrary, octane rating is all about power.

Dont get me wrong, it doesnt mean that more octane will give more power in cars....of course not.

But it will allow the car to run either more boost or more advanced timing in order to get more power out of the power stroke before it detonates, so basically, you can produce more power out of a higher octane fuel.

 

[JOS3]

i put 200 octane in my car and gained 50 WHP.

yeah, i was there.......................

 

[lgagno1]

I don't know much about how xylene will effect how good our cars will run, but it definitely will boost octane. The autoignition temp for xylene is like 867 degrees F. Pus, gasoline already contains like 8-15% xylenes anyways. But if you do choose to use xylene, handle that s*** carefully. It can cause liver and kidney damage from overexposure and it's extremely flammable. So be careful.

Oh yea, it only contains carbon and hydrogen, so after combustion, it should only release products similar to gasoline.

 

[SmoothCriminal]

Oh yea, it only contains carbon and hydrogen, so after combustion, it should only release products similar to gasoline.

ehhh not so sure about that, the ratio of mols of each element present makes for a very big difference in what is produced, hopefully it won't be anything too radical...ie: hydrogen gas...

 

[vodapas77]

"Oh no! Killer Mustard Gas!" Sorry can never resist a chance to quote Joe Dirt. God I am a sad, sad little man.

 

[SmoothCriminal]

I should see that movie one day..