xylene as a octane booster?

[Randy Grein]

Dunno about Xylene - it's one of several common components of race  
gas. Getting the desired effect is a lot of work and testing. For  
every expert who does the research there are hundreds of amateurs that  
just dump a cup of magic mojo in the tank and hope for the best. With  
the real thing available and semi-affordable there's little reason to  
guess.

Oh, and octane rating is exactly a measure (by test) of resistance to  
knock; it makes no more power than lower grades of gas in any given  
engine. Usually it burns a bit slower and can reduce power in theory.  
It would be interesting to test to see how much; I'll bet it's less  
than 1 hp for an SV, barely measurable and more a waste of money than  
loss of power. Oh, and to get maximum effect out of the oxygenated  
fuels you usually need to rejet.


Randy Grein, WMRRA #41

On May 4, 2008, at 11:32 PM, matthew patton wrote:

> my friend is interested in more HP from his superstock motor and was
> talking about using U4 or other racegas. then somebody else happened  
> to
> mention adding Xylene into standard pump gas to accomplish the same
> thing. basically xylene is an aeromatic. Unless the motor had higher
> compression and needed high octane I thought it wasn't particularly
> useful. high octane means it burns slower right? burns slower means
> less tendency to preignite and cause knock.
>
> anyhow, given the same engine running a variety of pump gas vs race
> fuel, is the reason one can get more HP out of U4 etc because it just
> has more of an oxidizing agent in it? Or does the slower burning also
> help extract more of the potential energy within the compounds?
>
> lastly, anyone heard about this Xylene bit?
>
>
>       
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