NefMoto

Is the use of Xylene as an octane booster bad for the 2.7T engine and fuel components??

I live in North Central California and I used to have access to 93 octane fuel at a local 76 gas station, now that station no longer sells 93 & 100 octane fuel. Subsequently, I cannot use my more aggressive tune.   

I have access to almost limitless Xylene, Toluene and Methanol ( stuff that doesn't quite meet standards of semi-conducter industry, but is superior to what once was for sale on hardware and paint store shelves ).   Anyway, I've heard that if Xylene is used along with say, 91 oct. fuel at an 8/1 ration ( 8 gallons of 91 oct. fuel to 1 gallon xyelene ) that I can raise my average octane level to 93 and as long as a couple tablespoons of auto-trans fluid is added to the mix, the should be no lubrication issues.

Does anyone have any experience with this stuff?   If so, is it advisable to use?   I just cannot find any high octane fuel anyhwere near where I live.

Thanks for reading!

I think toluene is probably the cheapest and easiest to work with, and i happen to know it is 100% safe :)

Im using xylene with great success with mixture 80%fuel 20%xylene.Just put 20% and see what happen to knock ;)

I keep a gallon of Xylene handy, but It eats paint like crazy. Be careful while handling.

I use to have a excel spreadsheet that told you how to make higher octane fuels with paint store chemicals I forget which one of the few mentioned above but the spreadsheet gives u 2 different ways to make 93 or higher fuel. I will search the forums I found it on and I'll post it. And yes it did mention the use of ATF also and it calculated the mixer amounts. I didn't have access to E85 or anything higher then that locally (within 50 miles) so my last car I decided to run meth injection and I don't know where that file went. But it was very useful.

I suggest people DO NOT use Xylene, But I suggest people DO use Toluene.  Up to a 50 mix is normal.  Can run timing well past MBT.

On that note, please sell me lots of good toluene, I can only get the crap stuff here and I have to order a pallet at a time from Texas, via NV if I want better/real stuff.

I sent you a PM as I now see we are semi local.

....and with that, Nefmoto was added to the anti terrorist watchlist.

.

One of the b5 s4 OGs was raided by the FBI for purchasing too much toluene.  It was hilarious.

FWIW i'm told xylene isn't that chemically different from toluene.

ymmv. but i think it just comes down to pricing/availability/purity at some point.

both are carcinogens and very very nasty :)

Correct, toluene is methyl benzene formula C6H5CH3 and xylene is dimethyl benzene formula C6H4(CH3)2.

Snowtrooper, I get the stuff for free and I've had access to all three chemicals ( Toluene, Xylene and Methanol ) for several years now, always too afraid/ignorant to use the stuff in my tank.
Give me a week and I'll get a few 50 gal drums together.    No need to pay as I don't pay for it.

It is some caustic aromatic, that's for sure. I got some on my hand once when I was adding to my W/M Injection tank and didn't wash my hands right away. Five mins later, I was in agony.   It is a very, very dangerous chemical, but from what I read, it really adds up in the fuel tank.  ;D

This is the best I can do for you guys. Found calculator/excel file for Toluene and a webpage that has more info and gas grades listed in it.

FYI:
Toluene is 114 octane
Xylene is 117 octane


Webpage
http://www.serioussolutions.com/evo/octcalc.htm (http://www.serioussolutions.com/evo/octcalc.htm)

Spreadsheet below in attachments

Hope this helps everyone.

Excellent and thank you Audiman85!  There's some really good info in there. A lot more than I knew before.

Thanks to Audiman85 for the the website concerning Toluene to gasoline ratios.   I've converted the webpage to PDF for easy download and filing.

I found another document with info on calculating Octane and the use of lubricating oils, such as Auto-trans fluid. 
Maybe some with find it useful.

Yeah spreadsheet says to use Natural (non-synthetic) transmission fluid or Marvel Mystery Oil for lubrication.

I feel its important to ad that every single time I have had a customer use xylene it has caused chalky white buildup in their lines and filters.  I have seen it block up fuel pumps.  I have never seen this with toluene.  This could be something reacting with our pump fuel, but for me its why I suggest to only play with toluene.  I have never added any lubricant to mine unless I was running it pure.

Snow Trooper, what part of the country are you located that could play a factor.

I have seen this in WA, CA, NV, OR and AZ

I have had others tell me of it happening all over.  It forms this pasty white buildup, especially in filters.

Well that's a good thing to know.

I was told by old timers that the days of pure gas not this up to 10% ethanol were the better days for fuels and cars period.

I remember hearing this, too.  The way I heard it explained, was that there is some kind of chemical reaction, unique to the gas in the west, that caused some type of clogging buildup.  But, Snowtrooper is correct, Toluene is best since normal pump gas usually contains a fair amount of toluene to  begin with.
I'll go with the Toluene and forgo the synthetic lubrication altogether.  I'm mixing up 10 gallons today...shooting for 93-94 octane.

Half and half with a pump fuel of 91-93 oct is great.  You can run 12-15 degrees more timing and see zero corrections.

So you say do a 50/50 of 91 or 93oct? or 87 and 50/50 mix. I'm confused what your saying completely.

On a side note. Wawa's gets 92 octane. Its like where do they decide that ok, here's 92 when everyone else supplies 93 here in FL. I mean 7-11's here have all sorts at some stations, I'm told its a mixing process that goes on and makes different grades. But yea I have seen pumps in Orlando that have 87/89/91/93/94 all on one pump.

And a few stations now have 90 octane non-ethonal fuels @$4.xx a gallon (my father uses this in his 92 yamaha motorcycle). My friends stock B6 A4 1.8T did not like it all. He always runs 93. Down in tampa you can get 100/101 octane of course but I'm an hour away in the country so no race fuels for me.

I was saying up to a 50/50 mix, half toluene and half pump premium of 91 through 93 octane yields excellent race gas style results.  Even one gallon to a whole tank has benefits.  Any more than half and half you must start adding lubricants.

Have you ever used 87 octane to make 94/94 I'm gonna run the number from my local gas prices and try to find out a local toluene supply and price to see if its worth it to even bother since in the end it ain't really big difference.

Local prices 87-$3.49 89-$ 3.69 93-$3.89

Also, why do you think the ethanol-free 90 octane made my friends stock car drive so funny. He doesn't have any codes we checked. Never logged it but he said he has ran 87 and 89 before when low on cash and never had the bucking and hesitation is it cause the never cars are expecting to be ethanol and they tune the ecu for it? Also my last car (1998 Eclipse GSX - stock modded ecu) would grade the gas and give the car a octane rating to adjust the ecu to. I'm guessing it was just the knock sensor suggestion to the ecu that it should pull timing and in change the ecu told me in logs that the fuel octane was Low or High basically.

Also someone said. That its ok to run a 93 octane file on low grade gas since the ecu in the Audi would adjust for it when it seen knock. Is this theory correct. I know it will pull timing, but should you not do that. I know the car will be slower or what not but is it a "Safe" idea when strapped for cash or like down here in FL you run into a few 87 octane only gas stations. I'd love to have a selectable Mapping option on the stock ecu without a APR price tag or having to carry the laptop and put on a modded file (SAI removed, Left foot braking etc) that was also for 87 octane just incase.

I would think that using 87 octane wouldn't be very cost effective, considering that you would have to use much more Toluene at a cost of whatever they charge for it in Florida ( $10/gallon can??) to make up the starting point difference between 87 vs 93 octane. .40 cents difference between the two would cost you $7 more / tankful at the pump, but you'll spend 3 times that in toluene just to bring the 87 octane up to the 93 octane.   

Do I make a valid point, or am I missing something in your question??

No you do. I had no clue what the prices are for that stuff. I figured .40 and gonna matter aways. What about the other questions I asked above.

You shouldn't run lower octane and expect the car to compensate, you end up having to dump more fuel anyway and so the savings is negated.  When I have come accross owners that do this, usually running 85 or 87 they knock like crazy, engine is a little hurt.  A lot of stage 1,2 and 3 files are already high single digit correction factors so the low octane puts it well over the edge.

In regards to doing the toluene mix with lesser pump fuels, as the cost analysis above points out, its a waste, additionally starting with the best pump gas available will give you the best additives, usually.

On your question about the ethanol free 90 octane, who knows.  Lots of variables there.  Did you guys check fuel trime?  Stock vehicles do not expect ethanol, so it can certainly handle it if the rest of the system is working right.

No, didn't log. He just used it as a test. Was on like dead empty (he pushes the 0 miles to empty to about 15 miles past 0 miles) and put it in. Not a lot just a test. I told him to pull battery cables and touch them together and see if that got his fuel trims reset and see if that helped. But he had already used it all up by the time he told me and I answered back and he put 93 back in.

And gotcha on the lower octane fuels and making it higher with additives. I'm running NVR 2++ but my car got stinky (sulfur) smell when I added in the modified timing maps. I use that file but with added things I like or needed and cause of my setup like SAI removed but left the stock timing maps. My car didn't seem to like it that much with the added timing and the higher boost. I am running copper 1 degree cooler plugs and just changed them 2k ago but flashed back to stock timing maps before I ever logged. Wonder if it wanted something a little higher octane then 93. I can test again and log when I use up this tank. Its also my DD and I have to drive wife to work 50 miles each day so I can't always be messing around with files and logging so I do it on her days off, just in case I mess up a flash and need to boot mode it or whatever I don't have the time to do all that. My friend is building me a bench flashing power supply so maybe I'll have that soon enough for faster boot mode and flashing process.

Ok, so I mixed up a batch of 60/40 ( 6 gallons of 91 oct gas to 4 gallons of Toluene ), gas tank was nearly empty, maybe 1.5 gallons of 91 oct in tank. I have W/M variable-progressive injection.   I made sure that I mixed it and shook it well, this being my first time.

Anyway, I switched over to my GIAC "RACE 100 Oct" mode and set out to do a few log runs.

On my very first run, I could tell the engine was idling smoother than ever and as I started in first, it pulled hard, almost too hard.  So when I got to 3rd gear and at 4400 rpm, the car just suddenly lurched and I had ZERO throttle response, so I coasted to the side of the road.  The car was idling like crap, up and down between 800 and 1100 rpm, and absolutely ZERO throttle response.  I did a quick under the hood check and TTB, intercooler hoses, DV's and hoses, inlet tubes, etc... all were fine.   So I did a Fault Code check and there it was, a P1335, Torque Monitor 2 limit exceeded, 35-10 intermittent.. I cleared the code and restarted the engine and it ran fine from there, although my log runs for the day were done.
This is on my 2001, Allroad, 2.7T, 6 spd, K04's and 51/49 W/M dual nozzle injection.   There was no knocking/pinging and the highest timing correction was a 2.3 at about 4300 rpm, right before the P1335 happened.

Has anyone any idea what could be the problem?    Could it be a problem with the GIAC ECU flash?? Maybe they made an error in maximum torque at a given point??

Anyway, until I hear from one of the smart guys here, "DDillenger",  "Snowtrooper", "Nyet", etc..., I'm not going to try that again. It cared the hell out of me....thought i blew a turbo, or worse.

yea. torque monitoring is a bitch :(

went into limp, possibly even alpha-n mode.

sorry man, need a retune...

in any case, don't worry, you didn't break anything :)

Yeah, it can be scary when that happens and it isn't expected or experienced.  Your torque maps are not meshing.

Thank you, Nyet!   I have a question: When you say that I need a "retune", does that mean that the tune has become corrupt, or is it simply unsuitable for for my car???     (This never happened when I used the "RACE 100" mode with 100 Oct. Pump gas from 76 gas station)
I hope that question doesn't make me sound stupid!   

Thank you!!

Thanks, Snow Trooper, I'm wondering if it's possible that the "Race" 100 oct. mode maybe brought out an underlying problem with my throttle body???
It's curious to me that I never experienced this problem when I used the Pump 100 octane fuel.     I'm really very ignorant when it comes to the terms, but what exactly is "Alpha-N Mode"??

Oh, and HELL YAH, it scared the hell out of me. I had an instant vision of a few thousand dollars falling from my wallet. :(

If this is a file you created, post it up.

Its a GIAC file.

Snow Trooper, This time I swapped ECU's into the Allroad and this time ran a "Jude based 91 oct. stg 1 "M" box tune, w/ Bosch MAF ( yes, it's a long story, but I run a Bosch MAF in my '01 Allroad ).   The tune is attached to this posting.

Anyway, I added 7 gallons of 91 fuel, which brought my octane down to about 92 and the almost identical thing happened, but this time in 2nd gear at about 4400 RPM, same thing, huge lurch, complete lack of throttle response, idle crazy from 800-1100 RPM's and the same code P1335  Torque monitor 2 maximum torque limit exceded 35 ; 10 intermittent.  (Note, I had no timing corrections at all, if that matters)

If you would, take a look at the tune and see if you see anything whacky to do with Torque monitoring.  It's a long story, but my GIAC file would not cooperate when I tried to save the bin using Nefmoto flasher, kept erroring out.

****I'm beginning to think that my throttle body is going???******     any ideas would be much appreciated.
Thank you, Gentlemen!

Level 2 Torque Monitoring

If the threshold is raised for level 1 intervention instead of tuning torque management, then level 1 doesn't intervene so it hits level 2 and you get hard limp.

It isn't tuned properly allowing it to trigger, but you can also have issues that actually cause it to trigger like a high reading MAF.

It's max allowable torque for a given pedal position vs torque at max specified load and calculated actual torque.

Thank you for replying, Phila Dot!  ( are you by any chance from Philly??  That's my home town/city )

I am really starting to believe that I have an engine management hardware issue, such as you mentioned, MAF, or TB.  I'm going to try one more tune that I have for the car, swapping it back to Hitachi MAF and see if it happens again. If not, then it's the Bosch MAF. ??I THINK!?? :-\

I am not surprised that you are having TQ management issues on a jude tune.

I just looked at it and that file is a mess, it has TQ management half ass turned off, way too lean for 91 at boost ramp, stock kfmiop with an enlarged kfmirl so there is your issue right there.  There is so much random stuff changed that seem to be done just because and then essential things not changed.  Gimme a few minutes and will at least get you running better so you can get some logs and start making progress.

Edit: here is the file with TQ management fully disabled, this should really only be done for testing.  I also slightly modified a few more maps.  This should work a lot better for you.  Please get us some logs.  I also really think you should start with another file.  This one is nutty.

Thank you, Snow Trooper, for the work you just did and the advice you gave, which I will follow.   Remind me to tell you where I got the GIAC ECU W/ 100 oct "RACE" from, Hmmm....maybe you've already guessed! ;)