Octane Boosters
 

Have any of you tried Octane Boosters? I just bought Prestone 0 to 60 Octane Booster just to try it out. Any of you try any other brands and what kind of performance did it give your engine more importantly your Mazda 3?:)

IMO- Stay away from octane boosters. They often contain chemicals or base metals that deposit themselves on your valves, spark plugs, etc. For example, some boosters contain a chemical known as MMT, which has maganese as one of its components. Mn is a metal that does not burn off. It deposits itself on your plugs, and is conductive, which causes a misfire. Deposits of any type are also not good on your exhaust valve, where they can build up and cause hot spots, which in turn can cause pre-ignition. Another octane booster additive is ferosene, which is an iron based chemical. Same thing happens, only worse. Unless you know what the chemical is, I would not add it to your vehicle. I trust only three things - oil, fuel, coolant. If you want higher octane, it is better to spend the money on the more expensive fuel in the first place.

octane boosters do nothing. period.

Before spending money on stuff like this you should drop us a line so you could save your money.

Octane rating has NOTHING to do with performance. Octane is simply a measure of the fuels resistance to detonation. The higher the octane the longer it'll take to combust. Under extreme situations like boost or advanced timing pre-ignition (aka detonation/knock/ping) can cause the air/fuel mixture to burn before the piston is at TDC (top dead center). This force causes major stress on the rods and pistons. In order to prevent this there are a few things you can do. Most importantly and easiest is to run higher octane fuel. This keeps the gas from pre-igniting due to excess heat in the combustion chamber.

By increasing octane ratings on a stock car you only hurt performance and run the risk of fouling plugs easier/sooner. Always run as low an octane as you can without detonating.

Thanks for the information it's good that I haven't used it yet because I also just read some bad things about MMT and it is banned in Canada and they did a real thorough test study.

http://www.canadiandriver.com/articles/jk/040310.htm

I also agree with Matty on the use of higher octane fuels. A slower burn (which is what you get with higher octane fuel) is really only useful to prevent knock. Since the tendancy to knock increases with combustion pressure, higher octane fuels are necessary to limit knock in high compression conditions (i.e. turbocharged, supercharged, or high compression ratio NA cars).

Well...

Not exactly. I use an additive on my turbo car, mostly because all I can get is 91 down here, and I want the extra protection. but you can't buy it off the shelf, and it takes the place of me mixing up toluene or xylene instead.

Since the 3 is engineered around 87 octane regular, not much to be gained.

Most of the commercially avail stuff has stuff in it that has already been mentioned.
Lucky to get 1-2 points gain for an $7 can of additive, most only gain fractions of an octane point but the MMT makes the burn longer...lots leave orange deposits on your plugs...not a good thing.

Cheaper to just pump some of the other stuff.

Here's something to think about...If you pay an extra 20 cents a gallon, spend an extra two bucks for a fill up, how is buying an octane booster for 3 or 4 times as much to get lesser benefit a better value?

The M3 doesn't have a high compression engine so don't waste your money on octane booster or even higher octane gas.

The only reason I can think of to get high octane gas is because they usually come with more detergent in them or they have ethanol.

Actually the compression is fairly high,over 10 to 1...However the 3 was designed to operate with 87 octane, so higher octane gas can actually DECREASE performance, albeit it wouldnt be much loss. The main reason I say not to use high octane gas or octane booster is that it is throwing perfectly good money away.

Exactly!

Then again if we had the Japanese "A" spec fuel and timing maps, the 91 would be worth it and our otherwise identical motors would be good for another 10 horsepower.

But as is, if 87 is where it works, use 87. If you think you HAVE to HAVE some octane booster, it's much cheaper to just pump the 91 and forget about the canned booster stuff.