she likes toulene

[IggDawg]

when I had my legacy turbo a while back, I liked to play with toulene and xylene. mostly xylene because I had to go to a paint store to get toulene, and xylene was available at any home depot. for those who don't know, toulene is 117 octane and xylene is 114 IIRC. I'd dump a gallon into the tank after putting in around 6 to 8 gallons of 94 octane from Sunoco (back when they sold 94 ) along with a little tranny fluid to keep things from drying up too much. I'd go on my merry way, and before too long the gas tank would homogenize and I'd have myself ~97-98 octane gas in the tank. it was enough to make a noticable difference in my legacy SS, both seat of the pants and general engine smoothness.

I remember specifically that after running just one such tank, my engine ran noticably smoother, more responsively, and generally peppier from there on out. It's like pouring in a dozen or so bottles of fuel injector cleaner. it does a wonderful job of cleaning out any kind of gunk.

ANYWAYS... I ran a tank or 2 in my SVX, and she really liked the stuff. more responsive and quite a bit peppier. I figure if she needs premium that bad, there must be some headspace in the timing map that higher octane could make use of. Since I ran the toulene she has run noticably smoother especially at idle, generally quicker, AND my emissions are down. I had her inspected just after I filled her up with regular gas, and I checked my emissions numbers against those the previous owner got. they were lower across the board. this makes sense if there were deposits reducing efficiency that I ended up cleaning out.

so that's my story. hope it's helpful.

[SVXer95]

I have been looking to experiment with such things for a while now, but was always worried about doing damage. Are there any ill-effects to this? My SVX runs a bit rough on occasion, wondering if this would help clear things up.

[IggDawg]

if you run too high a concentration it can damage things. anything 6:1 gasoline:toulene or higher is pretty much safe. adding a little tranny fluid helps keep things soft. basically it dtries out seals and whatnot if there's too much. xylene is much less harsh, and only slightly lower octane. my 93 legacy ate it up no problem. she loved it. the SVX seems to have a similar appetite. no ill effects in either car so far as I can tell.

just make damn wel sure you don't spill any on your car. If you get any on you, run as quick as you can to wash it off . it's far nastier than any other fluid in your car. makes gasoline look as harmful as water.

Admittedly, the first time you see yourself funneling a gallon of paint thinner into your gas tank it's a little harrowing.

[lee]

Cut & pasted from the autopia car forum (SciGuyJim) in response to cleaning up the fuel system:

These tests were done by me to help determine the best products:

Background about tests:

As a worst case sample of material which might be found in gasoline I used ordinary tar. The brown deposits we find coating carburetors, and which collects in fuel injectors and on intake valves, are the highest boiling components in gasoline. They are tar-like materials which distilled along with the lighter gasoline. The best solvent I've ever seen for these was methylene chloride, but it's expensive and I'm sure it's being phased out to protect our ozone layer. In any case, if you used it on a modern car the chlorine freed during combustion would corrode the oxygen sensor. Amoco advertises a cleaner gasoline and I'm sure it's because they've reduced these tar-like compounds. All gas these days contains at least a little detergent of some sort to help keep these deposits from building up too much.

Dimethylformamide is listed in the literature as being a good engine cleaner and is "especially good at dissolving carbonaceous deposits". I haven't used this myself because it is a bit too toxic. Instead I used N-methyl pyrrolidone, which is also good.

For my tests, I tried to use a wide variety of products, well known and unknown, expensive and cheap, and also some pure solvents in order to represent a good cross section of products on the market. Note, carbon itself (such as soot and other thermally decomposed material) is not soluble in ANY solvent but solvents like dimethylformamide and N-methyl pyrrolidone do a good job of breaking up clumps and dispersing the fine particles to release the heavy tarry materials trapped within them. However, some of these solvents are too harsh to use freely in the fuel system. (Someone in one of these forums told me that when the auto industry looks for good cleaners, they mostly look for solvents that will not attack the plastic and rubber parts in the system.)

Most cleaners (the safer & slightly less effective ones) usually have common solvents in them like toluene, alcohol, acetone or methyl ethyl ketone, and naphtha. If you want to use these to clean your system, you can get more for your money by buying the pure solvents at a hardware store and mixing them yourself. I have never had a problem adding toluene, acetone, alcohol, or naphtha to my gas tank in quantities up to one quart per 16 gallons.

Most of the straight solvents I used are at least as flammable as gasoline so be careful if you use them. The alcohol used was pure, 100% isopropyl alcohol. This has no water in it, it is not the same as "rubbing alcohol".

These test results are as fairly and accurately done as I could manage with the equipment I had available, and the other data presented is also accurate to my knowledge. Your car may have different plastics in it than mine does so if you choose to make your own cleaner, do it at your own risk.

TEST RESULTS

RELATIVE EFFICIENCIES AT WHICH VARIOUS CLEANERS WILL DISSOLVE HIGH BOILING RESIDUES FROM GASOLINE AND CARBONACEOUS DEPOSITS FOUND IN USED MOTOR OIL, (10=BEST):

10 Gunk Gas Treatment
10 Toluene (a common ingredient)
9 Castrol Syntec Power System
8 Duralube Fuel System Cleaner
7 Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
6 Redline SI-1
5 Gunk Air Intake Cleaner
4 Naphtha (a common ingredient)
4 STP Fuel System Cleaner
4 Seafoam Motor Tuneup
4 Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner
4 STP Intake Valve Cleaner
4 CD-2 Emission Cure
4 Prolong Fuel System Treatment
3 CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
3 Techron Concentrate
0.5 Butyl Cellosolve (a COMMONLY used "AUTO INDUSTRY DETERGENT" for oil and grease)

THE FOLLOWING CLEANERS DO NOT HURT NYLON (LISTED RANDOMLY).
(The letters in parentheses indicate how well they dissolved the material from used oil, A=best.):

Toluene (A)
2-Phenoxyethanol (A)
Duralube Fuel System Treatment (B)
B-12 Chemtool (B)
Trak Fuel Injector Cleaner (C)
Techron Concentrate (D)
STP Intake Valve Cleaner (E)
Seafoam Motor Tuneup
CD-2 Emission Cure
Prolong Fuel System Treatment
Aromatic distillates
Naphtha
Butyl cellosolve
Acetone

THE FOLLOWING CLEANERS WILL DECOMPOSE THE NYLON SOCK IN THE FUEL TANK. Listed in order of increasing severity:

STP Fuel System Treatment
CD-2 Fuel Injector Cleaner
Gunk Fuel Injector Cleaner
Castrol Syntec Power System
Redline SI-1
Gunk Gas Treatment
Monoethanolamine
(The monoethanolamine is the worst here. It turns nylon black on contact. It is significant to note here that the "best" "detergents" in use today are similar, strongly alkaline organic solvents). Another use for the current bunch of organic amine "detergents" is cleaning deposits out of cylinders, so I hear.

I hope this takes the guesswork out of choosing good products.

[SVXer95]

I did some googling on the subject and came up with a few articles. It seems that 10-20% is the optimal amount to add without doing any damage to the motor. I think I may adding two gallons of toluene tomy next tank and fill er up with 93 pump gas. After mixing, this should yield approximately 95.3 by (R+M)/2.

Everything I read said that toluene was 114. I am curious what the difference is going to be. You would also think there would be added fuel economy through more efficient burning. I am not sure this is worth the extra $10 per tank though. We'll see.

[IggDawg]

I might have it backwards.... perhaps xylene is 117 and toulene is 114. I reccommend xylene in any case since it's easier on the engine and produces the same effect. More importantly, it's much less toxic.

lee - excellent article. reading that reaffirms my belief that poring in a dinky bottle of "fuel injector cleaner" is useless compared to just dumping in a gallon of solvents . after doing that, I can't really look at those bottled cleaners and think they'll do even close to the same job.

[mbtoloczko]

Originally posted by lee
Cut & pasted from the autopia car forum (SciGuyJim) in response to cleaning up the fuel system:

That was the best tidbit I've read in a long time. I'd like to see that as a sticky somewhere on this site.

[Motorsport-SVX]

Toulene for about 8 yrs now as an octane
booster in all my cars.
Even gone as far as buying it by the gallon.
Worked best in my turbo cars.

[mbtoloczko]

So where is a good place to buy toluene? I looked at the hardware store and home improvement store with no success.

[Motorsport-SVX]

Originally posted by mbtoloczko
So where is a good place to buy toluene? I looked at the hardware store and home improvement store with no success.

mine at any Ace Hardware, but found it in larger quantities
for a lower cost at Home Depot or Lowes

[lee]

My local Ace hardware sells it in pints, qts, and gallons under their brand name of "Toluol".

look in the paint stripper section of most any hardware/paint store.

[IggDawg]

similarly, xylene is sold under the label "xylol" at home depot and the like. sold in quarts and gallons. like 3 or 4 bucks for a quart, 10 bucks for a gallon.

[mbtoloczko]

Originally posted by Motorsport-SVX


mine at any Ace Hardware, but found it in larger quantities
for a lower cost at Home Depot or Lowes

I checked both places and found none. :-( I'll have to try a specialty paint shop.

[Motorsport-SVX]

Originally posted by mbtoloczko


I checked both places and found none. :-( I'll have to try a specialty paint shop.

they have to have it, Im sure they are selling it under
a differnet name...

[NeedForSpeed]

Originally posted by IggDawg
I might have it backwards.... perhaps xylene is 117 and toulene is 114. I reccommend xylene in any case since it's easier on the engine and produces the same effect. More importantly, it's much less toxic.

lee - excellent article. reading that reaffirms my belief that poring in a dinky bottle of "fuel injector cleaner" is useless compared to just dumping in a gallon of solvents . after doing that, I can't really look at those bottled cleaners and think they'll do even close to the same job.

Used to use a cleaner, CHEM-TOOL, I believe it was toulene.

How is xylene easier on the engine?
Or stated another way,
Is toluene hard on the engine?