What can be added to gasoline to improve power and efficiency?

Question

loking for someething cheap and easy to obtain.

Answer 1

Octane rating and compression and NOT using ethanol products as an additive to fuel; it has 30% less BTUs than regular gasoline--- those old Corvettes had 12 to 1 compression ratios and ran on 110 octane fuel.

Answer 2

If you want to improve power and efficiency. Don't use a fuel additive take your car into the shop and get a tune up. Also keep up with the maintenance eg. oil changes, fuel filter, air filter and timing belt. If you buy a new car get a small car with a 4 cylinder engine no A/C and no power steering these things use more gas and are not needed and the car will have more power without them.

Answer 3

There's nothing that will actually work.  The people who do get 'improvements' in fuel economy from aftermarket additives (or things they bolt onto their car to tell their mechanic they're an idiot) do so because they changed their driving style which is something you can do for free.

Answer 4

and, unless you rebuild your engine with new pistons and heads, you will not be able to take advantage of octane boosters or higher octane fuels.

AND the definition of power is energy over time, so the more power you have, the more energy you will consume.  NO free lunches.

AND OCTANE IS THE MEASURE of a fuel ability not to detonate it is assumed that iso octane, IUPAC name 2,2,4-Trimethylpentane, is 100 and normal parafinic C* is 0 octane.  Every mixture of hydrocarbons coming from the ground is compared to these two ranges.  MOTHER NATURE doesn't make plain ol octane very often, maybe 1% of all crude oil is C8.  And no we don't make it eclusively in refineries either.

The highest efficiency in the otto cycle would be a gasoline engine with a 16 to 1 compression ration, the fuel would have to have a theoretical octane number of about 130., that's about what nitromethane is.

Answer 5

Octane is not a measure of gasoline energy. It is a measure of the pressure at which it will detonate.

Ethanol has 34% less thermal energy than gasoline, however it has a higher octane rating. If all other factors remain constant most additives will actually reduce milage. However higher octane allows a higher compression ratio and more ignition advance to be used which increases the efficiency of the engine.

This also increases the combustion temperature of the engine and thus increases NOX emissions.

The answer simply is that the most efficient automobile engine is a well tuned engine and use only the octane fuel required to avoid detonation. (AKA "Pinging"}

Answer 6

I don't think you can add anything cheap to petrol to improve energy gained out of it. You would have to add something with a big molecule so you get more enthalpy change but the obvious candidates like diesel are unfit for city usage. Adding ethanol of hydrogen only lower the energy gotten out of you fuel because they are much smaller molecules.

By the way Ralph's answer is stupid. He obviously has no training in chemistry or he would realize that octane is the primary molecule in petrol (C8H18) not a measure of the pressure it will detonate under. I really had a laugh when I saw that.

Answer 7

octane booster

Answer 8

Octane Booster, I get it at the Dollar Tree for a, You guessed it, a Dollar.

Answer 9

Anything you add will lose mileage. Gas is the best. Trouble is, they're putting 10% ethanol into the gas lowering the mileage. Everybody's trying to stretch mileage, and the gas companies are getting laws passed to lower it.