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900rats
07-14-2001, 02:26 PM
The Unocal 76 in Pasadena has 100 octane racing fuel for $4.95 a gallon. They're at the intersection of Arroyo Parkway and Glenarm. 155 E. Glenarm. It's the only one near L.A. I'm aware of.

sgdiv7
07-14-2001, 04:26 PM
For that price it is cheeper to buy av gas.

900rats
07-16-2001, 08:32 AM
Who sells AvGas around L.A. to anyone but a plane owner?

skijake
07-16-2001, 10:33 AM
I try not to buy Unocal. Most people do not know that they have driven the price of gasoline up in california due to a legal but non-professional patent that they put on reformulated gasoline.
The have forced the hand of refineries to lower the octane on 92 octane gas to 91 octane starting August 1 to help get around one of the patents.
Unocal has sold all it's refineries and make more money from the patent then having to make their own gas.
I'd find the Av-gas or use other additives before using 76

BLOWNDRAGBOAT
08-08-2001, 03:50 PM
Ok guys....Av gas is for airplanes and who wants to go to an airport toget gas for their boat? What a hassle. Lugging around with a bunch of fuel jugs. If you absolutely must run racing gas my suggestion is to buy it by the drum. I get 108 octane from VP racing fuel by the 55 gal drum and it costs me about 190 dollars(thats with tax in my area). It comes out around 3 bucks a gallon and you can have it delivered to your door step depending on the area. I usually order 2 barrles at a time. How cool is that to be able to go out to the garage and have a couple of drums of racing gas for not much more than premium pump gas in some places. If you can't find anyone in your area just let me know. I can help ya get a connection.

skijake
08-31-2001, 11:41 PM
To me Av-gas is the way to go (unless you have money to burn).
If you look at the base compounds for both you will find you are running almost the samething
Both are mostly a fine cut of rerun alkylate.
and toluene. with some lead added for fine tuning the octane.
I myself see little advantage to using racing fuel from 76. especially when you look at what you get of your buck, unless you need to the super high octane like 114.
A lot of people run straight av-gas. but that is even overdoing it.
Most can get away with a good premium gas (watch out because California now sales 91 octane and not 92 because of Union 76 patent, which as of this posting is being investagated by the federal trade commision as illegal). Then add a percentage of av-gas to raise your octane to the desired rating.
One hard thing is that if you mix 92 octane with equall amount of 100 octane, it does not mean that you have 96 octane, this has to do with how differant chemicals react, even though they are all made from crude. It has to do with the aromatic content and other aspects. Refineries have special programs that caliculate these, then it is tested in the labs.
Another thing you can do is mix 91 or 92 octane premium with straight toluene like you get at the hardware store, or better yet buy in bulk from a chemical vendor. Toluene has an octane rating around 112 depending on it's purity. but once again it does not mix proportionly with gas. I ran some tests and small amounts work wonders but as you get above 15 to 20 percent the amout of increase in octane flattens out, so if you add more your bang for the buck decreases.
A commercial octane booster will work but they are not cheep. Some boosters do not work so watch out. The ones that I see work the best have MMT. this is a maginess compond that works like adding lead, but is not as bad to the enviorment or your health.
Canada uses MMT in there gasoline. The EPA has tried to ban it but so far has not been able to. You can not get MMT in its pure form so unless you plan on buying a lot of additive I would go with av-gas or toluene.
One day I might but together a chart to give you a rough idea of toluene/gasoline octane ratings and also av-gas/gasoline

spectras only
09-01-2001, 12:28 AM
skijake,I've heard guys talking about using toluene before, to boost the octane ,but can't remember the safe mixing ratio .Could you look into this ,thanks.

boatnam2
09-01-2001, 04:41 AM
i agree with ski jake totally!

Racing Ray
09-04-2001, 07:53 PM
.
[This message has been edited by Racing Ray (edited March 12, 2002).]

spectras only
09-04-2001, 08:23 PM
Thanks R/R, I'm going to print the info before it disappears http://free.***boat.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

skijake
09-05-2001, 08:57 AM
Spectra only
The web site that racing ray is pretty good but I don't think the number add up the way I see them.
Toluene is good but once you get above 20% will flatten out on the curve for added octane.
MTBE I would not recommend, mainly for the reason stated. When tested it does have high octane but does not have the btu value it will actually hurt when in high consentrations. Some refinerys use a higher percentage of MTBE to meet the posted octane on the pumps and you will see that your gas mileage gets worse. Also MTBE is bad in the water.
When I get a chance at work I'll dig up the chart I made for toluene and put it on here. If I can not find it may take awhile to run some more cases on the computer.

spectras only
09-05-2001, 10:03 AM
Skijake,thanks for the info,I think MTBE is banned in canada [hence the closure of Arco gaspumps here]for the reasons I've read before; killing fish all over the lakes.If I remember it cost 10 billion to develop that stuff.

ponponracing
09-05-2001, 10:25 AM
Skijake, I'm stuck in Canada, where the gas does'nt even smell gas. I also really need that toluene chart.
Does toluene damage lines, fuel pump and carb. components like methanol (alcohol) does? Does it change the jetting? A customer of mine is running big boost (15pds) on unleaded premium pump gas and was suggested by Gale Bank's guy to add one once of acetone per gallon (Cdn). He is doing it but cannot stay on high boost for more than a few seconds.

skijake
09-08-2001, 07:01 PM
ACETONE???? Don't use it. First it can not be doing anything to help the octane. Second it can do damage to your fuel system. One once per gallon would not be enough to help if it could do anything. He is wasting his time, money and doing damage.
I will be digging through my files and finding the chart soon, only problem is that it is based on using 92 octane fuel as a base.
Do to some underhanded moves from Unocal California was more or less forced to change premium fuel from 92 octane to 91 octane.
This is bad but a lot of us did not worry because we fill up in Az or Navada. BUT it was announced this week that starting October 1 Az and Navada will be lowering there octane to 91.
I will most likely post my old 92 octane and toluene chart just to get you thinking in the right direction and then when I get a chance I will rerun the cases at 91 octane so we can be more exact.

ponponracing
09-08-2001, 07:32 PM
Thank's Skijake. Waiting to hear from you.