i know this might make me sound like a ricer but what does this stuff really do besides boost the octane? i mean, what does it do? add hp? make the gas cleaner?
No. Octane boost...raises octane. It's not a waste of money, only a waste is the car does not need it. Higher octane gives the car a greater ability to resist knock. This means that you can advance the timing and take advantage of slower burning fuel...thus a few more hp. It's not rocket science.
However, most people that buy this stuff don't need it and they are just suckers.
there are two main purposes for it:
1 - If someone were to add the wrong fuel to their car by accident and the car started to ping, a good bottle of boost should correct the problem.
Octane booster usually contains two chemicals. One to raise ocatane, and one that is a detergent that helps to clean the injectors and fuel system. As stated above, you don't really need octane booster unless if you need to raise your octane.
However, the part about cleaning the fuel system is actually something that shouldn't be overlooked. At every tank, I treat my fuel with Lucas upper cylinder lubricant. Its a mixture of petroleum slick oil, detergents, and a formula that allows gasoline to combust easier. The slick oils lubricates the valves, rings, and upper cylinders allowing for easier piston and valve travel and the detergents keep the gasoline clean as well as the fuel system. This stuff actually works. I get about 30-40 extra miles per tank with it and it's not that expensive. I buy a 32oz. bottle of the stuff for about 7 bucks. It treats about 5 tanks of fuel for me. 5 tanks times 30-40 miles per tank = 150-200 miles extra over 5 tanks for 7 bucks. I don't know about you, but I can't get 150-200 miles on 7 dollars worth of gas while keeping my fuel system clean. Bascially put, it saves money in the long run.
The Octane rating of the gasoline that you use in your car will tell you the ratio of isooctane and heptane. Isooctane is very resilient to 'knocking' while heptane 'knocks' very easily. When people speak about 'knocking' or 'pinging' they speak about premature detonation, which eventually will destroy your engine.
so in other words, the higher the octane number, the more safe you are. If you have too low octane rating then the gasoline might 'selfignite' and detonation occures.
All modern engines in the US are made for regular gas so there is no reason to use an 'octane booster'.
European cars typically have a higher compression ratio so 'regular' gas in europe is 95 octane.
Now if you start making changes to your engine like forced induction or nitrous, then you want to make sure that you have a higher octane rating.
The highest pump gas I've seen here in the US is 93 octane so if you run high amounts of boost, a high compression ratio and don't want to fiddle too much with your ignition timing, then octane booster is a must... or go get race gas.
So to put it short, if you supercharge or turbocharge your engine and you want to make the most amount of HP possible then you get the highest octane gasoline that you possibly can.
I've done a little research lately on octane booster. Most of them now use a chemical called MMT. The amount of MMT they contain is usually pretty low, because MMT starts to cause problems with catalytic converters at levels that really give a good octane boost. You can get a couple of points of octane boost when you add an MMT based octane booster to regular gas, but the octane boost is much lower when you add it to premium gas. Most octane boosters are only good for about 1/2 point or less when added to 93 octane. There may be some MMT based octane boosters that give a bigger boost to premium, but they could be harmful for catalytic converters. There could be some long term engine problems related to the heavier doses of MMT as well (leaves a coating behind in the combustion chamber), but most of the boosters you can buy at the auto parts store contain safe amounts of MMT (with limited octane boost ability). Some folks say to add toluene or other homemade brews as octane booster, but this is supposedly very bad to do, for reasons I forget.
I've also read that it is always cheaper to buy higher octane gas in the first place (if you can get it), than using octane booster. If you can get 100 octane racing gas, its much cheaper to mix some of it with premium, than it is to enhance premium with octane booster.
I found a test where some Australians actually tested octane booster the right way, in the official octane test engine that is the standard for measuring octane. Starting with premium fuel, the worst octane booster (STP) increased octane by 0.5 points, and the best, Nulon, added 2.8 points. Super 104+ added 0.8 points, and NOS Racing Formula added 1.3 points. They also tested Toluene - it added 2.5 points, but that was with a very large amount of the stuff - 20% concentration.