Hi Banflu

Do you have any idea how advanced your ignition timing is at the moment?

 

My bad.....I meant I used pure toluene mix with gas. Some toluene that they sell over the counter are not pure.

 

Hey schumi.. I have no idea regarding how advanced the timing is... How can I check?

 

"Toluene can be used as an octane booster in gasoline fuels used in internal combustion engines. Toluene at 86% by volume fueled all the turbo Formula 1 teams in the 1980s, first pioneered by the Honda team. The remaining 14% was a "filler" of n-heptane, to reduce the octane to meet Formula 1 fuel restrictions. Toluene at 100% can be used as a fuel for both two-stroke and four-stroke engines; however, due to the density of the fuel and other factors, the fuel does not vaporize easily unless preheated to 70 degrees Celsius (Honda accomplished this in their Formula 1 cars by routing the fuel lines through the muffler system to heat the fuel). Toluene also poses similar problems as alcohol fuels, as it eats through standard rubber fuel lines and has no lubricating properties as standard gasoline does, which can break down fuel pumps and cause upper cylinder bore wear.

In Australia, toluene has been found to have been illegally combined with petrol in fuel outlets for sale as standard vehicular fuel. Toluene attracts no fuel excise, while other fuels are taxed at over 40%, so fuel suppliers are able to profit from substituting the cheaper toluene for petrol. This substitution is likely to affect engine performance and result in additional wear and tear. The extent of toluene substitution has not been determined."

Using Toluene in my car would make me nervous. If you can afford it, I highly recommend that you join the Dyson Analysis DMW weblog and talk to some experts in the field about your situation:

http://www.dysonanalysis.com/

If you want to continue with toluene use without getting professional help, then I can make some free suggestions (like you'll get on BITOG) on how to minimize the damage. But I think your car is too valuable of an investment to short change you like that.

Good luck!

 

hey indymac,

i would be very grateful if you can make some suggestions. I've made quite a bit of research on the subject, and I've found a lot of people just throwing in pure toluene and nothing else. From what I've read, I think it is safe for the car to use 30% toluene if you add a lubricant such as 2-stroke oil or ATF. Then again, all I know about the subject is information I read from forums over the past couple of weeks.

So ... what kind of damage are we talking about? And what can I do to minimize it?
As mentioned before, I am not doing this for the fun of it - I really believe I do not have any better choices .. I tried running my car on pump gas and on the OEM ECU ... it works really bad .. there is no knock, true - but there are way too many flat spots .. and immediate hesitation on WOT .. it does not feel like an S2000 any more.
And its understandable .. my car is JDM, designed to be run on 100 RON .. and I am using 91 RON.
When I had a ~20% toluene mix, after an ECU reset, the engine felt perfectly fine on the stock ECU. Not as responsive as the Mugen ECU, obviously .. but there were no flat spots and no particular hesitation. So this confirmed that it was running very low on octane on standard pump gas.

So I HAVE to boost the octane .... using race gas is waaayyy too expensive .. octane boosters are either useless or full of MMT ... so, hello Mr. Toluene!
AND - if I'm going to boost the octane anyway, I might as well use the Mugen ECU

 

Do you have access to iso-octane on Malta? It's a clean fuel. If it isn't too expensive, that might be an alternative.

I threw a gallon in my tank years ago (different car), and it did a great job of eliminating knocking. You need to mix it with gasoline however since straight iso-octane isn't very volatile.

 

I don't thunk its available .. And even if it is.. I see a problem..
Iso octane is 100 octane by definition. So I would need to run it straight, because I want/need 98-100 ron.
Toluene is about 121 Ron (114 aki) so using 30% toluene with 91 results in around 100 Ron...

 

In case you haven't seriously considered it I would like to add another piece of information to the water/alcohol injection possibility.

Devil's Own FAQ

 

Pat, I think that the root of your problem is the timing of the ignition. See if you can understand this.

Since your S is JDM, I have a suspicion that when you bought the car the timing had already been advanced in a way to run correctly in Japan. When you advance the timing, you will normally have pinging and hesitation and that’s where the Mugen ECU comes into play because it will run the car richer and will compensate so that the car produces more torque down low at the rev range. But, in order to run the car richer you will also need a fuel which is higher in octane. In Japan, the car ran perfectly because it had the ideally fuel octane, however our fuel in Malta is not ideal so the parameters need to be changed closer to stock.

First of all go to your trusted mechanic (the one in Mriehel) and find out what ignition timing you are running. He will do this with a timing light in a matter of minutes. In standard mode, I believe that our S runs at 5 degrees BTDC. If your timing is at 9 degrees or over it will suffer from octane starvation, maybe some hesitation, and huge flat spots at the top of the rev range.

As soon as you know what timing you are running you have two options:

1. Retain the Mugen ECU, but retard the timing by 1 or 2 degrees or as required until you are happy with the performance.
2. Put in the OEM ECU and put back the timing COMPLETELY to stock, which i believe is 5 degrees.

PS: Adjusting the timing is not done just by swapping ECU, it has to be done manually by adjusting the crank and with the timing light.

I previously had an MX-5 and advanced the timing by 6 degrees from stock but I didn’t set the car to run richer. The result was added torque in the mid range, but at the cost of HUGE flat spots at the top of the rev range. In warmer weather the car pinged a lot and there was hesitation. Pinging in return made the car run much hotter so temp gauge climbed a bit…it’s all a chain reaction. Advanced timing can give more power but the precise amount to advance safely varies from country to country depending on the fuel and the ambient temperature.

 

Well, as much as I hate to do this, here is some free advice. I do have some experience and knowledge of a product manufactured by Lubrication Engineers, Inc. It is their Heavy Duty Chemical Supplement (L-X 2300) for petrol (gasoline) fuel and engine oil. LE, Inc. is an international company, so you might be able to source it in Malta. I have used it safely in my AP2 S2000, as well as some other vehicles over the last year. According to the MSDS, it is 50% K1 kerosene and the rest are proprietary oils and lubricants. It also has a low level of sulphur content, so it is compatible with sulphur by-products. There are two dosage recommendations for fuel usage. The primary (recommended)is to add 1oz/gallon of fuel to a full tank (13 ozs/13 gallons). After that tank, drive 1000 miles and then re-treat the next tank and repeat. The alternative dosage is to add 3ozs/10 gallons every tankful of fuel. The product is shipped from LE (distributor) in a case of 12 16oz bottles. It costs about $60 USD total, so about $5/1000 miles to use. Off hand, this is probably the best thing I can recommend to you without being a tribologist or chemist. Here is some info on the product:

http://www.le-inc.com/products/documents/2300_flyer.pdf