do you use a octane booster?

so i got a bully dog GT tuner a month or so ago and have been playing around with it, i had my truck (2008 ram 5.7 laramie 4x4 quad cab) tuned to premium. the bulldog manuel recommends 91 or higher for a premium tune but in my area i can only find 91. i was running that which gave me nice power and around14-15 city driving with a littler freeway not too much though. i thought id try a regular tune and maybe get less power and better milage and the opposite happened my milage driving the same way went down to 11.

so it got me thinking, if i could boost the octane in the gas say to 93 or 95 if it would do anything better, or would it be safe to do that?

also do any of the octane booster products hurt your engine? are they safe? whats best to use if anything?

Unless you are having issues running the 91 octane fuel with the 91 tune (such as pinging) you will not benefit from raising the octane.
The reason you will see better fuel economy on a higher tune is because the engine is running more efficiently. Increasing the octane over what the engine needs will not increase fuel economy or power.
Also are you have calculating the fuel economy or going by the overhead? The overhead isn't the most accurate, and is even less so accurate once you change the tuning.

the over head calculates mpg, i also have a bully dog performance chip tuner that also tells me.. the difference between them is about 0.5 mpg but i always cacluate by hand at the pump as well.

well I'm not sure if id call it a pinging noise but lately i ave noticed a ringing type of sound when accelerating at around 2,000 rpm not before or after that area. it only does it while driving, not when in park revving.. i never really thought much of it because its very faint and just figured its a sound of the exhaust or something.

I'm going to switch back to premium, premium starts at 91 octane according to the manuel for the tuner. 91 is the only thing we have here, no 93 or anything higher than 91.

Prob due to your elevation on not having 93 at any of the pumps. Octane booster is a joke, you have to add so much to even raise the oct 1 point.

KGBIGCOUNTRY said:

Prob due to your elecavtion on not having 93 at any of the pumps. Octane booster is a joke, you have to add so much to even raise the oct 1 point.

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Yes! and the 3 or so points that they claim it will raise the octane is not 90 to 93 octane, but 90.0 to 90.3.

ram5.7hemi said:

the over head calculates mpg, i also have a bully dog performance chip tuner that also tells me.. the difference between them is about 0.5 mpg but i always cacluate by hand at the pump as well.

well I'm not sure if id call it a pinging noise but lately i ave noticed a ringing type of sound when accelerating at around 2,000 rpm not before or after that area. it only does it while driving, not when in park revving.. i never really thought much of it because its very faint and just figured its a sound of the exhaust or something.

I'm going to switch back to premium, premium starts at 91 octane according to the manuel for the tuner. 91 is the only thing we have here, no 93 or anything higher than 91.

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How hard of accelerating? Is it in each gear?
I've never trusted my overhead. According to it I can get 21-22mpg (70/30 highway) Hand calculated is 13.6- 15.1 with the same 70/30 split.
Now when it was completely stock it was showing 15mpg, but in reality I was getting 11.5-12mpg.

I run 91 tune with 93 octane gas. The better performance is probably the higher advance curve used by the 91 tune. An alternative is methanol/water injection which is mostly used on boosted engines, but can also be used on N/A engines. Read all about it and decide for yourself. I would recommend using something like the AeroForce Intercepter gauge and you can monitor the knock and amount of retard your engine is seeing under different driving conditions.

Mythbusters did a show on octane boosters. All the ones they tested failed miserably to raise the octane even one point. Most octane boosters are a chemical additive that can be gotten fairly eaisily, but using it in amounts more than what is in those little bottles is highly dangerous.
Mythbusters tested 6 of the most popular brands and even tested the actual chemical that is used to raise the octane. They decided to see just how high they could get the numbers with just the chemical, and well blew up the test cars engine.
If you want to use a chemical additive just go with Lucas oil's line. They help the upper cylinder, and the valve train by providing much needed lubrication to those areas, which are removed in the process of taking the lead out of the gasoline. DO not let anyone fool you, octane boosters do not work as advertised.

A couple links on these so called boosters:

About Octane Booster | eHow

What chem. is used to increase octane in gas? - Yahoo Answers

The actual chemical used to raise the octane in gasoline is toluene. But like I said above: used in higher ammounts than what is in those little bottles is not recommended due to toluene's tendency to pretty much explode.

The only octane boosters that truly boot it is ones used in off road use. Like ya get at a bike shop for racing bikes/dirt bikes. Or go to an airport and get some av gas that's 100 octane. I have seen some airports that even have leaded gas still.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note II...

NWRQC said:

How hard of accelerating? Is it in each gear?
I've never trusted my overhead. According to it I can get 21-22mpg (70/30 highway) Hand calculated is 13.6- 15.1 with the same 70/30 split.
Now when it was completely stock it was showing 15mpg, but in reality I was getting 11.5-12mpg.

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doesn't matter on acceleration, either soft or fast acceleration there a slight ringing at 2000 rpm, by 2200 rpm its gone. not sure if its all gears or not, usually notice it going from a stop.

No. I dont put any of that junk into my vehicles.

just go a quick google search of "race gas" in whatever city you live in, somewhere is bound to have it. You could put a little bit of 110 in there when you fill up with 91 - with simple math you can end up with whatever octane you desire.

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ram5.7hemi said:

doesn't matter on acceleration, either soft or fast acceleration there a slight ringing at 2000 rpm, by 2200 rpm its gone. not sure if its all gears or not, usually notice it going from a stop.

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lets first recognize what octane is and what it does.
First off octane is a by product from the refining process.....it is a hydrocarbon , for lack of a better term......which also means it is flammable. Second , the rating given to octanes in fuel is rated from 85 to 95....The lower the octane rating ,technically, the more easily ignitable it is. There is a ''compression '' stroke/ratio in the motor, A hemi is close to 10-1. This high compression means any lower octane fuel will start the combustion process, before the actual spark. Creating a knocking sound....It can also cause detonation with the engine turned off in extreme cases......this however rarely happens with fuel injected motors......no fuel......no detonation. Creating a ''tune'' is merely telling the motor when to spark, (no tune in the world will change the compression ratio). The closer the spark to TDC, the more efficient the motor will be.......setting a mileage tune , simply means you're messing with the timing.......but you're still getting the high compression!
Most 3rd gens require a 91 octane or higher, which is why I'm puzzled one would have to ''tune'' the motor to begin with.....lower ci motors notwithstanding.
Raising octane can actually be done out of the bottle, Mythbusters is a show.....mebbe a little more brainy , but still a show.
myth number 1, high octane is more explosive,powerful than lower octanes.
myth number 2, high octane increases horsepower and mileage because it increases the flammable aspect of the fuel.
truth, higher octane fuel creates optimum performance by matching the fuel octane ratio with the higher compression.
truth , 87 octane will ignite just as powerful as a higher octane outside of the motor.
Truth using octane booster can raise the compression point of any gasoline,
it's just not as glamorous when stated this way. It however does NOT make it (gasoline) more explosive.


Haven't ranted like this since an oil thread, whew!

Love it.... lol

I get a little knock retard when racing, running a hemifever 93 tune and using 93 octane fuel. I attribute this to me living at sea level and the partial ethanol content. I've tried octane boosters of all kinds, one week it helps, the next it doesn't. So I chalked that up to difference of atmospheric conditions. But what does work is mixing fuels. Av gas is highly oxygenated, be careful when using it. Anything over VP100 can and will damage catalytic converters due to the additives in the fuel. Anyone that doesn't believe me, if you're willing to pay the shipping I will mail you one of the dozens of cats I've replaced from Z cars where people have run race gas in them.

On the street, you shouldn't need anything over what it's tuned for unless the monitors are showing excessive knock retard. If you race, do what I do. Buy 2 gallons of VP100 from a race shop, take it to the gas station with you. From empty, add the vp100 and 5 gallons of 93 and go straight to the track. That's 95 octane by my math. If 93 is not available, use 3 gallons of 100 or 1 less gallon of 91.

Do you have cats?

Thats why cats are not on my truck

hemihustlin said:

Do you have cats?

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I'm really not sure, i believe so.

hemihustlin said:

Do you have cats?

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lost your cat?? check my tires..