Zheiko
Octane Boostaholics
Never ending story. The quality of our petrol - often probably not even up to what its branded as, and now I have some research done and some numbers to match.
As some of you may know, I have purchased an OFT - Open Flash Tablet - its a little thing that connects through OBD port into your ECU and can be used for remapping, real time data and few other little fun bits.
What I was interested the most, was about real time data logging and mainly about Knock and Advance Timing Multiplier.
The way ECU in BRZ and GT86 works is it starts at 'retarded' timing in order to prevent knock - this is done by setting Advance Timing Multiplier to 0.70 and as the engine warms up and gets to running temps, it slowly advances it all the way to 1.0, which means 0 knock and all is running good. As soon as knock appears, it will start decreasing the multiplier again. It is a great way to know what kind of petrol I have in my tank and see how the car performs.
I started logging data right after I received the tablet. The way I measured it was take two full tanks of petrol from one and the same petrol station. This helped me to make sure the second full tank was pure from that particular petrol station.
I have tested 3 petrol stations that I personally believed were big enough brands and were decent enough to provide us with clean and decent petrol. I am not planning to test any of the small chains or supermarket petrol stations.
Scale rated by myself, from best to worst:
1. MAXOL - Natural 95 E5
2. Circle K - Miles PLUS petrol
3. TEXACO - Standard Natural petrol
4. Applegreen - All new Fuelgood Plus
Circle K did definitely perform the best so far, Multiplier went to 1.0 fairly quickly after warming the car up and stayed there for most of standard driving. As soon as I started pushing car harder and hooning the revs into red numbers, that's where I logged some knock, but not as hard, usually went back to 0.94 for a while and resumed to 1.0 fairly quickly after that. When tank was however nearly empty and the light of low petrol appeared, I started logging noticeably more knock, which I don't really understand why it could happen.
TEXACO was kinda weird. At first tank, it performed really well, and few highway drives and pulls and it stayed stable at 1.0 without any hesitation. I was very happy with the result and finished the first tank without noticing any major knocks, they were still appearing though. The second tank was however disaster. Same petrol station, two weeks later, and car was knocking a lot. It took significantly longer to get to 1.0 on multiplier, and often didnt even do that after hour of driving. For the first time, I have even noticed that the number went bellow 0.70 and was at 0.67 for some time.
Applegreen was again similar scenario to Texaco. At beginning it seemed to be fine and dandy - no idea why it does that, when new petrol is introduced, it seems to be learning a bit longer and it will go to 1.0 faster, But first tank doesn't mean anything, since its being tainted with previous batch. Second tank was however disaster, which actually happened during AGM trip. The car was knocking as crazy and I was not even able to get above 0.70, Car knocked right after start, even from cold and started decreasing to 0.63 at certain point during the trip. At that point I decided its over and I do not want to take any risks with this petrol and big thanks to Yokohama who provided me with NF Octane Booster.
MAXOL - Amazing results, this petrol was by far the best so far. As always went through 2 tanks of petrol and logged some aggressive driving in Wicklow mountains on second tank, recorded data and then went through the logs later. I have to say, I am very pleasantly surprised, my expectations were fairly low. Petrol from this station did knock very little, there are few occasions where the timing got retarded slightly(-0.69) which is very little, and usually only for about 2-3 secods - indicating there was one knock at a time. The results are VERY similar to Circle K Plus petrol, at lower price. Can recommend Maxol petrol. Its safe petrol and in combination with booster will probably keep the octane rating high fairly consistently.
NF Octane booster into 3/4 of tank from Applegreen completely transformed the way the car behaved. I got into 1.0 immediately after mixing it and it stayed at 1.0 for the rest of the trip - and it was fairly spirited drive with some hill climbs over Wicklow mountains, which puts extra strain on the engine, and while it still knocked a very little(2 maybe 3 occasions), it never went bellow 0.98
That being said, I am ordering NF boosters and will mix them with Circle K Miles Plus petrol from now on.
I will report back in with results, but I have no doubt it will work just fine.
I never really believed in Octane Boosters, but now I actually had a chance to measure it, and while I do not know if it adds horsepower, it defo at least stops the engine from reducing its power.
EDIT: Quite important information, car was mapped for 95oct petrol
Whats next:
1. Maxol - done
2. Standard Circle K Natural
3.
4.
I have ordered few bottles of NF Booster, as soon as tested petrol reaches certain point, I will stop the test and pour it in to prevent any damage to the engine.
As some of you may know, I have purchased an OFT - Open Flash Tablet - its a little thing that connects through OBD port into your ECU and can be used for remapping, real time data and few other little fun bits.
What I was interested the most, was about real time data logging and mainly about Knock and Advance Timing Multiplier.
The way ECU in BRZ and GT86 works is it starts at 'retarded' timing in order to prevent knock - this is done by setting Advance Timing Multiplier to 0.70 and as the engine warms up and gets to running temps, it slowly advances it all the way to 1.0, which means 0 knock and all is running good. As soon as knock appears, it will start decreasing the multiplier again. It is a great way to know what kind of petrol I have in my tank and see how the car performs.
I started logging data right after I received the tablet. The way I measured it was take two full tanks of petrol from one and the same petrol station. This helped me to make sure the second full tank was pure from that particular petrol station.
I have tested 3 petrol stations that I personally believed were big enough brands and were decent enough to provide us with clean and decent petrol. I am not planning to test any of the small chains or supermarket petrol stations.
Scale rated by myself, from best to worst:
1. MAXOL - Natural 95 E5
2. Circle K - Miles PLUS petrol
3. TEXACO - Standard Natural petrol
4. Applegreen - All new Fuelgood Plus
Circle K did definitely perform the best so far, Multiplier went to 1.0 fairly quickly after warming the car up and stayed there for most of standard driving. As soon as I started pushing car harder and hooning the revs into red numbers, that's where I logged some knock, but not as hard, usually went back to 0.94 for a while and resumed to 1.0 fairly quickly after that. When tank was however nearly empty and the light of low petrol appeared, I started logging noticeably more knock, which I don't really understand why it could happen.
TEXACO was kinda weird. At first tank, it performed really well, and few highway drives and pulls and it stayed stable at 1.0 without any hesitation. I was very happy with the result and finished the first tank without noticing any major knocks, they were still appearing though. The second tank was however disaster. Same petrol station, two weeks later, and car was knocking a lot. It took significantly longer to get to 1.0 on multiplier, and often didnt even do that after hour of driving. For the first time, I have even noticed that the number went bellow 0.70 and was at 0.67 for some time.
Applegreen was again similar scenario to Texaco. At beginning it seemed to be fine and dandy - no idea why it does that, when new petrol is introduced, it seems to be learning a bit longer and it will go to 1.0 faster, But first tank doesn't mean anything, since its being tainted with previous batch. Second tank was however disaster, which actually happened during AGM trip. The car was knocking as crazy and I was not even able to get above 0.70, Car knocked right after start, even from cold and started decreasing to 0.63 at certain point during the trip. At that point I decided its over and I do not want to take any risks with this petrol and big thanks to Yokohama who provided me with NF Octane Booster.
MAXOL - Amazing results, this petrol was by far the best so far. As always went through 2 tanks of petrol and logged some aggressive driving in Wicklow mountains on second tank, recorded data and then went through the logs later. I have to say, I am very pleasantly surprised, my expectations were fairly low. Petrol from this station did knock very little, there are few occasions where the timing got retarded slightly(-0.69) which is very little, and usually only for about 2-3 secods - indicating there was one knock at a time. The results are VERY similar to Circle K Plus petrol, at lower price. Can recommend Maxol petrol. Its safe petrol and in combination with booster will probably keep the octane rating high fairly consistently.
NF Octane booster into 3/4 of tank from Applegreen completely transformed the way the car behaved. I got into 1.0 immediately after mixing it and it stayed at 1.0 for the rest of the trip - and it was fairly spirited drive with some hill climbs over Wicklow mountains, which puts extra strain on the engine, and while it still knocked a very little(2 maybe 3 occasions), it never went bellow 0.98
That being said, I am ordering NF boosters and will mix them with Circle K Miles Plus petrol from now on.
I will report back in with results, but I have no doubt it will work just fine.
I never really believed in Octane Boosters, but now I actually had a chance to measure it, and while I do not know if it adds horsepower, it defo at least stops the engine from reducing its power.
EDIT: Quite important information, car was mapped for 95oct petrol
Whats next:
1. Maxol - done
2. Standard Circle K Natural
3.
4.
I have ordered few bottles of NF Booster, as soon as tested petrol reaches certain point, I will stop the test and pour it in to prevent any damage to the engine.
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Great work zeiko 
thanks for sharing look forward to the other results