I mistakenly put 6 gallons of leaded 110 race gas in my car diluted with 93 to fill the tank. I continued to dilute the mix with 93 for the rest of the day. The car ran fine but I noticed the tailpipe was a tannish color rather than the normal black. Did I harm my cats? Or will the next track session burn off any residue left in there?

 

You should be fine Larry. The cats hate leaded, but the o2's hate it more. You can actually run quite a little through it before it really starts to do harm. You've diluted it enough that you will not have a problem.

 

Larry,

You can typically run 2-3 continuous tanks of leaded fuel before the O2's start to go. You'll be fine.

 

Race gas always leaves a different color in the pipes and on the spark plugs.
Nothing to worry about.

There are many misconceptions about race gas the biggest one is that it will give you more power. Race gas will allow you to run more boost and timing advance thus generating more power. But at normal boost levels where you are not at the threshold of detonation adding higher octane does nothing to improve performance.

Also remapping for race gas is important as the specific gravity is different from pump gas.

 

Larry,

Did you get it locally and if so from where?

Thanks.
-V

 

Thanks guys. I guess all will be OK.

vntperformance, I bought the 110 at Summit Point Race Track.

 

hey i did that in my 86t when i1st got it how did i notice? it was smoking after i turned it off, cooked the cat, it was melting as i watched. it's been years but the only damage i did was to the cat. so you may have melted small parts of your cats that may restuct you exhaust flow. grey inside your tips just shows you have burned leaded gas.... grey was the sign your car was running good when i was a kid . things are most likly fine inside those cats

 

Not true.

Most stock tunes have a a range of octanes that they can tolerate. Typically they are tuned at the factory to the "best" octane that will be available- say a 98 Ron or 95 r+m/2....

So if you are running california 91, you are running with your timing pulled and putting out less power. Hence adding race fuel will in fact increase power. Even if you are running 93 in PA, race fuel will eek a bit more.

I have a UMW tune. Same deal- it will increase power up to 97-98 octane. I have a 100 octane file, that will do even better.

But I guess I agree that once you get past the tunes octane design limit there is no benefit.

A

My point is that almost universally adding race fuel will increase power somewhat.

 

I have a UMW tune for 93 octane, but I am more interested in whether I did any harm to the system than the benefits of race gas. Normally I add 100 but this time I added 110 by mistake.

 

Ur ok...
mark