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Originally Posted by adam
further reading - some of it interesting 
http://www.elektro.com/~audi/audi/toluene.html
"For turbocharged or supercharged engines, insufficient octane will also lead the engine management system to curtail the amount of boost which in turn defeats the purpose of these engines" - Going back to the subaru impreza turbo +40bhp |
Many moons ago I was slightly involved with someone doing moped racing, which was supposed to be as cheap and cheerful as you could get, buy a 50cc moped and do 6hr endurance races as teams of 3 or 4 riders.
Some sponsored teams started getting serious (dealer sponsored 2-strokes), so we thought we ought to retaliate. We had a Honda SS50 (4-stroke), and nothing in the rules outlawed pressure charging, so on went a belt driven supercharger (we used an exhaust air-injection pump used for emission control on bigger engines).
After eating a few pistons+rings, we started using 50% toluene. Since pure (laboratory) toluene is quite expensive, we hunted round and found some commercial paint thinners which was 95% toluene and cost a couple of quid a gallon.
One race a rider forgot about the reversed gear lever, over-revved it, so it came in, had a replacement engine fitted, went back out and finished sixth (it had such a big lead when it blew).
On the right gearing it would do 95mph, we reckoned about 15BHP or 300BHP/litre.
Note you should not use paint thinners as a road fuel, or you'll have lynw after you for the duty!
