“Stabil” Ever heard of it?

eespeed said:

I'm not sure what good a fuel stabilizer will do you unless your gas has gone bad or you are going to store it for a long time. If you are getting a rich smell at idle your idle mixture is too rich. Rejetting only helps when you drive it but does nothing at idle. Have you had the mixture tested? Most modern shops can put a sensor in your tailpipe and determine the mixture. Otherwise invest in an oxygen sensor kit and meter it yourself. Too much cam, too big of a carburetor, too much fuel at the idle mixture screw, not enough timing, bad plugs, worn throttle shafts, high fuel pressure (my 454 Vette has only 4lbs pressure to feed two 500cfm AFBs) and a plethora of other problems could be your plague. I find a lot of guys over carb or over cam their engine and teary eyes and an engine that loads up results. Send me a breakdown of your cam, carb, engine size, compression, intake configuration, fuel pressure reading, and chamber cc and I will try to give you a better diagnosis.

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GetX'd said:

Okay - I looked for the details of what you asked for. I couldn’t find the specs on the motor from my builder. Just receipts for parts and the labor. Here’s what I do know; The engine is a stroked 440 to a 494 and was dyno tested at 555 hp. It runs on a original Holly six pack set of carbs, and an edelbrock aluminum high rise intake. I believe the compression is 10:1. Fuel pressure is about 7 lbs out of a Mr. Gasket electric fuel pump - which is relatively new. Prior to that I had a mechanical pump that didn’t seem to do the job for a car that sits much of the time. I believe I was getting heat soak which has cleared up since swapping out a few things. The smell/exhaust has been there from the beginning post build - about 1 1/2 years ago when I picked it up. I don’t know the specs on the Cam but assume my builder coordinated everything included the Cam to get the hp and torque I was looking for. It’s a pretty lopey hydraulic flat tapet Cam - which probably tells you nothing. The car sat for some 30+ years pre-build and I assume it has some gas in the tank prior to going to sleep. I thought maybe I had some evaporated gas that coated the tank bottom with whatever gunk it evaps to and that coupled with our 91 octane piss poor CA gas was potentially causing the smell - that or a/f mixture. I think the a/f has been ruled out. There’s no smoke but the exhaust is potent and makes your eyes water. Don’t know if any of that helps you with a diagnosis - as stated above I’m not much of a mechanic anymore . Have had the car for 46 years and don’t ever remember her smelling like this back in the day.

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bigmanjbmopar said:

Do you guys have any stations down there that sell 99 and 100 or up to 101 octane? if not what I do is get the 91, put it in a 5 gal can and mix it with a Octanium pour a few ounces of this stuff in a 5 gal of 91 and it may raise the octane to 94-95 which will help. You can also buy 5 gal jugs of 99 or 100 up here locally for around $90 check it out. Getting higher octane will burn better and more cleaner you need to get that ethanol out of your gas either raise the octane or use something that will neutralize it, this state sux I'm so ready to leave it forever
Hey Bigman - Thx for,the recs. I think we have a station up around Santa Ana that sells 100 octane. I called a couple years ago to check - at the time it was around $10 a gallon. Which is tolerable if I can mix it with the 91. I’ll try out your suggestion. I also bought some Racegas as an octane booster that I have not tried yet. I’m with you on getting out of CA - I’m pretty much stuck here because my wife’s family just immigrated here from another country to be close to us. Bummer! I’ll try to boost my octane -no doubt that will help the performance - hope it clears the exhaust as well. When it was dyno tuned she was fed 100 octane and loved it.

Link here you can get it at autozones
https://vpracingfuels.com/product/octanium/


Found what I'm talking about, this is 110 oct they have 113 oct too leaded though but this HP unleaded is rated at 110 oct so good to go

https://vpracingfuels.com/product/unleaded-extreme/



Not a bad price either $65 for a 5 gal pail of the good **** better than what I paid for sure

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Quintin said:

Sea foam and Stabil are kind of old school products that worked well when we had good fuel or no ethanol. Startron was originally designed to take away the negative effects of ethanol but is an excellent fuel stabilizer. It is the only product that I will use. One bottle will do 48 gal and is about $9. I put it in any gas engine that might set for awhile. B3C is also another good product that has come on the market.

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73HEMI_RR_GTX said:

I use Toluene for 3 reasons. 1) It is a octane booster 2) It's a solvent, so it mixes with gasoline as a stabilizer. 3) It's much cheaper than Sta-bil or Seafoam because you can buy it in bulk (one gallon - five gallon containers)

I have been using Toluene for over 30 years. I put it in my supercharged boat, Roadrunner and 33 Plymouth Coupe to increase octane and it keeps the gas fresh during storage. In the cars I use about a pint to a tankful. For the boat I use a quart per tank (50 gallons).

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73HEMI_RR_GTX said:

I use Toluene for 3 reasons. 1) It is a octane booster 2) It's a solvent, so it mixes with gasoline as a stabilizer. 3) It's much cheaper than Sta-bil or Seafoam because you can buy it in bulk (one gallon - five gallon containers)

I have been using Toluene for over 30 years. I put it in my supercharged boat, Roadrunner and 33 Plymouth Coupe to increase octane and it keeps the gas fresh during storage. In the cars I use about a pint to a tankful. For the boat I use a quart per tank (50 gallons).

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GetX'd said:

Sounds like the ticket. Where do you buy it from?

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GetX'd said:

Looked it up. Looks like it’s used for paint thinner and has explosives applications. Not sure I want to experiment with that stuff. Doesn’t say anything about gas additive. They sell it at Oreillys so I may check it out there.

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oldbee said:

Hey, people run in nitro in cars! Maybe it could make the exhaust smell like a nitro car? THAT would be nice. Obviously 73hemi hasn't had a problem with it.

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Billccm said:

I wish I could remember where I read about toluene as a gas additive, but the article warned that too much would damage the valves.

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